Because where we’re going is often based on where we’re from, there’s a good chance Honeywell’s Experion Batch, Production Portal and Manufacturing Excellence Platform (MXP) solutions will continue to succeed because of the initial capabilities they’re already achieved.
“The plan is to get all these products on one platform and ecosystem. That way, users won’t have to keep trying to make several different types of software work together, and this plan is already unfolding,” said Chris Peters, Experion PKS product manager, Honeywell Process Solutions. “We’re hopeful that by the end of 2025, we’ll have Experion Batch and Unit Operations Controller (UOC) embedded on the same platform, and users won’t have to qualify, add and maintain nodes.”
Peters and Rahul De, Experion PKS, senior engineering manager, presented “MXP + Experion Batch Roadmaps” on the opening day of the 2024 Honeywell Users Group this week in Madrid.
Experion Batch
Upcoming capabilities and features for Honeywell’s Experion Batch (R530) software include:
- Asset filter to reduce unit shown, either by selecting individual units or higher-level assets such as process cells.
- Alarm icon in the Unit Card, showing the most important alarm status of the asset, and allowing navigation to the Alarm Summary filtered to that asset.
- Activity status icon in the Unit Card, showing important data about the activity in a way that’s consistent with the Procedures Explorer tree view. Clicking on the icon shows a callout with State, Status, Status Description, Mode and Mode Attribute.
- Using a hierarchical, asset-based unit sort order in the unit card instead of flat, alphabetical ordering by asset Item Name. The effect is that units will appear in the same order as seen in the Asset Filter tree.
- Batch filter view that reveals past units and future unit class lanes of a single batch.
- Restore Unit Timeline predictions after mismatching elements completes.
- Option to show Recipe Step instead of Public Name or Unite Timeline.
“We’re also adding support for formulas configured and approved in Production Portal to be selected and used from the Batch Summary, both during batch creation and while the batch is in a pre-execution state,” said Peters. “Related features include a new formula column that can be added to the default Batch Summary; an Automatic Unit Timeline Reference Batch selection based on formula selection as configured in the Production Portal formula details; and events that are journaled and included in batch reports for both the formula selection and for all individual, written-to parameters.”
Meanwhile, Experion Batch’s Notification Pane software will gain style changes to increase the prominence of Unit in the software’s messages and filter, and an option will be added to hide Source and Block in Notification Pane’s messages. Finally, Experion Batch will get a reference batch editor, batch identification in the Event Summary, and improvements in the batch faceplate.
Production Portal
Similarly, previous updates to Production Portal software included version control for electronic work instructions and formula sets in May 2023, while Campaign Restart was added in 4Q23 to let users start a new batch campaign and resume the number order. Also, Formula Update During Campaign was added in 4Q23 to let users modify formulas and allow them to be reflected in the best batch created by the campaign.
Consequently, upcoming feature planned for Production Portal include:
- Electronic work instructions (EWI) that are event-driven and on-demand.
- Formula sets and campaigns that integrate with MXP.
- Application program interfaces (API) directly on Portal node.
- AI conversion of paper SOPs and batch sheets to EWI.
- Generate reports directly from Portal.
- Batch analytics.
- Unification of Production Portal and MXP.
“Again, in the future, users won’t have to think about which software package to use because they’re all going to condense into one platform,” said Peters. They’ll all be part of MXP.”
MXP update
Likewise, recent MXP updates included inventory management, class-based recipes and non-ERP process order management added in 3Q23, while the overall platform gained server redundance and cloud deployment on Microsoft Azure. In 1Q24, MXP added a native interface for SAP Integration Production Order; weigh and dispense (W&D) enhancements; logbook activity scheduling; batch historian and integration with DeltaV; webservices for SAP Process Order, native interfaces to laboratory information management systems (LIMS); OPC HDA data in batch reports such as trend and table; and DeltaV alarm and event capture.
Consequently, upcoming and contemplated features for MXP include:
- Open interface for ERP, LIMS, QMS/LMS;
- User interface improvements, including UI/UX themes and streamlined navigation;
- Localization;
- Simatic Batch integration;
- Experion Batch integration;
- TrackWise Digital (TWD) integration of QMS, DMS and TMS;
- Native interface to MasterControl and LMS; and
- Batch historian for Simatic Batch.
In addition, MXP’s platform will increase to 140 concurrent users from its present limit of 60, and it will also get an ancillary server and localization for all modules.
“The update we’re working on will integrate Experion Batch with TWD,” said Peters. “It will be a complete link between the control system and the quality management system. No one else does this.”
