Success Story : Parasyn

Wonderware is proud to leverage the talents of its global network of Systems Integrators (SIs), Value-Added Resellers (VARs) and Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs). This third edition of the Wonderware® Solution Provider eNewsletter is all about the Asia-Pacific region. To that end, in Front Lines, we focus our attention on the exceptional work provided by one of our System Integrators in Australia.

In this issue, we speak with Tony Poole, the Principal and Managing Director of Parasyn, an ArchestrA® Certified System Integrator in the Wonderware Solution Provider Program. Parasyn has been working with Metquip, Wonderware's distributor in Australia, to implement projects that feature the latest Wonderware and ArchestrA technology.

Tony Poole has been with Parasyn since it was founded 7 years ago. His primary interest at this point is in keeping his technical staff challenged with variety and taking on jobs not done or done well before. He has previously worked in both the government and private sectors as a consumer and project implementer. Poole has a Trade in Electronics, a Bachelor's degree in Engineering and an MBA.

Where are your offices located?

Tony Poole: Parasyn have offices in Brisbane and Melbourne, but we operate throughout Australia and beyond. We're looking to expand outside Australia as, with the continued growth of the Asian economies, we feel there could be significant opportunities for us overseas.

Would you please give a brief history of your company?

Tony Poole: We started the company in 2000 and it has grown and developed significantly over the last 7 years. Chronologically, the Parasyn story goes something like this:

Year 2000: Parasyn began trading primarily in SCADA and Telecommunication Services.

Year 2001: We introduced Electrical Design, SCADA Reporting Systems and Driver Development to complement Total End-to-End Turnkey Solutions.

Year 2002: We increased our employees' technical capabilities to better server our large clients.

Year 2003: Information Systems R&D commitment becomes significant. Driver and Database Interfacing becomes a niche.

Year 2004: Using Portal Platform Technology, we further developed our expertise in the area of Information Systems for Process Control. We created a new corporate image to support our company's enhanced capabilities and large-scale customer profile.

Year 2005: We released version 3 of the Process Information Portal, developed new software drivers and significantly increased our workforce. We were awarded major projects in the Gas & Oil and Water & Wastewater industries.

Year 2006: Parasyn is awarded a key Australian industry award (Zenith). We are also given international recognition for the Best SCADA Solution in the Wonderware Open.

How many employees do you have?

Tony Poole: Currently we have 23 full time employees, but we're expanding all the time. We started a graduate recruitment program last year, which has been very successful. We're always looking for talented individuals to join the team.

What industries does your company support?

Tony Poole: The flexibility of our approach and the versatility of the solutions we provide means we can benefit a wide variety of organizations across a whole range of industries. We've undertaken major projects for most of the Utilities Industries — particularly Water/Wastewater, Energy, and Oil/Gas/Pipelines — and we're increasingly getting involved with manufacturing systems. We've also done some specialist boutique projects for the Transport industry, specifically for railway and airline safety.

When did Parasyn first start working with Wonderware?

Tony Poole: We actually started prior to 2000, before the company was even formed. Several members of the team worked on earlier versions of Wonderware software; so we were well aware of its benefits. When we started Parasyn it was natural that we should adopt it as a key product in the company portfolio.

What was your first Wonderware installation?

Tony Poole: Parasyn's first support installation was a large power station. It included a Sequence of Events (SOE) application as well as RTU time stamps to the millisecond (ms). It was imperative that the plant historian supported the time resolution. The RTUs were accurate to 2 ms. The InTouch® HMI was configured for alarms to support external time stamps; the plant historian was the trend-data provider. For this project, we used InTouch software, InTouch clients, the InSQL™ historian, WWKFS (a Parasyn-developed Kingfisher serial driver using the legacy toolkit) and AlarmSuitePlus.

Do you have a favorite Wonderware Success Story?

Tony Poole: We have quite a few, but we have a major municipal water utility customer here in Australia using multiple Wonderware products throughout its operation. The key features that made this application exceptional are the time-series alarms, history and multi-protocols (DNP3 and Kingfisher) involved in the project. Parasyn developed the DNP3 Server using Wonderware's DA Server Toolkit. The application is essentially single-server (not load-distributed) with redundancy for the Industrial Application Server, InTouch HMI and SCADAlarm™ software.

The trick was supporting the time series throughout the system. The project also included a standard wastewater treatment plant project using both Allen-Bradley DA servers and multiple PLCs. This project has worked extremely well. I guess you could say this is the type of application that the ArchestrA architecture was made for. Both applications, although distributed, are in the same galaxy. The galaxy connection is via ADSL and it all works fine for the distributed application. Parasyn did the PLC controls, SCADA and Reporting systems, while the PLCs were installed by others.

Are there any unique challenges that you need to overcome in Australia?

Tony Poole: SCADA products are not typically compliant with time-series protocols. Yet large-scale utility systems are best optimized using time-series protocols rather than real-time protocols. So Parasyn applications, and in particular drivers, have been adapted to directly interface with the InSQL historian, which now supports time-series (late) data to better support the utility market. Parasyn has developed both the Kingfisher Series II driver and DNP3 Server using both vintages of the Wonderware toolkits.

We have recently developed a Railway Level Crossing Monitor Driver and are about to develop another DA Server for GPRS remote metering solutions. You can read more about this at www.parasyn.com.au.

What is the customer response to Wonderware products in your market area?

Tony Poole: Our customers express very positive feedback about Wonderware applications. In SCADA it is recognized as high-end with prices aligned accordingly; however it is only early days for MES in Australia.

Do you have any customers in the area of Geographically Distributed SCADA (Geo-SCADA)?

Tony Poole: Most of the SCADA utility systems we have implemented include area-wide and localized controls for geographically distributed processes. One such application covers a large portion the state of New South Wales in Australia.

Has Parasyn completed any Supervisory HMI projects?

Tony Poole: Yes. Off-hand, I can think of a big Transportation customer. We implemented a weather-monitoring system for rail safety for that one. There was also a Power/Energy company for which we provided data logging, station control SCADA and an information system.

Are you involved in projects that leverage ArchestrA technology?

Tony Poole: Yes, Parasyn is involved in three (3) such applications, and hope to be further involved with current prospects that have been quoted on solutions that leverage the ArchestrA architecture.

What is the response so far in terms of ArchestrA adoption?

Tony Poole: The Australian automation market is very conservative and ArchestrA adoption to date has been fairly slow. I would expect take-up to accelerate as the MES application solutions mature and are recognized as serious solutions delivering real benefits to organizations.

What are the major advantages of using the ArchestrA architecture in your projects and products?

Tony Poole: For real-time applications, particularly in production plants, the development environment strongly supports modeling plants in a systematic efficient manner. From our experience, this is not very common in the automation industry. It therefore represents a clear risk-reduction option for end-users relying on others to provide system integration services.

What do you see as the business benefits for solution providers in the adoption of Wonderware technology and toolkits?

Tony Poole: Undoubtedly one of Wonderware's greatest benefits is the channel partner approach and not competing with professional service providers. The toolkits seem flexible. Economies of scale overcome this. This is not typical of the average implementation or integration houses by the way — even though it is for the software vendor. Parasyn have recently investigated options to develop using APIs. This may present a better strategic path for future enhanced application solutions.

Do you have any projects that use Wonderware software to integrate the plant-floor with the enterprise level?

Tony Poole: We have several applications that use the Wonderware Historian, which is then in turn integrated to enterprise applications.

What do you think the future holds for Wonderware products?

Tony Poole: I believe Wonderware is recognized as a world leader in automation products and that other vendors' copy cat product functionality. We understand that Wonderware is very proactive in the enterprise information space and see great opportunity if the current market opportunities can be realized as early adopters make their decisions.

Shortly describe strengths, opportunities and threats for Wonderware solutions in your country/region.

Tony Poole: I would break them down as follows:

Strengths:
Size of development team, quality procedures on product releases, good documentation.

Opportunities:
The MES and Enterprise industries are still in their infancy in Australia. Therefore the early adopters will be able to establish market dominance.

Threats:
Local companies that are smaller and more dynamic in adopting ideas can exploit the current marketplace and take this product success to the international market. These companies are usually quite prepared to buy several major blue chip and government accounts to establish market credibility.

Do you feel that your experience in any particular market sector or vertical domain would allow you to build a specialized 'standard' solution for that market based on Wonderware products?

Tony Poole: Parasyn has invested significantly in automated reporting systems leveraging the InSQL historian. We have implemented fairly complex reporting systems and third-party interfaces. Our interest and investment is in providing enterprise solutions from terminal to Web reports.

What are the key capabilities and skill-sets that Parasyn brings to the table that makes it exceptional compared to other SIs?

Tony Poole: Our project management philosophy and approach, coupled with our teamwork attitude in partnering. We have a passion for connecting with the client for the best possible outcome.

We also have a lot of experience in the creation and development of drivers, middleware and automated reporting systems. This positions us to develop enterprise solutions rather than just HMI or SCADA applications.

We have experience with Wonderware's InSQL historian, InTouch HMI, SCADAlarm software, InControl™ and InTrack™ software, and the DA Server Toolkit, as well as ArchestrA technology. We are an ArchestrA Certified System Integrator.

Our electrical design, telecommunications design and data-communications depth allows us to develop data-management strategies to make best use of limited telecommunications bandwidth. To be an effective integrator, we must integrate the disciplines just as we integrate software and hardware.