Reviewer Details
Name: J.S. Fourie
Position/designation: Systems Supervisor C&I
Company: Avgold Target Div.
Telephone: (057) 452 4544
e-mail: [email protected]
Product details
Vendor: Futuristix
Contact person: Mike le Plastrier
Product name and version: Wonderware Factory Suite
Telephone: (011) 723 9900
e-mail: [email protected]
URL: www.futuristix.co.za
General
Q: What industry (eg mining, food and beverage, automotive) is the scada being applied in?
A: Mining.
Q: Describe the application briefly.
A: The system is used to control the following plants in the underground workings: 10 refrigeration plants, four main fans, four condenser spray ponds, six evaporator spray ponds (bulk air coolers), automatic shaft ore loading and dispatching system, 7 km of man and material conveyor system, environmental monitoring system, surface ventilation fans.
The surface system is used to control the backfill system, and the following areas at the metallurgical process plant: ore handling, primary milling, secondary milling, thickening, leaching, adsorption, electrowinning and smelting
Q: Who did the system integration?
A: SAM, but most of the development of the underground system integration, enhancements and all the reporting was done by in-house personnel. Signet engineering was responsible for most of the graphics of the metallurgical process plant, but the reporting and other enhancements was done by in-house personnel.
Q: Approximately how many man-hours did the integration take?
A: It is very difficult to say as the project was done in different phases and some of the development was done at Signet in Australia.
Q: How is the after-sales support handled (eg remote-dial-up, e-mail)?
A: All the first lime maintenance is done by in-house personnel but a dail-up facility and telephonic support is used.
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: A user only purchases the modules that are needed for his application.
System architecture
Q: How many tag points / I/O does the installation have? Analog? Digital? Maximum possible?
A: Approximately 22 000 in total.
Q: What operating system is the scada running on (eg Windows NT, Unix)
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: The ease with which the system allows you to create your own graphics and integrate it into a total control and reporting system utilising open architecture and integrating ability of the software.
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: The system uses Suite Voyager as a portal into the scada system it allows full control via the intranet with user name and password protection, but we decided to use the intranet as a monitoring only tool.
Graphics
Q: Describe the graphics development process - eg did you use standard library images, or did you have to draw images from scratch?
A: Most of our graphics were drawn from scratch but there are a lot of standard libraries that can assist with the development of the system.
Q: How would you describe the library of graphic images?
A: The library is easy to use and annotate but if a person wants a special graphic then it is better to develop your own.
Q: Did you use any 'special' images (eg embedded video clips, photographs, 3D images)?
A: No.
Compatibility
Q: Did you run the scada in conjunction with any third-party application software? Describe.
A: Yes - we are extracting data from the scada system to generate work orders and maintenance schedules in Maximo.
Q: Does the scada allow for the user to create scripts to perform specific tasks? Describe.
A: Yes - in certain areas we use various input data to control a single point according to parameters set in the scripts.
Management reporting
Q: Is a trending and historical data reporting system included? Please elaborate.
A: Yes - we use the active factory package that allows users to generate their own from the data in the InSql server, this package makes it so easy to extract historical data in the form of reports, trends etc.
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)?
A: In choosing our scada, we used a panel of five people that looked at various packages with particular reference to the following criteria:
* Market share in South Africa.
* Ease of use for the operators.
* Ease of configuration.
* Expandability.
* Cost.
A rating/waiting scale was used and the result was Wonderware Factory Suite.
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