Prodigy provides a highly flexible software for the development of robust SCADA for industrial monitoring, control and automation applications.

Finding a supplier that can provide cost effective and reliable industrial test systems that work well can be difficult. We have a 25 years+ track record in supplying systems that leading manufacturers rely on for automated testing of product quality, endurance and validation.

As automotive engine manufacturers face ever tighter environmental emission regulations they are imposing stringent requirements on component suppliers for effective product testing.

Trade in your old SCADA software before the end of July 2008 and you will get a minimum of £250 and up to £2,500 cash back against Prodigy V.7 SCADA software. Simply return the CD and license from a qualifying product and Tascomp will refund up to £2,500.

Listed below is a sample of the companies that have chosen Prodigy as an important part of their business operations.


3M
Speciality Products Manufacturing

Worldwide 3M employ more than 75,000 people in over 60 countries and are at the forefront in industries ranging from display and graphics, communications and healthcare to safety, security and protection services.




Astra Zeneca
Pharmaceuticals & Health Care

AstraZeneca is one of the world's leading pharmaceutical companies, with a broad range of medicines designed to fight disease in important areas of healthcare. Active in over 100 countries with growing presence in important emerging markets they employ over 67,000 employees. R&D spend in 2007 totaled more than $5 billion.




Armstrong World Industries
Building Materials Manufacturing

Armstrong World Industries, Inc. is a global leader in the design and manufacture of floors, ceilings and cabinets. In 2007, Armstrong’s consolidated net sales totaled approximately $3.5 billion. Based in Lancaster, PA, Armstrong operates 40 plants in 10 countries and has approximately 13,000 employees worldwide.




Anglian Group
Plastic Extrusion Manufacturing

For over forty years Anglian has been renowned amongst UK homeowners as the place to go for high quality home improvements. With an annual turnover of £300 million, the company ensures it stays one step ahead of the competition with its continual programme of research and development, its 'state of the art' manufacturing plants, and ever improving product range.

A user of Prodigy for over 10 years, Anglian have recently upgraded their machine monitoring and batch blending systems to Prodigy V7 and added another Prodigy system to cover their new Hot Melt process.



Autocraft Industries
Vehicle Engine Remanufacturing

Autocraft Industries has extensive experience remanufacturing automotive components. As a full-service remanufacturing supplier to leading OEMs, they provide expertise in the following areas: engineering, remanufacturing, root cause analysis, core management, customer service information systems and distribution.

Prodigy provides the core of the fully automated Cold Test and Dynamometer based end of line test facilities at Autocraft Industries.



BAE Systems
Defence Technology

BAE Systems is a global company engaged in the development, delivery and support of advanced defence and aerospace systems in the air, on land and at sea. They have major operations across five continents, with customers and partners in more than 100 countries.




BSW Timber
Timber Sawmills

BSW Timber is the largest sawmilling business in Great Britain. BSW sawmills are located throughout the UK, at Fort William, Boat of Garten, Petersmuir, Carlisle, Newbridge-on-Wye and Caerphilly in Wales. Group Headquarters remain in the town of Earlston in Berwickshire, where the business originated. Today the firm employs over 650 people in the UK and Latvia and turnover is in excess of £110 million.

BSW Timber has now applied the Prodigy based machine utilisation and downtime monitoring software, Plantrun to all six of its UK manufacturing sites.



Caparo Precision Tubes
Steel Tube Manufacturing

Caparo is a fast growing group with a 1bn Euro turnover. With business interests predominantly in the manufacture of steel, automotive and general engineering products, the group’s wider activities. Headquartered in London, Caparo’s operations are located at over 50 sites in the UK, North America, India and Spain. The group employs circa 6,000 people worldwide.



Colep CCL
Contract Manufacturing

ColepCCL is the largest European contract manufacturer of aerosol and liquid products, in personal care, cosmetics, over-the-counter pharmaceuticals and household categories, with important activities in metal and plastic packaging.






Corus
Steel & Aluminium Manufacturing

Corus is a customer focused, innovative solutions-driven company, which manufactures, processes and distributes steel and aluminium products and services to customers worldwide. Corus is Europe's second largest steel producer with annual revenues of over £11 billion and a crude steel production of about 20 million tonnes.




Cummins
Engine Manufacturing

Cummins Inc., a global power leader, is a corporation of complementary business units that design, manufacture, distribute and service engines and related technologies, including fuel systems, controls, air handling, filtration, emission solutions and electrical power generation systems. Headquartered in Columbus, Indiana (USA), Cummins serves customers in more than 160 countries.

Cummins make extensive use of Tascomp's software and services on several sites around the UK. Prodigy is central to their Diesel Engine test facilities, providing fully automated control and monitoring of Dynamometer, Rolling Road, Cold Start and Flow Bench systems.



Futaba Tenneco
Tier 1 Automotive Supplier

Futaba Tenneco UK is a joint venture operation of two of the worlds leading automotive suppliers, set up to supply UK & European car plants with pressed and welded sub assemblies. The company site in Burnley, UK has benefited from a major investment program since the merger of the two companies and operates 115 state of the art robot welding/assembly units. As well as a suite of presses ranging up to 2,500 tonne to provide the most capable and efficient pressing service available.




GKN ATS
Aerospace Component Manufacturing

GKN Aerospace Transparency Systems is an aerospace special products operation of GKN PLC. It possesses expertise in high tech transparency design processes, in addition to supply chain and logistics. A leading supplier of cockpit and cabin windows for a broad range of business, commercial, regional, and military aircraft. With unparalleled expertise, GKN ATS is the preferred partner to several major primes.

Site wide licensing of Prodigy has provided a cost effective way for GKN ATS to make extensive use of Prodigy throughout their manufacturing operations. Applications include; carbon composite autoclave control, clean room monitoring, air conditioning control, automated end of line test systems, oven control & monitoring, polisher control, stretcher monitoring and sophisticated control of their gold coating process chambers.




Greencore Group
Food Manufacturing

Greencore Group plc is a leading international manufacturer of convenience foods and ingredients. They have manufacturing sites in four countries of the European Union and employ some 8,000 people.







GT Group
Automotive Products Manufacturing

The GT Group is an international organisation with over 35 years of commitment to excellence in engineering design and manufacturing, exporting products and services to more than 60 countries throughout the world. Manufacturers of automotive products GT Group also provide a resourcing service for major OEM companies for procurement, machining, assembly and testing of product.

Prodigy is central to the fully automated end of line test facilities developed for their EPM and EGR valve product range.




Jersey Airport
Airport

Jersey Airport is the gateway to the Channel Islands handling over a million passengers a year from the UK and Europe. The smooth and safe running of the airport relies on the operation and maintenance of several hundred systems for air traffic control, passenger information, meteorological, air conditioning, intruder detection etc. This responsibility lies with the Jersey States Department of Electronics (DOE) which monitors all airport systems 24 hours a day.



Muntons PLC
Food Ingredient Manufacturing

Muntons are UK-based manufacturers and suppliers of malt, malt extract and malted ingredients to the world market. Muntons has been producing malt and malted ingredients for over 80 years. During this time the company grown to become a significant international player in the supply of malts, malt extracts, homebrew kits, flours and flakes to the food and drinks industry.





Network Rail
Rail Transport
Network Rail own and operate Britain's rail infrastructure.

Marketed under the On-Track brand, this customised version of Prodigy is used extensively for a range of rail applications including points condition monitoring and level crossing monitoring.








Procter & Gamble
Consumer Goods Manufacturing

Multinational manufacturer of product ranges including personal care, household cleaning, laundry detergents, prescription drugs and disposable nappies. The P&G community consists of over 138,000 employees working in over 80 countries worldwide providing products and services of superior quality and value to consumers in over 180 countries.





QinetiQ
Defence Technology

QinetiQ is a leading international defence and security technology company. They develop innovative technology-based solutions and products and provide technology-rich support services for government organisations, such as the UK MOD and the US DoD, and for commercial customers around the world.



Ranier Technology
Medical Device Manufacturing

Ranier is dedicated to delivering improved clinical outcomes through innovative product solutions based on our proprietary polyurethane materials platform technology. The CAdisc compliant artificial spinal disc for total disc replacement is the primary product development focus of Ranier at this time.

Prodigy provides in depth monitoring and tracking of each CAdisc throughout the critical manufacturing process. This provides complete product traceability, which is an essential requirement for this class of medical product.



Saint-Gobain
Glass & Ceramics Processing

At Saint-Gobain we believe everything is possible. This belief has led our growth and development since we were formed in 1665 to produce the glass for the Hall of Mirrors at Versailles. Today as one of the world's top one hundred industrial corporations we operate in 54 countries with a global workforce of 200,000, including 20,000 in the UK and Ireland.

Saint-Gobain is one of the many manufacturers to benefit from the use of Prodigy's special thermal imaging software to monitor and control their heat treatment processes.




Sans Fibres
Fibre & Plastics Manufacturing

SANS Fibres is a global business and occupies a leading position in several targeted niche markets. The company manufactures a broad range of specialty nylon yarns for high specification end uses. It also produces as Polyester Polymer and is the leading supplier of bottle grade PET resin within the South Africa region. Produced under license, and internationally-branded the resin is used in a wide range of packaging applications.

Sans Fibres conducted extensive research into the SCADA market in order to determine the best package to replace 15 legacy SCADA systems on site. This research revealed that Prodigy's comprehensive sequence control language (SLANG) was a unique feature which would prove crucial to the successful upgrade.




Schering Plough
Pharmaceuticals & Health Care

Schering Plough is a worldwide, research-based pharmaceutical company. It has business operations in 140 countries and net sales in 2007 of $12.7 billion, employing 55,000 people.




Simon Storage
Bulk Liquids Storage

Simon Storage is a leading European independent bulk liquid and gas logistics service provider in the United Kingdom, Germany and Ireland. It handles more than 250 different products for a wide range of customers. Simon Storage owns and operates nine storage terminals in the United Kingdom, Germany and Ireland.





Turners of Soham
Logisitics

Turners (Soham) Ltd are one of the largest privately owned transport companies in the UK and were voted “UK Transport Company of the Year 2000” by the Institute of Transport Management. Turners operate 800 vehicles and have 1300 employees throughout the UK. They have 17 depots plus an operating centre in the Netherlands and have expanded to five times their original size in the last seven years.



University of Leeds
Academic Institution

The Procter Department of Food Science at the University of Leeds has always been a leader in the teaching of food science. It has built up a reputation over more than forty years as one of the world's leading institutions at which to study this subject. In the most recent Research Assessment Exercise it achieved a 5* rating for the second time, the only Food Science Department in the UK to do so.

The University's commitment to excellence was demonstrated by their choice of Prodigy software to control and monitor the Retort and Climbing Film Evaporator teaching systems.


A more comprehensive list of clients and users can be found here.

PC based automated endurance high speed axle test system.

Many machine monitoring systems have been implemented with Prodigy industrial automation software. It is ideal for monitoring and control of both new machines or for retro-fitting to existing machines. Systems can monitor any number of machines, equipment and processes including linked machines, production lines etc.

Many PC based machine control applications have been implemented using Prodigy software, which is ideal for control of new machines or for retro-fitting to existing machines.

Items covered..

• Leading aerospace manufacturer adopts Prodigy site wide
• Prodigy tests jet engines..
• ..and also turbine blades
• Alarm management at Jersey Airport
• New Facilities
• New Training Course

Where do hardware manufacturers turn when they need software to complement their products? Spirax Sarco recently faced this problem and chose Tascomp's Prodigy SCADA (Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition) software on which to base its new Metercom II energy management system.

From aerospace to automotive, utilities to wastewater Prodigy HMI SCADA software ensures the smooth running of industry 24-7
View example applications..

Prodigy Chart Recorder software turns a standard PC into a powerful replacement for tiled mimics and multi-pen chart recorders. It is also ideal for monitoring and data acquisition systems with limited I/O signal requirements.

ADT Rail Systems, which was acquired by Transmitton in February 2005 – now part of Siemens Transportation Systems, Rail Communications group, placed a significant order for software licenses with Tascomp, developers of Prodigy SCADA software in October 2006.

PC Based Test Automation

This lists the main facilities in Prodigy-ET PC based test automation software. Due to continuous development new facilities are regularly added so if the facility you require is not listed please contact us for a current list.

Prodigy industrial automation software includes a Downtime Monitoring facility for downtime tracking, machine utilisation and downtime reporting and analysis.

Manufacturing yields and efficiency can often be greatly increased by reducing the level of scrap and rework, which is produced in virtually all manufacturing processes.

SLANG is a powerful and yet simple sequence language within Prodigy software that allows you to control and monitor the process via signal values. For the main article on SLANG click here.

Sometimes SLANG needs to perform functions that are beyond the scope of the language itself, such as manipulating Access™ databases or requesting input from the operator. In these cases SLANG will call on Extensions, which are purpose made routines that can perform quite complex operations.

In order to make selecting an extension easier, they are grouped into families, which is basically a common area of functionality, and the functions are listed by family below.

This list of extensions was comprehensive at the time of publishing this article. For an up to date list please contact us.

Prodigy SCADA-HMI provides all the facilities needed to create any level of industrial automation, monitoring and control. A single automation software solution with outstanding features and a scalable architecture that will grow with your requirements and protect your initial investment.

Real time OEE manufacturing systems based on Prodigy software automate plant and shopfloor OEE and KPI data collection, reporting and analysis.

Nadcap, (formerly the National Aerospace and Defense Contractors Accreditation Program) is the leading, worldwide cooperative program of major companies designed to manage a cost effective consensus approach to special processes and products and provide continual improvement within the aerospace industry.

The A3 document, which can be downloaded from the link below, references Nadcap AS7102 Rev A standard for Heat Treating and summarises how Prodigy industrial automation software can be used to aid compliance in the Heat Treatment Industry.

Although Nadcap standards cover a range of specialised processes these do not include software, which cannot in itself be 'compliant'. There are however many ways that Prodigy software can aid in Nadcap compliance, including the ability to accurately monitor and control processes, continuously record process data and generate tamperproof records that can be used as evidence that the required procedures have been adhered to.

Connectivity

Prodigy includes a wide range of standard drivers as well as OPC that allow it to connect to thousands of industrial devices, including PLC's, PID controllers, distributed data acquisition units and PC plug-in cards. The use of industry standard file formats and protocols allows the sharing of data for use in third party software. Remote access options are available that allow full access to any Prodigy system on your network.

User Access and System Security

Prodigy software offers enhanced levels of user and data security as well as audit trail for full data protection and traceability. User Security meets the requirements for electronic signatures with each user assigned a unique user ID and high security password as well as a list of allowed actions or privileges. The minimum password length and the password expiry period is configurable and user access is recorded to audit trail for full traceability

Data security is ensured by all text based configuration and data files being encrypted with full 128 bit multi-cyclic encryption to resist even the most sophisticated and determined of would-be hackers. Audit Trail works throughout Prodigy and generates a time stamped record of every user action that makes a material change to the system.

A Secure File Browser to replaces the standard Windows file browser, which allows options that are incompatible with secure applications. Options are also provided for Desktop Lockdown on the computer that it runs on restricting access to Explorer, system tools, games, the internet, network resources and so on. This kind of lockdown is recommended in many application areas where you want to prevent "tampering" with the system, either intentional or otherwise.

Batch & Recipe Handling

Prodigy includes comprehensive support for batch and recipe handling including recipe storage; automatic form filling; automatic batch creation & monitoring. Recipe data is a collection of control setpoints that define the parameters required to make a specific product or to control a specific process and thereby ensures procedure control. Prodigy allows unlimited recipes to be created and called up or edited via secure user defined forms with all actions verifiable to audit trail.

Prodigy's Batch facility uniquely identifies each work order or shop traveler and its relevant data thereby providing full traceability. All relevant parts of Prodigy (e.g. trending, reports, SPC) are batch aware with filtering to make it easy to identify and retrieve the data for any work order or traveler.

Trending/Graphing

Prodigy offers comprehensive realtime and historic trending. Any number of trends can be displayed on screen with any number of signals per trend display and with instant switching between realtime and historic trends. Unlimited time span viewing makes it possible to analyze sub-second detail or several years worth of data on one view.

Alarms

Prodigy provides sophisticated alarm monitoring, reporting and logging facilities that enable fast response to problems arising and to analyse faults over any given time period. Any process value or signal can have alarm limits defined. When an alarm condition occurs it can be distributed to audible siren, beacon, printer, SMS text message, email as well as on-screen display. All alarm conditions are recorded and can be accessed as historical reports. Unlimited alarm schedules can be implemented where different alarm limits need to be applied at different times throughout a process.

Proof of Process Report

Prodigy offers a comprehensive range of report options including Proof of Process Report. Proof of Process Report combines alarm & event histories with one off batch details and any number of process trends into a single page report. They provide a complete and permanent “proof-of-process” record documenting key process stages and any process anomalies.

On Line Maintenance

Prodigy’s On Line Maintenance facility provides a single source of support information for users. It allows rapid centralised access to standard operating procedures, maintenance instructions, machine schematics, emergency contact numbers etc. The facility can also be used to schedule routine maintenance as Prodigy can monitor a wide range of parameters that effect the maintenance intervals.
These can include run times, number of operations/cycles, time spent under load etc. Prodigy then automatically alerts when maintenance is imminent or overdue.

Calibration Tracking

Prodigy Calibration provides a quick and convenient way to calibrate input channels, whilst also providing full traceability and reporting facilities. Prodigy Calibration allows the calibration of up to eight channels at a time using a named configuration and many configurations may be created. Reports may be requested and displayed on the screen or printed showing either the calibrations on all signals between two dates or the calibration on one particular signal.

SPC

Prodigy's integrated SPC combines automated data collection and statistical process control for fast and accurate analysis of any industrial process. A manual entry option is also available for data that is difficult to measure automatically, or which is subjective. Externally produced data can be directly imported in csv files. SPC data can be analysed continuously or in run-by-run basis, perhaps relating to batches or production shifts.

A full range of chart options, including Individual & Range, Average & Range, Median & Range, Line Plots and Distribution Histograms are available with the ability to swap between different control charts at the click of a button with no need to resample data. SPC is integrated with Prodigy's trending facilities. This means that when viewing any historic trend you can switch straight to an SPC analysis at the click of a button. SPC will analyse all signals on the trend for the time period covered by that trend.

Automatic Data Archive

Prodigy's Automatic Data Archive (Automatic Archiving) handles not only the archiving of old data, but also the backup of current data and the management of free disk space for continuously recorded data.

©Tascomp Nadcap


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