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PRODUCTS
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Apriso: Meeting and Exceeding Global Industry, Regulatoryand Government StandardsApriso is committed to interoperability across multiple platforms and software applications. As part of achieving this objective, the Apriso FlexNet platform is compliant in working with non-proprietary technologies, as detailed below. Apriso strives to comply with major software industry standards, and continues to maintain this functionality with each successive release of FlexNet.
Manufacturing Execution System, or MES Standards ISA 95: Apriso designed FlexNet as a global solution for manufacturing operations management. Designed and built as a platform-based solution, FlexNet supports a suite of applications that manage and execute manufacturing operations associated with Production, Quality, Warehouse, Maintenance and Time & Labor. Recognizing the need for industry standards and consistency when integrating shop floor operations to enterprise applications, the product design team at Apriso paid close attention to the evolving ISA-95 standards to ensure alignment, which is the case today. Apriso is currently a member of the International Society of Automation (ISA). Apriso was the first North American MES company to be ANSI/ISA 95 Netweaver certified by SAP (click to see details). MESA: Apriso covers all 11 functional areas described as key elements of an MES application by MESA, including when the functional scope extends beyond manufacturing into other operational areas, such as Warehouse Management.
Data Collection OPC: OPC (originally OLE for process control) is an industry standard created with the collaboration of a number of leading worldwide automation hardware and software suppliers, working in cooperation with Microsoft. The standard defines methods for exchanging real-time automation data between PC-based clients using Microsoft operating systems. The organization that manages this standard is the OPC Foundation.
Apriso achieved OPC Compliance Certified status in late 2008 as the first (and only) manufacturing operations management vendor to achieve this highly coveted certification status. It was Apriso's objective to attain Compliance Certified status to ensure standardized connectivity could be achieved to devices such as a PLC, DCS, RTU or a data source such, as a database or User interface, which could then translate the data into a standard-based OPC format. With such a comprehensive integration capability, Apriso has further validated its unique leadership position in connecting plant floor operations to enterprise applications.
Machine automation and equipment integration:
Product and Resource Identification Standards Body: Flexible ID number generation:
Bar codes:
RFID:
Web Technologies FlexNet utilizes the most current Web technologies, having embraced Microsoft .NET since its inception in 1999. Users can leverage the de facto standard Internet Explorer to access FlexNet functionality or alter its configuration. Web technology support extends to each of the most common protocols, including: HTTP, XML, XSLT and SOAP. The FlexNet platform is a Services Oriented Architecture (SOA), and supports Web services integration capabilities embedded throughout its platform. FlexNet's Adaptive Business Process Management (BPM) platform supports the publishing of business processes as Web services, as well as consuming Web services within business processes.
Governance Apriso customers use FlexNet to report production and inventory status. FlexNet is a key component of the information chain fueling financial reporting requirements for companies adhering to Sarbanes Oxley compliance. The FlexNet security framework and audit trail capabilities are key components that ensure information is secure, valid and not modified without a sufficient audit trail.
IT (Information Technology) Standards Apriso built FlexNet on the Microsoft platform because it has been, and continues to be, the most accepted in manufacturing, both in process control and manufacturing execution. FlexNet runs on Windows Servers, the enterprise-class server standard delivering the Web experience through Microsoft Internet Information Server. End user interfaces support Windows XP Professional, Windows Vista, Windows 7 and Windows Mobile/CE on client devices via Microsoft Internet Explorer. (see www.microsoft.com) FlexNet is designed utilizing the Unified Modeling Language™, the way the world models not only application structure, behavior, and architecture, but also business process and data structure. UML notation is coded in C# using the Visual Studio .NET Integrated Development Environment. The FlexNet data base is supported on the latest versions of both Microsoft SQL Server, and Oracle database.
ERP Integration Apriso has maintained strong working relationships and integrations with most of the major Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) vendors, including SAP, Oracle, Infor, Microsoft and others. Apriso’s Professional Services group has considerable experience integrating with off-the-shelf and custom “homegrown” systems, ensuring complete and seamless integration into your enterprise applications (Level 4 in the ISA 95 model). Many of Apriso’s customers have at least one instance of SAP ERP, so Apriso has invested considerable time and resources to achieve and sustain successful integration with successive SAP technologies. Most recently, Apriso’s FlexNet was certified for integration with SAP PI 7.0 via the SAP integration scenario NW-XI-CNT 7.1, representing Apriso’s 16th consecutive year of maintaining SAP certifications. See here for more detail. In addition, Apriso has maintained strong integration relationships with other ERP systems providers, including those by Microsoft, Infor, Oracle, Sage and others. As part of this effort, Apriso is well experienced at integrating with all the various systems that these vendors have acquired over the years, adding up to literally hundreds of various applications that Apriso’s FlexNet can seamlessly integrate with, when connecting shop floor operations to enterprise resource planning applications. Apriso integrates to ERP and other external applications through its FlexNet Business Integrator application, and through other integration brokers including SAP Netweaver XI, SAP MII, SAP Business Connector, Microsoft BizTalk Server, IBM Websphere and WebMethods.
Industry, Government and Other Standards Requirements
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