The magazine cover is dedicated to Automa

This month's front cover is dedicated to Automa, Bergamo's successful software house that specializes in industrial automation and works on satisfying the market with effective and innovative solutions.

By the Editorial Team

Super-Flash, the integrated software environment that generates applications for industrial supervision and human-machine interfaces, is the cutting-edge product of Automa, Italian leader in automation.
This development system is based on a 32-bit native structure that maintains high performance levels, while offering users new and even more application possibilities.
Super-Flash 3.6 is now available and has all the best features of the earlier version. It is multi-platform, so it can generate applications that run in Windows, DOSX and soon CE and Linux. It is also fully compatible with earlier versions and comes with various standard modules (alarms, recipes, printouts and trends, etc.), as well as offering technical support.

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This new version is fully integrated with Windows and has a brand-new graphic editor for improved and more user-friendly performance.

Runtime or Royalty-Free?
Automa's development system offers a series of obvious advantages; however, at the moment companies are being particularly careful with their expenses, so investing in new automation technology is difficult, if not impossible.
For this very reason and to help users develop automation while saving money, Automa offers two free products: Runtime and Royalty-Free.

Runtime and Royalty-Free

Now you can have the new Super-Flash Runtime version for free and start using the development system immediately, by just downloading it from the company's website in the freedownload section, where you can also find future upgrades.
This free version is not a demo but a complete development system.
This means that you can develop applications for end-users cost-free and purchase hardware keys to run these applications later on, depending on their sizes. There will therefore be four different options depending on how many variables and alarms you need.
The Runtime version is ideal for anyone who has not had the chance to try out Super-Flash: just download it from the website and you're away! To help users understand the development system and exploit its potential to the full, Automa organizes demo and training sessions on its premises or at its vendors'.
Super-Flash's other Royalty-Free version requires investment at the beginning but no further expenses. After purchasing the development system, you can develop as many applications as you like for free, in the sizes you need.
The No-Royalty or Royalty-Free mode, which also still up-to-date, was invented by Automa about ten years ago to launch the first version of Super-Flash in the aim to help customers save money. Companies still tend to sell development systems and royalties separately for each application developed with the same system (royalties or Runtime keys), forcing customers to spend double.
Automa, however, still tries to understand market dynamics and anticipate needs with cutting-edge products and services designed specifically to satisfy new customer demands.
After inventing the NO Royalty version, Automa has waved its magic wand once again to come up with yet another creative, original, innovative and winning offer: the Runtime version, the free development system.
Automa's new strategy is now complete, as it allows the user to choose between:

• Royalty-Free version: you pay for the development system, but no royalties on the applications
• Runtime version: you pay for royalties on the applications (depending on how many variables and alarms you need), but the development system is free

Automa: integration at your fingertips
Super-Flash is the best-known product, yet Automa's market strategy is actually much more complex. Five fingers for five business areas (HMI, MONITEL, CAM, EPS and SPECIALS): this sums up Automa's mission of encouraging integration and interactive communication between the various levels of a company's computerized system, as in the workings of a hand, where every finger is independent but constantly coordinated with the others.

Integration at your fingertips

In fact Automa's objective is to perfect solutions that can enable effective integration between two production areas (PBC or control and HMI) and management (EPS and ERP), by developing a complete and multi-sector solution rather than focusing on just one area.
Automa is most famous for Super-Flash, which is leading product of the " Supervisione Libera" line (a complete range of products and services for facilitated development of human-machine interface and supervision applications). However, Automa is not limited to developing SCADA or HMI, as it also provides qualified software engineering services that help many companies develop highly reliable and functional products.
Over the past few years, in line with its integration philosophy, Automa has been working on EPS, offering services and projects for managing and programming industrial production. For example, MainteX is an application for programmed maintenance management, whereas DOLPHIN is a software product designed to simplify communication between HMI and EPS systems.
In addition to the above fields, Automa has a particular strategic interest in CAM (developing specific software capable of carrying out machine tool work simulations). In fact Automa is working on a specific product that will soon be launched on the market.
This "made in Italy" software house, founded in Pedrengo (Bergamo) in 1987, has achieved success in all these fields, becoming a high profile name in industrial automation.