Inductive Automation Blog

Connecting you to ideas, tips, updates and thought-leadership
from Inductive Automation

case study Building Automation

Jail Enhances Security Network with Ignition

On paper, the security technology that Mendocino County Jail used prior to 2014 was a perfect fit for its day-to-day operations. But in reality, the system had become outdated and its performance was not up to par.

3 min video

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case study Building Automation

Ignition Proves Effectiveness of Energy-Saving Systems

Enermix, a Finnish integration firm that regularly works with energy systems and building automation, provides a free service that uses Ignition to make sure its customers are getting the most out of their building’s heating system. Due to the extreme winters in Finland, building heating systems are an expensive necessity. Fortunately, with Enermix’s work in Ignition, customers are able to save energy and money and see their month-over-month consumption and savings.

3 min video

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case study Data Center

Large Data Center, Manageable System

After a number of vendors failed to show American Internet Services (AIS) a system versatile enough for its needs, the company turned to Brown Engineers, a mechanical and electrical consulting firm it had worked with on other projects. Brown Engineers suggested a modular software platform called Ignition by Inductive Automation®.

5 min video

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customer project Mining

Moving a Legacy System Over to Ignition

The project involved porting a Citect SCADA platform project based on TOP Server as the OPC server. The Citect system is a legacy system with various iterations enhanced over time by various parties. Each party had their own methodology, naming conventions, and standards for graphic objects. The goal of the port was to move the entire legacy system to Ignition, and, as part of the process, normalize the tag tree and naming conventions with uniform HMI navigation behavior. As there was no overall documentation for the legacy system, the port consisted of reverse-engineering the entire Citect system. Due to this, for functional validation to be effective, the ‘new’ Ignition windows had to contain graphics objects with a look, window placement, and behavior equivalent to the Citect system.

5 min video

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customer project Energy

Harnessing Wind Power

X-Wind Power Limited is designing 80 kW vertical axis wind turbines and when deployed there will be an Ignition cloud-based SCADA system for data collection, data storage, and visualization. As part of the turbine design process, a recording, visual, dynamic mathematical model of the turbines’ “aero to electrical output” and safety systems was required and this has successfully been achieved using National Instruments’ LabVIEW. The control system engineer said he I couldn’t help thinking to himself, “I’m sure I could do that with Ignition,” and that it would help him understand the mechanical dynamics as well as underline to the team just how powerful Ignition would be for the main SCADA system.

4 min video

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customer project Agriculture

Fine-Grained Precision

This project is for the automation of the grain handling at a facility in Nebraska. There is no traditional HMI with this project. The Ignition application handles the device level control of every motor at the facility. This particular application was on a single server running a MySQL database. There were four clients, one PLC connection to an Allen Bradley ControlLogix, about 12,000 real-time tags, and a few transaction groups logging about 1,500 points of data. The project was developed originally in Ignition version 7.5 and it fully leverages templates and UDTs.

4 min video

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article Industry Article

The 3 Most Common Design Mistakes

To help you make the trip as painless as possible, this tip sheet will walk you through a list of some of the most common mistakes made when designing an HMI / SCADA project, along with how you can avoid them.

4 min read

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video Product

Ignition: The New SCADA®

Outdated technology and overly expensive licensing can limit today’s manufacturing facilities. But Ignition offers a SCADA solution that expands supervisory control and data acquisition to encompass the entire enterprise, unifying all the major software layers into one. Reduce your frustration and increase efficiency with a new licensing model, business model, and ethical model. It’s time to reinvent industrial automation software.

2 min video

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customer project Agriculture

Controlling and Tracking Grain Automation

This project is for the automation of the grain handling at a facility in Nebraska. There is no traditional HMI with this project. The Ignition application handles the device level control of every motor at the facility. This particular application was on a single server running a MySQL database. There were four clients, one PLC connection to an Allen Bradley ControlLogix, about 12,000 real-time tags, and a few transaction groups logging about 1,500 points of data. The project was developed originally in Ignition version 7.5 and it fully leverages templates and UDTs.

4 min video

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customer project Energy

Maximizing Wind Turbine Efficiencies

X-Wind Power Limited is designing 80 kW vertical axis wind turbines and when deployed there will be an Ignition cloud-based SCADA system for data collection, data storage, and visualization. As part of the turbine design process, a recording, visual, dynamic mathematical model of the turbines’ “aero to electrical output” and safety systems was required and this has successfully been achieved using National Instruments’ LabVIEW. The control system engineer said he I couldn’t help thinking to himself, “I’m sure I could do that with Ignition,” and that it would help him understand the mechanical dynamics as well as underline to the team just how powerful Ignition would be for the main SCADA system.

4 min video

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