Reviewer details
Name: Lourens Olivier
Position/designation: Automation
Company: Everite Building Products
Telephone: 011 903 8049
e-mail: [email protected]
Product details
Vendor: GE Industrial Systems
Contact person: Peter de Lange
Product name and version: Cimplicity v.5.5
Telephone: 011 238 3000
e-mail: [email protected]
URL: www.gesa.co.za
Q: What industry (eg mining, food and beverage, automotive) is the scada being applied in? Describe the application briefly.
A: In the fibre cement products industry: Cimplicity is used from batching up to the packaging process (all processes displayed on the scada system).
Q: Who did the system integration?
A: Lodicon.
Q: Approximately how many man-hours did the integration take?
A: Approximately 400 man-hours. This refers to time taken to do the redundancy and a system upgrade as part of the integration of the available system at the time.
Q: How is the after-sales support handled (eg remote-dial-up, e-mail)?
A: This was done by phone or e-mail, and also on-site visits from the system integrator.
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: Each licence is unique. Annually 5-10 'safe' licences are purchased from GE Industrial Systems - this depends on the foreseeable expansion to be done during the year.
System architecture
Q: How many tag points / I/O does the installation have? Analog? Digital? Maximum possible?
A: Currently we are running approximately 7000 tags that expand on a daily basis. There are approximately 2000 analog and 5000 digital tags.
Q: What operating system is the scada running on (eg Windows NT, Unix)?
A: Cimplicity is running on Windows NT4 and Windows 2000 Professional.
Q: What impressed you most about the architecture? Open standards, wide range of drivers, the ability to upgrade, etc? Please elaborate.
A: I was impressed that it is Windows-based, and works on the same dropdown menus and expansions as in Explorer, is easy to configure and very user-friendly. Also, that it provides many different ways to configure and display tags. The ease of setting up communication between the various kinds of PLCs and the scada is also very good. Dynamic online configuration is available to a very large extent even up to dynamic import and export of device tags, and security features like operator logins.
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 is running on a separate industrial Ethernet network, therefore is not connected to a LAN network. The only link is a shared SQL database.
Q: What sort of redundancy is built into the system?
A: There is server redundancy, that works as primary and backup domain controllers. This ensures optimal functioning of the organisation's control systems, and guards against software or hardware failures.
Graphics
Q: Describe the graphics development process - eg did you use standard library images, or did you have to draw images from scratch?
A: One can use the existing library images or create them easily from scratch - we did both in our case.
Q: How would you describe the library of graphic images?
A: It is a very good basis to work from.
Q: Did you use any 'special' images (eg embedded video clips, photographs, 3D images)?
A: No not as yet.
Compatibility
Q: Did you run the scada in conjunction with any third-party application software? Describe.
A: Yes, the data is transferred to an SQL Version 7 database. We also communicate from one PLC to another using the Cimplicity scada software.
Q: Does the scada allow for the user to create scripts to perform specific tasks? Describe.
A: Yes, it is fully Visual Basic-integrated.
Management reporting
Q: Is a trending and historical data reporting system included? Please elaborate.
A: Yes, that is the SQL database previously referred to. This comprises two identical separate databases from the redundant server.
Q: Is a management reporting system included in the package?
A: Yes, but we are not using this yet.
Q: Is the system integrated into a manufacturing execution system?
A: Not yet, but the capability is there to draw this into the Maximo system we are using.
Q: Is the scada system integrated into a management reporting or control system (eg SAP, Baan)?
A: See previous answer.
Q: Was any additional software development needed? Please elaborate.
A: No not as yet.
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: What impressed me was the flexibility, ease-of-use and the capacity and speed of the system to process information. It is also exceptionally user-friendly.
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