Reviewer details
Name: Brian Clark
Position/Designation: Senior Electrical Engineer, Services
Company: Sappi Enstra mill
Tel: (011) 360 0296
e-mail: [email protected]
Product details
Vendor: Siemens Automation & Drives Southern Africa
Contact person: Rocco de Villiers
Product name and version: SIMATIC WinCC Version 5.0
Tel: (011) 652 2000
e-mail: [email protected]
General
Q: What industry (eg mining, food and beverage, automotive etc) is the scada being applied in? Describe the application briefly.
A: Pulp and paper.
Q: Who did the system integration?
A: AST - Inventory Technologies
Q: Approximately how many man-hours did the integration take?
A: 1200 hours.
Q: How is the after-sales support handled (eg remote-dial-up, e-mail etc)?
A: On-site support.
Q: What sort of licensing agreement is used on the system? Does one licence cover all modules, or can the user only buy those modules that he wishes to use?
A: SIMATIC WinCC is modular in design and can be expanded as our needs dictate, however for this project only standard SIMATIC WinCC was required. Each system has a software licence dictating its capabilities.
System architecture
Q: How many tag points does the installation have? Analog? Digital? Maximum possible?
A: 3100 digital and 230 analogs. The system is scalable from 128-64 000 I/O points.
Q: What operating system is the scada running on (eg Windows NT, Unix etc)?
A: Windows NT currently, although it is also available for Windows 2000.
Q: What impressed you most about the architecture? Open standards, wide range of drivers, the ability to upgrade, etc? Please elaborate.
A: The seamless integration to SAP and PTS due to the use of open standards.
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 currently, although full visualisation and control is possible through the use of SIMATIC WinCC's web offering. True thin-client access is also possible through the use of Windows 2000 terminal services.
Q: What sort of redundancy is built into the system?
A: No redundancy was utilised in this application, although full seamless, bumpless redundancy is on offer as an option, whereby SIMATIC WinCC can guarantee 100% reliability of data.
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 graphics were developed in 3D format, the open environment of SIMATIC WinCC allows easy use of ActiveX components as well as a variety of graphic formats to be imported.
Q: How would you describe the library of graphic images?
A: SIMATIC WinCC has a library of over 3000 professionally drawn symbols in ActiveX format, for easy access to properties.
Q: Did you use any 'special' images (eg embedded video clips, photographs, 3D images etc)?
A: 3D graphic design throughout.
Compatibility
Q: Did you run the scada in conjunction with any third-party application software? Describe.
A: Yes, with our company's product scheduling system, integrating via DLL libraries.
Q: Does the scada allow for the user to create scripts to perform specific tasks? Describe.
A: All scripting was done in C++ within SIMATIC WinCC. A full-blown C++ editor is embedded and allows for full module engineering within SIMATIC WinCC.
Management reporting
Q: Is a trending and historical data reporting system included? Please elaborate.
A: Yes, archiving of data is part of the standard package and is stored in the Sybase database which is the foundation for SIMATIC WinCC, together with realtime and alarm data for easy retrieval either to the in-built reporting module or any third party package able to interface with a relational database. Visualisation of the trends is easily done either vertically, horizontally or in table form.
Q: Is a management reporting system included in the package?
A: A comprehensive reporting module is a standard feature of SIMATIC WinCC.
Q: Is the system integrated into a manufacturing execution system?
A: Yes, PTS product scheduling and product tracking (barcoding).
Q: Is the scada system integrated into a management reporting or control system (eg SAP, Baan)?
A: SAP.
Q: Who integrated the scada into the MES and ERP?
A: AST - Inventory Technologies.
Q: Describe the integration process.
A: SIMATIC WinCC is connected to an Oracle database used on site via DLL libraries built up by Inventory Technologies within SIMATIC WinCC; this in turn has a direct connection to SAP. This was the easiest and cheapest way of integrating into the SAP system at this site, direct integration to SAP is however also supported.
Q: Was any additional software development needed? Please elaborate.
A: Yes, development was done in the C programming module within SIMATIC WinCC for the barcode readers and barcode printers.
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: The complete openness of the system, being fully integrated into the SIMATIC S7 range of PLCs, one would expect a more proprietary system. This is not the case however, from SIMATIC WinCC's database being an off-the-shelf relational database, C++ its script engine, OPC being its communication foundation and ActiveX being the graphic standard. All these factors contribute to making SIMATIC WinCC very easy to integrate into any third party package, database or PLC.
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