Case Studies
Thousands of organizations around the world use Ignition® to improve their processes. Here are some of their stories.
- Water/Wastewater
- Oil and Gas
- Food and Beverage
- Manufacturing
Iron Foundry Gains Competitive Edge & Increases Efficiency with Innovative Technology
With help from Artek, Ferroloy implemented Ignition to digitally transform their disconnected foundry through efficient data collection and analysis while integrating the new system with existing software and specialized machinery.
11 min video
Water Utility Implements Ignition System to Improve Efficiency, Compliance, and Reporting
California American Water found that the SCADA system at its Monterey facility was struggling to maintain the high standards required of a water utility in a “hydraulically challenged” area and chose Flexware to replace its legacy SCADA system with Ignition.
10 min video
Variety of Connections, Unlimited Licensing Aid Cancer Therapy
Autolus Therapeutics is working hard to deliver life-changing benefits to cancer patients.
5 min read
Two Companies Assist University with Engineering Education
For engineering students, experience with real-world tools can be very beneficial.
5 min read
Improved Efficiency and Reporting for Large Manufacturer
Atlas Copco is a global company based in Stockholm, Sweden, with 40,000 employees worldwide.
5 min read
Three Companies Aid Engineering Education
In many ways, today’s engineering students are our future. They’ll be key players in keeping our industries running for the next few decades.
5 min video
SCADA and MES Connect with SAP in New Plant
AriZona Beverages implemented a system based on Ignition and Sepasoft MES for its SCADA integration with SAP. Learn more in this Ignition SCADA case study.
5 min video
From Edge to Cloud in Record Time
In under six months, ARB Midstream built a complete Ignition SCADA system for an oil pipeline with 37 sites while upgrading hardware, creating a new network, adding edge computing, and more.
5 min video
Ignition Meets FSMA Requirements for Better Food Safety
SmartWash Solutions is based in Salinas, California, near Silicon Valley and the California Central Valley — one of the most productive agricultural regions in the world. It’s the perfect location for a food-safety technology company. SmartWash cares a great deal about food safety. That’s why it’s enabling data collection and analysis for its customers, and also helping those customers meet requirements of the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA). The U.S. Food & Drug Administration (FDA) created FSMA to strengthen prevention of foodborne illness.
5 min video
Entire Brewing Process on a Single Software Platform
MadTree Brewing in Ohio starts using Ignition for its brewery SCADA system as the company grows rapidly. Learn about brewing beer with SCADA in this Ignition case study.
5 min video
Leveraging Data from More Than 20 Applications Built on Ignition
JMA has built more than 20 applications on top of the Ignition platform, and plans to create even more in the future. The flexibility of Ignition allows JMA to quickly design whatever it needs. The software also gives JMA numerous options when it comes to absorbing data and analyzing it. The result has been a rise in productivity.
4 min video
Pharma Company Meets Standards for 21 CFR 11 with Ignition
When Bachem Americas needed a system for human-machine interface (HMI) and supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA), it required one that could not only improve its processes, but also satisfy requirements from the United States Food & Drug Administration (FDA). The FDA’s Title 21 of the Code of Federal Regulations Part 11 — also known as 21 CFR 11 — establishes rules for the use of electronic records and signatures, covering authentication, confidentiality, integrity, availability, and more.
5 min video
Solar-Power Provider Improves Integration, Data Analysis, and Reporting
DEPCOM has been using Ignition for its solar SCADA system to monitor and control its solar power plants since 2015. Learn more in this SCADA case study from Inductive Automation.
4 min video
Early Success with Ignition Leads to Expanded Role
When CFF wanted a comprehensive software package that could run processes across several departments while collecting and analyzing data, it turned to Ignition by Inductive Automation®. Ignition is an industrial application platform with numerous tools for building solutions in human-machine interface (HMI), supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA), and the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT).
4 min video
Ignition Increases Flexibility, Lowers Costs for Two Water Utilities
Both Mountain Regional Water District and Park City Water have seen significant improvements since switching from their previous SCADA systems to Ignition. MRW saves more than $400,000 per year on energy with greater control from Ignition. Park City saves the equivalent of one full-time employee by using Ignition to automate its reports to a state agency. Both utilities plan to do more with Ignition in the future. And operators are becoming more engaged with the data at both organizations, creating their own screens in Ignition.
4 min video
Largest Cherry Production Line in the World Thrives on Ignition
Ignition enables Prima Frutta to share data about the line with workers throughout the plant. Every day, 10 managers and 900 other employees get data from more than 120 video screens around the facility. The screens are three different sizes: 27 inches, 32 inches, and 60 inches. Every year, Prima Frutta adds more monitors.
4 min video
Clearing for Take-Off with Ignition
After understanding the needs for this particular project, we felt that Ignition was tailor-made for this. It’s a very open system, and we like the development and operation environment. We thought it was well-suited for this type of web-based system.
5 min video
Sierra Nevada Brewing Co. Makes Ignition Its Go-To SCADA Solution
Ignition expands the limits of SCADA for breweries by providing more features for IT and the ability to grow their SCADA systems exponentially. Learn more in this Ignition SCADA case study.
5 min video
Cutting-Edge DMS Emphasizes Data Contextualization For Pharmaceutical Organization
The objective of this project was to develop the Automation Infrastructure and Data Management System backbone for the world’s largest Cell and Gene Therapy Pharmaceutical (CDMO). Center for Breakthrough Medicines’ (CBM) primary aim was to automate data collection and contextualization while ensuring logical controls are in place to protect client data and proprietary information. The system will provide a platform for equipment deployment and integration, maximizes flexibility and redundancy while minimizing upkeep and maintenance, and incorporates cutting-edge automation and IT technology for expansion and future growth.
8 min video
Alarm Management System Makes Compliance Easier For Biopharmaceutical Company
Merck & Co., Inc., the premier research-intensive biopharmaceutical company in the world, requested Grantek’s assistance in building an alarm management system with the Ignition SCADA platform for its facility in West Point, PA. This solution provides alarm monitoring, historization, and a management interface for 10,000+ points while also delivering ad hoc and scheduled reporting tools to aid in the rationalization of up to 30,000 alarm events per day. Grantek’s solution, built with Ignition Perspective, also provides point change management and tracking tools to assist site administrators in maintaining the associated point metadata. These results would be difficult to achieve without Ignition’s versatile capabilities.
10 min video
Project Summary:
Vantage Data Centers’ goal for this project was to design and deploy an Ignition Perspective system for multiple data centers across Europe, the Middle East, and Africa (EMEA), used for both system control and monitoring, as well as supporting operational excellence and continuous improvement.
Problem:
With Vantage Data Centers' targets for rapid expansion in the EMEA region, they were challenged with “industrializing” SCADA deployments, namely building a framework and approach to deploying thousands of devices in short development and commissioning windows, all without compromising quality or ease of use.
The challenges Vantage Data Centers faced were all derived from the scale of the project:
- How to build and configure this many tags and devices?
- How to display thousands of different devices?
- How to ensure the system is vendor and communication protocol agnostic?
- How to create the above without compromising consistency and quality?
- How to achieve this in the time frames required?
- How to maintain a system so huge?
Solution:
Vantage Data Centers focused on five critical areas while creating their Ignition solution.
Engineering Tools
To solve the issue of building tags and devices on a large scale, Vantage Data Centers developed a number of engineering tools. This allowed the deployment of tags and devices to remote I/O gateways from the project's frontend, leveraging the redundant hub & spoke architecture and gateway network. These are fully configured, including the driver configurations.
Universal popup
Vantage Data Centers coined the phrase “universal pop-up” for the one pop-up they use for all devices. This pop-up evaluates the data structure of the UDT instance and displays the tag data accordingly. It is fully automated, works with any industrial protocols, and incorporates a number of features, including integrated trending, alarming, maintenance, and commissioning. This tag-centric approach to building graphical elements allows for high-speed deployment with excellent quality and consistency.
Icons
The operators and wider team use displays ranging from large wall-mounted monitors to tablets. Leveraging their library of icons, Vantage Data Centers is able to display each device in a simple format, with configuration of the template as simple as the UDT definition path. This allows for standardization across multiple-sized UIs throughout the region.
High-Performance Design
A modern, high-performance layout enables operators to access any device within four clicks. With a simple eight-color pallet, it is easy to identify issues with equipment.
EAM
Three layers of gateways have been deployed: I/O gateways collecting data from devices, frontend gateways where users interact with the data, and the regional management layer. Using the Enterprise Administration Module, Vantage Data Centers is able to monitor the health of all the systems from a single location, perform remote revision-controlled changes to projects and trend data, and monitor KPIs from anywhere in EMEA.
Results:
Since migrating to the Ignition Perspective system in 2022, Vantage Data Centers has reduced their development and deployment cycle from a few months to a few weeks. Commissioning of the new projects is now simpler while error and rework rates have been significantly reduced. Additionally, situational awareness has been dramatically improved by the end users.
Using the EAM to interconnect sites for “big picture” data, Vantage Data Centers is now able to extrapolate trends to continually improve the systems and processes. On a less macro scale, operations teams also greatly appreciated the ability to save trends by the user.
Deploy Date: August 2023
Project Scope:
Tags: 5,327,138 and counting
Screens: 958
Clients: 165 (approximately)
Alarms: 765,805
Devices used: 21,098 Modbus, PLCs, BACnet (all brands)
Architectures used: Redundant Hub & Spoke with I/O aggregators and EAM. (87 Agents in production)
Databases used: 20 Microsoft SQLServer Clusters.
Historical data logged: 1,847,330
<strong>Website:</strong> <a href="https://vantage-dc.com/" target="_blank">vantage-dc.com</a>
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Ignition Community Unites To Build Homeless Management Information System
Room in the Inn (RITI) was using four disparate software packages, Excel, and email to run their operations, but there were still too many gaps and the logistics were too complex for the existing solutions. Vertech offered to build an Ignition application that combined all their software packages for their existing operations and included additional logistics features. And Vertech offered to do it for free. Over 150 volunteers from around the world participated in this two-and-a-half-year project to provide RITI with the solution they need to help serve the homeless community in Nashville, TN.
10 min video
Ignition Empowers Business Evolution For Leader In Water Supply Lines
Saint-Gobain PAM has launched a business modernization program to remain at the highest level of competitiveness, and digital technology plays a key role. Saint-Gobain PAM chose the 150-year-old reference plant to demonstrate that leveraging Ignition as an enterprise platform could cover every need and that a team of 6 experts could successfully manage the entire transformation, including SCADA, MES, track and trace, quality control, and many other functions.
9 min video
Custom Visual Tools Help Bring Animatronic Creatures To Life
Creature Technology Company developed and implemented the C-Tech 2 system with support from ESM Automation Systems (AKA ESM Australia) and Inductive Automation. The system provides theatrical technicians and operators with simple visual tools to modify or create interaction and motion of complex animatronics figures without needing to access or be experts in PLC, motion, or SCADA programming. The drag-and-drop interface offers a friendly and familiar way to pull dynamic functions from a palette to a workspace and draw links between them to create complex relationships. For this project, the data structures, functions, variables, relationships, and even screen layouts and tabbed views are linked to a PostgreSQL database. Beckhoff industrial controllers, connected to the same database, interpret configurations in the database into logic and motion control settings. The logic and motion control settings are used in conjunction with motion profiles generated by studio animation tools to create fluid, lifelike movements, and interaction of animatronic creatures.
4 min video