Reviewer details
Name: J. de Beer
Position/designation: snr analyst
Company: Iscor
Telephone: 016 889 9807
E-mail: [email protected]
Product details
Vendor: Rockwell Automation
Product name and version: Rsview SE 3.1
Vendor telephone number: 011 654 9700
E-mail: [email protected]
URL: www.ra.rockwell.com
General
Q: What industry (eg, mining, food and beverage, automotive etc) is the scada being applied in?
A: The RSView SE scada control system from Rockwell Automation was installed at a steel manufacturing plant.
Q: Describe the application briefly giving a description of any existing control systems, any previous scada system that was in place etc. If relevant describe the switchover from the previous system.
A: The plant consists of three basic oxygen converters and their sub-systems and a water treatment plant supplying cooling water to the converters. Control systems per converter include the following: flux addition, alloy addition, converter tilting, lubrication systems, oxygen lance position control, sample and temperature lance position control, oxygen blowing, bottom blowing, waste gas analysing control, skirt lifting, slag detection, off-gas control, weighing scales and interfacing with a level 2 steel process model server. The water treatment plant control 28 cooling fans, 46 pumps and 120 control valves. All the control systems were replaced with an integrated control system - PLC Controllogix and RSView SE. Previously the control systems were relay logic and operator control desks with pushbuttons and selector switches etc (installed in 1974).
Q: Who did the system integration?
A: Kentz Automation and Drives did the system integration.
Approximately how many man-hours did the integration take?
A: Integration of the control systems was dependent on plant availability. The integration for the new control systems was split into four phases 30 days each.
Q: How is the after-sales support handled (eg, remote-dial-up, e-mail, Internet access etc)?
A: Telephone, e-mail and Internet.
Q: What sort of licensing agreement is used on this particular system? Does one licence cover all modules, or can the user only buy those modules that he wishes to use?
A: The user only buys those modules that he wishes to use.
System architecture
Q: How many tag points/I/O does the installation have? Analog? Digital? Maximum possible?
A: There are approximately 25000 I/O points/tags and 20% of this is analog.
Q: What operating system is the scada running on (eg, Windows NT, Unix etc)?
A: Windows 2000.
Q: What impressed you most about the architecture? Open standards, wide range of drivers, the ability to upgrade, etc? Please elaborate.
A: RSView SE highly scalable architecture can be applied to a standalone one-server/one-user application or to multiple users interfacing with multiple servers. This system makes use of a multiserver multiclient application using four servers (two redundant) and 28 clients. The SE clients can be configured to view information or control from any or all of the SE servers.
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: Although RSView SE allows for remote control via Internet, it was not considered for this application due to plant security and to restricted access to plant control systems.
Q: What sort of redundancy is built into the system?
A: RSLinx and OPC data server redundancy.
Graphics
Q: Describe the graphics development process - eg, did you use standard library images, or did you have to draw images from scratch?
A: Standard library images were used.
Q: How would you describe the library of graphic images?
A: Graphics in library is more than adequate for any application and is in 3D.
Q: Did you use any 'special' images (eg, embedded video clips, photographs, 3D images etc)?
A: Photographs of the plant were used for overview screens.
Compatibility
Q: Did you run the scada in conjunction with any third-party application software? Describe.
A: The following third-party application software runs in conjunction with the scada software: VAI process models, ABB control systems and active factory from Wonderware.
Q: Does the scada allow for the user to create scripts to perform specific tasks? Describe any specific scripts that were written for this project.
A: Although the scada allows for the user to create scripts, it was not necessary for this application.
Management reporting
Q: Is a trending and historical data reporting system included? Please elaborate.
A: Trending and historical data reporting systems are included in the scada package.
Q: Is a management reporting system included in the package?
A: RSView SE is one of two components of the RSView Enterprise Series. The RSView Enterprise Series bridges the gap between machine-level and supervisory-level systems.
Conclusion
Q: What impressed you the most about the system?
A: Features that impressed me about the control system: direct referencing of controller tags, create tags only once, multi-user, distributed server, remote and multi-user configuration and the ease of engineering and development on the system.
Q: 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: Features for using this scada: With the view anyware feature, it was easy to employ the new maintenance philosophy - (limit access to PLC application programs) SE clients were utilised as diagnostic and fault finding tools. Local control pushbutton stations were replaced with SE clients (savings on installation and cable costs). All relevant alarms visible at control stations. Easy integration with PLC system. Good support from vendor - local and international. Reliable upgrade paths.
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