This is Our Prodigy
Tascomp helps manufacturers make better products more efficiently.
What do a brewery, major aircraft engineers and the makers of the next Aston Martin Formula One racing car have in common? They all want to improve efficiencies in the way their products are made, at the same time ensuring their products are of the highest quality they can be.
That’s where Billingham-based Tascomp comes in, with its Prodigy SCADA software.
What is Prodigy SCADA?
SCADA – or Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition – is used to capture data in real-time, allowing users to visualise the current status of a plant or production process. The data is analysed to identify issues and alarm conditions that may result in costly problems developing and provides a means of troubleshooting through recorded trend charts. Ultimately, production reports can be automatically generated and sent to all appropriate users.From the past to the present
Ashley Tizard, managing director of Tascomp, describes Prodigy as the company’s core product, a toolkit of software that has been developed over the business’s 40-year history. “We went from creating bespoke, one-off systems to developing a package of software that could be used in any application – and Prodigy is the result of that work,” he says. “We use it to control and monitor industrial processes in highly regulated industries such as manufacturing aircraft parts, pharmaceuticals, chemical processes and even the malt used in beer production!”A fundamental requirement in these industries is to validate the production process. Prodigy’s Proof of Process functionality does just that.
“If you want to manufacture a highquality product consistently, you need to be able to see what is happening within the process and generate alarms in the event of any issues. “Manufacturers want to know if there’s a problem that needs to be rectified straight away to protect their assets. “For example, Prodigy will detect whether the temperature in a process is going up at the right rate or that the pressure is within tolerance. If it isn’t, it will produce a warning straight away, so you don’t get to the end of the process and then say, ‘Those parts don’t look right’.
“Some processes that we control might involve £200,000 worth of product, so if something goes wrong, you’re potentially waving goodbye to huge sums. “Whether it’s a simple control application such as ensuring the pressure in a reactor is limited or a more complex function such as the automation of a complete engine test cell, automating processes saves time and money.
Who do we work with?
As well as dealing with global clients across all sectors directly, the Prodigy package is sold to resellers who use it to create bespoke control and monitoring systems for a wide range of their own customers. These include manufacturers of lighting fittings, glass furnaces and hospital sterilisers.“Long-term partnerships are our goal. If our customers are continuing to improve using our systems, then we are succeeding.
Get the support you need with Prodigy
“As reliable as any software is, it’s only as good as the technical support that backs it up. This is especially true for our customers that rely on it for the smooth running of their operations. A stoppage could quickly run to multi-million-pound losses for some manufacturers. “That’s why we pride ourselves on the responsive and quality support we provide for all our products. It’s the main reason why we have long-standing customers that have been with us for over 35 years.With the inevitable shift in companies wanting to improve their quality and consistency and wanting their processes to be more efficient, Ashley says demand for Tascomp’s products is continuously increasing. “We are continuously developing our software and we have just released our new version, Prodigy version 11,” he says. “That will keep us moving forward.”
