Reviewer details
Name: Jacques Lizemore
Position/designation: Assistant engineer Instrumentation
Company: Hernic Ferrochrome
Telephone: 012 381 1181
E-mail: [email protected]
Product details
Vendor: Citect
Contact person: Niconette du Toit
Product name and version: Citect Scada v6.0
Telephone: 011 699 6600
E-mail: [email protected]
URL: www.citect.com
General
Q: What industry (eg, mining, food and beverage, automotive, etc) is the scada being applied in? Describe the application briefly.
A: Processing: Hernic Ferrochrome has applied scada to its palletising and sintering No. 2 plant and a new 78 MVA fourth furnace which is all managed through its world class control rooms.
Q: Who did the system integration?
A: The system integration was done by Citect PS.
Q: Approximately how many man-hours did the integration take?
A: 1280 hours.
Q: How is the after-sales support handled (eg, remote-dial-up, e-mail etc)?
A: The after-sales support is handled by Citect directly through communications by telephone, fax and e-mail.
Q: What sort of licensing agreement is used on the systems? Does one licence cover all modules, or can the user only buy those modules that he wishes to use?
A: Six licences are supplied for the four I/O servers (alarm, trend and reporting) and two display clients.
System architecture
Q: How many tag points/I/O does the installation have? Analog? Digital? Maximum possible?
A: Total tags are approximately 50 000.
Furnace: 15 383 digital tags and 8105 analog tags.
Sinter plant: 17 713 digital tags and 9676 analog tags.
Maximum tags possible; approximately 150 k.
Q: What operating system is the scada running on (eg, Windows NT, Unix, etc)?
A: Microsoft Windows XP Professional.
Q: What impressed you most about the architecture? Open standards, wide range of drivers, the ability to upgrade, etc? Please elaborate.
A: Wide range of drivers, the ability to upgrade.
Q: Is the system integrated onto an intranet or the Internet? If so, does the configuration allow simple remote monitoring, or is it configured to allow full remote control? If not, what level of intranet/Internet control does the scada allow for future use?
A: Not yet - in planning phase for integration to intranet.
Q: What sort of redundancy is built into the system?
A: Two servers for every plant thus four. Both servers can take over all functions from the down server such as alarm, trend and reporting as well as all communications.
Graphics
Q: Describe the graphics development process, eg, did you use standard library images, or did you have to draw images from scratch?
A: All from scratch by internal graphic artist.
Q: How would you describe the library of graphic images?
A: N/A The unique graphics were developed to the client's needs and requirements by Citect's internal graphic artists and system engineers.
Q: Did you use any 'special images' (eg, embedded video clips, photographs, 3D images, etc)?
A: No.
Compatibility
Q: Did you run the scada in conjunction with any third-party applications software? Describe.
A: No.
Q: Does the scada allow for the user to create scripts to perform specific tasks? Describe.
A: Yes. Citect uses its own scripting language for scada. CiCode is designed specifically for plant monitoring and control applications. CiCode changes the functionality of Citect scada to fit the client's needs. It is easy to use and easy to grasp.
Management reporting
Q: Is a trending and historical data reporting system included? Please elaborate.
A: All process data, values, operator actions and alarm history are stored for three months.
Q: Is a management reporting system included in the package?
A: Yes, but not yet incorporated into existing system.
Q: Is the system integrated into a manufacturing execution system?
A: No.
Q: Is the scada system integrated into a management reporting or control system (eg, SAP, Baan)?
A: No.
Conclusion
Q: What impressed you the most about the system? What was the predominant feature (or features) that made you decide to employ this scada, rather than another (ie, ease of use, support from the vendor, upgrade path, redundancy features, etc)?
A: Support from the vendor, upgrade path, redundancy features.
We also have 10 other Citect Scada licences and a Plant 2 Business licence already configured and running.
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