NADCAP

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.