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The aim is to integrate IFS Applications into ABB’s Industrial IT concept and open for new sales channels. The result will be higher sales volumes and a bigger market for ABB’s technologies, such as its Aspect Integrator Platform (AIP). The partnership further includes common product development as well as sales and marketing activities. Within the agreement ABB acts as a reseller of certain IFS Applications components on a global basis.
Industrial IT from ABB and IFS Applications provides users with an innovative automation concept. Its software and hardware solutions allow a consistent information flow—through the entire company and across the entire lifecycle of the plant, including automation equipment. This allows customers to make all necessary plant information available at the right time, in the right place and in the right form, thus guaranteeing top product quality and helping to save precious time. IFS’ strong position in the asset-intensive sector with powerful maintenance and asset lifecycle solutions will generate considerable added value for customers by enabling increased integration with ABB’s process control systems.
What customer benefits derive from the collaboration?
With production and asset management coming together in an
integrated system, user benefits are many and evident. In essence,
increased productivity is achieved through fewer production stops,
both planned and unplanned, as well as reduced lead times when
stops do occur. Seamless integration between plant operation and
maintenance systems fulfill a market need to optimize production,
which benefits management, operators and maintenance technicians in
their daily work. Instead of manually retrieving information from
the production system and entering it into the maintenance system,
it is now done automatically in real time. As one customer put it,
“The walls have been torn down.” In what areas are IFS and ABB collaborating today?
We’re collaborating on product development to integrate IFS
products with ABB’s AIP and therefore with ABB’s entire product
offering. This will result in major gains for the industry since
the customer can now access data from the production system in real
time directly from the plant design software. The agreement covers
all industries, but strategic segments are the process industry and
the energy sector. IFS is ABB’s first software partner to be classified as Industrial IT enabled. What does this mean?
It means that IFS Applications is the first external partner
product with a predefined integration with all of ABB’s certified
products and all future products within the Industrial IT
concept—ABB products and those from other suppliers. This means
that customers can buy a “plug-and-play” solution where IFS
Applications and ABB’s automation systems are already
integrated. Contact details:
Anders Wilhelmsson, IFS World Telephone: +46 8 587 84 400 e-mail: anders.wilhelmsson@ifsworld.com
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