 [ HOME ] News -TOPKAPI Newsletter -- 11 |
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N°11 - November 2002 |
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SOMMAIRE POLLUTEC: 26 to 29 November, in LYON ELEC: 9 to 13 December, in PARIS
CD Demo V3
Version V3.5: Faceplates, inhibition, synoptic dialogues, miscellaneous upgrades for remote alarm notification and reports. CLIENT TS: a version for remote access and remote maintenance with the TERMINAL SERVER technology.
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   Graphic
operator control panel For the price of a basic operator control panel, you can benefit from the power and ease of use of the Topkapi Vision graphics editor. Promotional offer until 01/31/2003. Please call us. |
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FOCUS ON … VERSION 3: first results of the benefits provided by the SOFTLINK concept. Practical Web: New Web technologies enable hosting your application and sharing resources among several users (e.g. small-sized local authorities). |
ACHIEVEMENTS
SETNE:
8 years total hot redundancy with TOPKAPI for this 1,200MW thermal power plant |
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The TOPKAPI Version 3 demonstration CD is now available. 
Contact us to get your password, then go to
 
Version 3.5
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TOPKAPI upgrades have always included in-depth updates, some although important are not highly visible, such as SOFTLINK for V3, and other more visible improvements provide instant and concrete changes for users. Version 3.5 belongs to this second category: many small improvements, and better tools to use the in-depth innovations included in V3.
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 Reports and Summaries
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Microsoft’s Terminal Server technology enables running an application used remotely on a Central server. A terminal server version of TOPKAPI Vision, based on this principle and named TOPKAPI TS, is now proposed in the form of an optional extension to server stations. As with the Open Client offer, it enables using client stations without paying a license for each station. Although less effective than Open Client, TOPKAPI TS is easier to install on client stations (basic activation of the Windows TS service, no local copy of the application) and enabling remote maintenance (ability to change the TOPKAPI configuration remotely).
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Built-in alarms
inhibition management.
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FOCUS ON ... |
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Version 3: first
summary
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When introducing new concepts which change work methods, the results achieved are not always fully satisfactory. Practical experience is required to perfect the tools proposed. This is why AREAL led a large-scale survey with new users of V3, in order to get their feedback. In general terms, according to the users, the time gain upon implementation can amount to 40 % when adding the benefits related with SOFTLINK (wizard-based importing), the use of customized profiles and graphic objects inheritance. To link controller programming data, the users turn spontaneously to SOFTLINK to prevent re-entering information, even for small quantities of data, whereas before they used EXCEL importing only punctually, reluctantly, and for large volumes of data. In addition, SOFTLINK is used throughout the lifetime of the project, and enables integrating controller program upgrades. |
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However, experienced users admit that they must change their work habits: controller variables must be declared and labelled more accurately (which is beneficial for project documentation), and they must « think » in terms of
variables (globally from controller to supervision) rather than cells (basic supervision variables taken individually). For certain applications, the use of
structured variables enables customizing dialogues and focusing them on "professions". Applications can then be pre-configured for specific domains, and implemented by non-specialists in supervision. Hence configuration merely requires entering the appropriate information (What ?) without formatting the data for TOPKAPI (How ?).
When managing electric networks, with the controllers for commanded stations, as those from Schneider Electric, we can "view" a contact with its name and number, and not the basic atoms which are the open/closed state, the ground, phase, position, mismatch faults, the commands, the current intensity and before cut-off. |
During tests, the gain is very important, frequently divided by 4 or 5, as we test a single variable only (e.g. open/closed state), and the others will be correct due to the automated construction. In
remote management, users are even more enthusiast, as the database is generated fully automatically. Gain is close to 100% when configuring the database and corresponding tests. Of course, the synoptics must be configured, but the task is handled by TOPKAPI V3 for managing connections with remote stations, and the application is operational even when all synoptics are not completed. The remarks exposed above for changing work habits play a minor role in remote management, as on the one hand declaring variables is much "cleaner" in remote management stations (they can be used in other tools), and as self-configuring is performed virtually at 100%, as users no longer process the details of the " variable " or " cell " level.
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Suite des actualités... |
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Practical Web :
New Web technologies enable hosting your application and sharing resources among several users (e.g. small-sized local authorities) |
ACHIEVEMENTS
SETNE:
8 years total hot redundancy with TOPKAPI for this 1,200MW thermal power
plant |