Kepware Shifts Industrial Automation Into High Gear

PORTLAND, ME--(Marketwire - May 10, 2012) - Kepware Technologies, the leader in Advanced Communications for Automation, announced today it has shifted the industrial automation market into high gear by unveiling Linamar Corporation as its newest customer success story. As the second-largest automobile parts manufacturer in Canada, the company relies on Kepware to ensure rapid turnaround, and high-volume delivery from its production systems.

Linamar's manufacturing lines typically consist of nearly sixty production machines controlled by six disparate systems. Gaining insight into operations proved difficult and time-consuming, as data needed to be extracted and consolidated from every machine to gauge performance and operational processes.

"Success in our market depends on the ability to meet tight deadlines and high-volume production levels," said Matthew Aho, Controls Engineer, Linamar Corporation. "The only way to make this happen is with a data consolidation solution capable of presenting a unified view of the entire manufacturing process. This includes complete visibility into every machine and process."

Linamar required quick identification of problem areas in real-time, through standardized data collection and presentation as well as rapid data access to support the creation and tracking of process improvements. To meet these requirements, the company assembled an advanced systems team to evaluate tools from a range of partners.

"We saw a lot of solutions, but not one could come close to the sheer power offered by Kepware," Aho stated. "From the beginning, it was obvious they brought the proven interoperability, centralized communications, and on-demand scalability necessary to overcome our communications challenges."

Linamar chose to deploy the KEPServerEX Communications platform to anchor the project. The KEPServerEX Manufacturing Suite consists of more than one hundred communications drivers, including the User Configurable Driver, Allen-Bradley ControlLogix, GE Focas, Siemens Ethernet and Modbus. Also key is the KEPServerEX Advanced Tag option to more effectively link data to and from various control devices.

Kepware now streamlines Linamar's data consolidation via three distinct modules -- productivity, quality, and maintenance. The company also leverages the solution to facilitate constraint analysis, which automates the identification of bottlenecks across the manufacturing process. Linamar uses a common format to connect all machines and manipulate data in real-time. Additionally, data can be captured from more than ninety-nine percent of machinery controls.

"At Kepware, we aim to be the gold standard for communications and interoperability for the automation industry," said Tony Paine, President and CEO of Kepware Technologies. "Our industrial-strength, highly-scalable platform is used by customers across the globe to improve connectivity, management, and monitoring across the enterprise. We're proud of our relationship with Linamar and consider it a significant proof point for our ability to help customers in this complex industry."

Today, Linamar accesses the productivity information required to make data-driven decisions, all via mobile and desktop platforms. As systems can be deployed simultaneously with any launch, critical issues are rapidly identified and addressed.

"Kepware has enabled us to do something we thought impossible -- bring together information from any machine or line into one location, and have it updated on an hourly basis. Honestly, I don't think we could have realized such dramatic improvements without Kepware," Aho concluded.

About Kepware Technologies

Kepware Technologies, established in 1995, develops a wide range of communication and interoperability software solutions for the Automation industry. Our flexible and scalable solutions are for connecting, managing, monitoring, and controlling diverse automation devices and software applications. Our industry endorsed software solutions improve operations and decision-making throughout all levels of an organization. Kepware Technologies' mission is to be "Your Standard for Connectivity."