“Data is the new Oil” it is probably the assumption that best renders the concepts at the basis of the digitization era. But these Data – which are increasingly becoming Big Data – risk becoming only an ocean of meaningless bits, if the right steps necessary to transform them into concretely usable information are not taken. avoiding incurring the so-called "DRIP syndrome" (Data Rich, Information Poor).
The data life cycle
In order to exploit the data, it is first necessary to detect it, then to get it out of the production perimeter, to collect and memorize it, to cross-reference it with other relevant data of different origins, to analyze it and finally to present the information to those who have the task of making decisions.
Today the sensorization of the machines – fundamental requirement for data collection – is now acquired; data communication from the machine to the production systems is guaranteed by the diffusion of Ethernet also in the production world; SCADA systems and the production management are by now widely able to collect and historicize all this data.
Excel is NOT the solution
The game would appear to have been won, but it actually stops at one last obstacle: the presentation of the data. This aspect, which if we were on a football field would correspond to the moment of reiterating the ball in goal after building a beautiful action, has always been overlooked. Try it both the most used tool for reporting is Excel: an extraordinary software which however, with all due respect, was not born to be the "goleador" of digitization.
Anyone who wants to have faster processes, higher quality, less waste and more flexibility – in a word, be more competitive – must be able to access operational information in a simple, immediate and intuitive way, integrating the information in its decision-making process. To do this it is necessary to use tools designed for this purpose, capable of understanding the languages of production equipment and those of the IT world, to create reports and dashboards that offer an overview of business processes, regardless of the sector in which the companies find themselves operating.
Comprehensive and personalized reports in real time
Dream Report is the solution specifically designed to meet all these needs and produce complete and personalized reports in real time.
Designed to allow for the creation of reports without the need for programming, Dream Report offers real-time connectivity to Scada, HMIs and controllers, connects to relational databases (SQL, Oracle…) and is able to interface to all historians, even those owners, thanks to properly defined drivers.
Its simple Dashboard allows you to monitor and analyze the performance of all assets by creating dynamic reports in real time. What does dynamic reporting mean? It will be sufficient to select any report already created in the past to obtain a new version of the report with updated analyzes on demand. Thanks to this function it is also possible to work "in reverse", i.e. inserting an earlier date to obtain the report relating to that period of interest.
Among other strengths of Dream Report figure the ease of use of the development environment: even those who have no programming knowledge are able, after a short training, to exploit the full potential of this solution. Dream Report also makes extremely complex operations simple thanks to a Wizard that allows the automatic creation of reports starting from complex SQL queries towards relational databases.
The generated reports, including graphs, histograms and performance indexes, are also accessible from a simple web browser, with the possibility of restricting access to the data and creating views dedicated to different categories of users. The web interface allows further customization of the report, thanks to the possibility of using dynamic filters.
The Dream Report web portal has been designed to adapt perfectly to tablets and mobile phones with all operating systems: iOS, Android, Windows Mobile.