Proficy Industrial Software

Proficy Software & Services from GE Vernova is used to monitor, control, analyze, and optimize industrial operations. It is designed to help teams in manufacturing, utilities, and infrastructure sectors improve performance and efficiency across production processes. Proficy can help users enhance equipment reliability, support quality efforts, reduce waste, and accelerate time to value.

The portfolio includes solutions for HMI/SCADA, MES, Production Scheduling, industrial data management, analytics, and cloud integration. Designed for flexibility, Proficy supports everything from single machines and substations to large-scale, multi-site operations—helping organizations advance innovation, enable connected workers, and pursue operational sustainability.

Industrial software refers to digital tools that are used to operate, monitor, and optimize systems in sectors such as manufacturing, energy, and utilities. These platforms are designed to help collect and contextualize operational data from equipment, processes, and people to provide better visibility into industrial activities.

By improving access to information, industrial software can help teams identify inefficiencies, adapt to shifting demands, and make more informed decisions. It plays a foundational role in helping businesses modernize, improve resilience, and scale sustainably.

Industrial automation software is used to control and coordinate machines, equipment, and production processes. It often works in conjunction with hardware like PLCs, sensors, and IoT devices to execute consistent, repeatable tasks and reduce manual intervention.

Common examples include HMI/SCADA software, which provides operator interfaces and supervisory control of industrial systems. When integrated with platforms such as MES and analytics, industrial automation software can help enhance operational consistency, reduce risks, and provide greater insight into system performance and status.

Industrial software offers a wide range of benefits across the full spectrum of industrial operations—from product development to manufacturing, automation, and supply chain coordination. It can help improve efficiency, reduce waste, enhance quality, and support faster decision-making by making critical data more accessible and actionable.

In product design and development, industrial software may support faster prototyping, improved collaboration, and better alignment between engineering and production. During manufacturing operations, it can help monitor equipment performance, optimize production schedules, reduce downtime, and ensure traceability.

In industrial automation, software platforms often provide the control and visibility needed to maintain consistent, repeatable processes. Additionally, industrial software can support supply chain management by helping coordinate material flows, track inventory, and respond more quickly to demand shifts or disruptions. By unifying data across these functions, industrial software helps organizations operate more efficiently and adapt more effectively to changing conditions.

Industrial software can help teams improve efficiency by enabling access to operational metrics such as OEE, downtime, yield, and quality. These tools allow operators and engineers to identify patterns, understand root causes, and make more confident, data-informed decisions.

Solutions in the Proficy Software & Services portfolio—including Proficy Smart Factory, Proficy CSense, and Proficy Scheduler / ROB-EX—are designed to support different aspects of efficiency improvement. Proficy Smart Factory provides visibility into performance and waste. Proficy CSense applies analytics to reduce process variability and optimize throughput. And Proficy Scheduler helps align production plans with available resources, enabling teams to adapt more effectively to demand changes or disruptions.

The main categories of industrial software include:

- HMI/SCADA – for monitoring and supervisory control of machines and processes
- MES (Manufacturing Execution Systems) – for managing production execution, quality, traceability, and compliance
- Industrial Historian – for time-series data collection and analysis
- Analytics and AI tools – for performance modeling and operational insights
- Production Scheduling – for coordinating production plans, resources, and constraints to help improve throughput and responsiveness
- Industrial Data Fabric – for unifying and contextualizing data across multiple systems and locations

Each type offers capabilities that can help teams make more informed decisions and streamline operations.

Industrial software is used in a wide range of sectors where process coordination, data visibility, and compliance are critical. These include:

- Discrete and process manufacturing
- Automotive and aerospace
- Food and beverage
- Chemicals and pharmaceuticals
- Oil and gas
- Power generation and utilities
- Water and wastewater
- Metro transit and infrastructure

Organizations in these industries can use industrial software to manage complexity, support agility, and pursue operational excellence.

Industrial software typically connects to physical equipment using standard protocols such as OPC-UA, Modbus, and MQTT. GE Vernova’s Industry Gateway Server (IGS) supports communication with a broad range of PLCs, sensors, and IoT devices from vendors like Siemens, Allen-Bradley, Emerson, Schneider Electric, and many others.

This integration helps enable data to be collected from the plant floor and viewed within software platforms for system-level monitoring, diagnostics, and performance tracking. Tools like Proficy Operations Hub can provide unified dashboards to support situational awareness and decision-making.

Industrial software can support compliance by offering features such as electronic records, audit trails, user permissions, and traceability. These tools help teams document activities and maintain oversight of operations in alignment with industry standards.

GE Vernova maintains certifications aligned with recognized practices in cybersecurity and quality. While customers are responsible for ensuring that their implementations meet specific regulatory requirements, our software can help support compliance-related workflows and reporting. More details are available at GE Vernova Cybersecurity & Compliance.

Implementing industrial software in complex environments can present several challenges. These often include integrating with legacy systems that lack modern connectivity, dealing with variations in processes and infrastructure across sites, and addressing organizational resistance to change. Limited internal resources, unclear requirements, and inconsistent stakeholder alignment can also make it difficult to deliver on project goals.

To help overcome these obstacles, many organizations look for vendors or partners with deep domain expertise, flexible deployment models, and proven implementation frameworks. GE Vernova provides a structured services methodology that includes support for requirements gathering, solution design, validation, deployment, and adoption. This approach is designed to reduce risk, improve alignment, and support successful scaling across facilities of all sizes and levels of maturity.

When selecting industrial software, companies should look for solutions that offer flexibility, scalability, and interoperability. Key features may include architecture that supports both cloud and on-prem deployment, access to unified data across teams and systems, and compatibility with existing infrastructure such as PLCs and sensors. Organizations may also benefit from modular designs that allow them to start small and expand over time, as well as tools that reduce reliance on custom code through configuration-based setup.

Ease of integration, support for multi-site coordination, strong visualization and analytics capabilities, and alignment with security and compliance standards are also important considerations. Proficy Software & Services offers a broad set of capabilities that align to these needs, supporting a variety of manufacturing types and roles. Its flexible architecture is designed to help streamline implementation, enable collaboration across departments, and support continuous operational improvement.

Data analytics and AI can help uncover operational trends, identify performance risks, and support smarter decision-making. These technologies are often used to model system behavior, detect process anomalies, and prioritize areas for improvement.

Proficy CSense enables engineers to build models that incorporate domain knowledge and historical data. These models can be applied across similar assets to help scale improvements and support optimization strategies—without requiring advanced programming expertise.

Industrial software can support multi-site operations by offering centralized templates, standardized reporting frameworks, and scalable architecture that accommodates both enterprise oversight and site-specific flexibility. This approach can help organizations align business processes, monitor performance across facilities, and streamline coordination at scale.

GE Vernova’s Professional Services team has experience deploying multi-site solutions across various layers of the Proficy portfolio—including MES, HMI/SCADA, production scheduling, and industrial data platforms. Our structured methodology includes template creation, pilot site validation, and phased rollouts—designed to support adoption, reduce deployment timelines, and promote consistency across operations.

Key trends in industrial software include the rise of cloud-native and containerized solutions, the adoption of connected worker platforms, and the advancement of industrial data fabrics that unify and contextualize data from multiple sources. These technologies are designed to improve scalability, streamline deployment, enhance data consistency, and make operational insights more accessible across roles and locations.

Vendors are also investing in platforms that support coordinated operations across complex, multi-site environments—enabling standardization, faster rollouts, and centralized oversight. These capabilities can help organizations respond more effectively to changing production demands, whether it's ramping up output, retooling lines, or managing supply chain variability. GE Vernova is aligning its Proficy Software & Services portfolio with these trends, offering solutions that aim to reduce IT complexity, support cross-site visibility, and enable smarter, faster decisions across the enterprise.