Fifth Version of HMI/SCADA from GE Fanuc

GE Fanuc Intelligent Platforms, a unit of GE Enterprise Solutions, has announced a new release of its iFix HMI/SCADA—version 5.0. This version of the iFix human-machine interface/supervisory control and data acquisition system competes directly with competitors Rockwell Automation and Wonderware. It includes the integration of software objects within the product. The new release includes a completely reworked user interface based on Microsoft Fluent technology. It uses the “ribbon bar” concept to improve organization of tools, yet it will run on Microsoft XP as well as Microsoft Vista.

iFIX 5.0 introduces a new state-of-the-art Charting tool that expands the software’s capability to display X-Bar, R-Bar, S-Bar, Histogram and Logarithmic charts, in addition to the more traditional real-time and historical charts. With support for advanced CGI graphics and a wide range of plotting types like Bar, Area, Spline and Best Fit Curves, the new Charting tool enables configuration of different line and display styles.

“This is a major release of iFIX and has received a tremendous amount of positive feedback throughout its development and its Beta program,” said Prasad Pai, GE Fanuc’s iFIX Product Manager. “The product includes many voice-of-customer requests which have translated into major features and minor enhancements. The important ones include alarm management enhancements, easier to configure UI (user interface) for Network and Alarm filters and Event trapping support for iFIX’s Visual Basic for Applications scripting commands.”