November 05, 2020

ABB Ability for plants looking to provide better management of computation and data available from multiple systems

Verified User

Engineer in Information Technology

Oil & Energy Company, 10,001+ employees

Score 10 out of 10

Vetted Review

Verified User

Incentivized

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We have used ABB Ability in Control System (System 800xA). The objective was to make complex computing when data is in the cloud. Ability Solution provided the required computation and presented it to the right personnel to take the right decision. This has optimized the process very well. We have 25 800xA Controllers, and getting data from all the controller on a single platform was a difficult task. ABB Ability Solution Suite has performed this job very well. The data is available to the company at any place in the plant, as well as to the management sitting in the Delhi head office.

Pros and Cons

Computation of data.
Presentation to right person.
Ability to perform critical task and sending to users.
Multiple control system connectivity.

May be for smaller PLCs this can't be implemented.
Cost may an area ABB can look in to.
Improvement in GUI

Likelihood to Recommend

Of course this is the one of the best solution available in the market at present. When you have Multiple system in a plant then you need a powerful tool for Computation which Ability does it smoothly.

ABB Ability Solution Suite Feature Ratings

General Ledger and Configurable Accounting (7)

N/A

Accounts payable: N/A
N/A
Accounts receivable: N/A
N/A
Global Financial Support: N/A
N/A
Primary and Secondary Ledgers: N/A
N/A
Journals and Reconciliations: N/A
N/A
Configurable Accounting: N/A
N/A
Standardized Processes: N/A
N/A

Subledger and Financial Process (5)

N/A

Billing Management: N/A
N/A
Cash and Asset Management: N/A
N/A
Travel & Expense Management: N/A
N/A
Budgetary Control & Encumbrance Accounting: N/A
N/A
Period Close: N/A
N/A

Inventory Management (3)

66.66666666666667%

6.7

Inventory tracking: 100%
10.0
Automatic reordering: N/A
N/A
Location management: 100%
10.0

Order Management (5)

60%

6.0

Pricing: 100%
10.0
Order entry: 100%
10.0
Credit card processing: N/A
N/A
Cost of goods sold: 100%
10.0
Order Orchestration: N/A
N/A

Payroll Management (3)

N/A

Pay calculation: N/A
N/A
Benefit plan administration: N/A
N/A
Direct deposit files: N/A
N/A

Reporting & Analytics

N/A

Customization (2)

100%

10.0

API for custom integration: 100%
10.0
Plug-ins: 100%
10.0

Security (2)

100%

10.0

Role-based user permissions: 100%
10.0
Single sign-on capability: 100%
10.0

Grants Management (1)

N/A

Award Lifecycle Management: N/A
N/A

Project Financial Management (6)

N/A

Budgeting and Forecasting: N/A
N/A
Project Costing: N/A
N/A
Cost Capture: N/A
N/A
Capital Project Management: N/A
N/A
Customer Contract Compliance: N/A
N/A
Project Revenue Recognition: N/A
N/A

Project Execution Management (4)

100%

10.0

Project Planning and Scheduling: 100%
10.0
Task Insight for Project Managers: 100%
10.0
Project Mobile Functionality: 100%
10.0
Definable Resource Pools: 100%
10.0

Procurement (5)

N/A

Bids Analyzed and Compared: N/A
N/A
Contract Authoring: N/A
N/A
Contract Repository: N/A
N/A
Requisitions-to-Purchase Orders Integrated: N/A
N/A
Supplier Management: N/A
N/A

Risk Management (5)

N/A

Risk Repository: N/A
N/A
Control Management: N/A
N/A
Control Efficiency Assessments: N/A
N/A
Issue Detection: N/A
N/A
Remediation and Certification: N/A
N/A

Logistics (5)

N/A

Transportation Planning and Optimization: N/A
N/A
Transportation Execution Management: N/A
N/A
Trade and Customs Management: N/A
N/A
Fulfillment Management: N/A
N/A
Warehouse Workforce Management: N/A
N/A

Manufacturing (5)

100%

10.0

Production Process Design: 100%
10.0
Production Management: 100%
10.0
Configuration Management: 100%
10.0
Work Execution: 100%
10.0
Manufacturing Costs: 100%
10.0

Supply Chain (3)

100%

10.0

Forecasting: 100%
10.0
Inventory Planning: 100%
10.0
Performance Monitoring: 100%
10.0

Product Lifecycle Management (2)

100%

10.0

Proposal Management: 100%
10.0
Product Master Data Management: 100%
10.0

Return on Investment

Positive is definitely ROI since manual intervention is minimized and the process is automated.
Cost wise, ABB has been looked upon considering the small industry.
Overall, a good solution for a large companies.

Alternatives Considered

Microsoft Dynamics 365 (formerly Microsoft Dynamics CRM)

Better suited for the ABB System as Microsoft is a third party for ABB Control System.

Other Software Used

Cloud Backup for Office 365, OneDrive, Dropbox

Usability

One of the best solutions in the market with a user-friendly system. This is very useful when the ABB system (Like we had 800xA) is there, new or existing; all the ABB systems can be integrated using this rather than going to a 3rd party vendor, which may have interface problems.

Support Rating

Good support in terms of quality and promptness. When we had problems with some of the commands not getting executed, their online support also provided a good solution to solve the problem. Even mission-critical task we were able to solve during this Pandemic time. The suggestion is to go for the online support 1st in the future, followed by a visit.

Operating Systems	Unspecified
Mobile Application	No

ABB Ability Solution Suite

SAP S/4HANA Cloud

Acumatica

SAP S/4HANA Cloud

Teamcenter

Oracle Fusion Cloud ERP

Sage 100cloud

NetSuite ERP

Infor Adage (Discontinued)

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central

Microsoft Dynamics AX, discontinued

OpenText Content Suite Platform

Vista