Reviewer details
Name: Hendrik Badenhorst
Position/designation: System analyst
Company: BMW South Africa
e-mail: [email protected]
Product details
Vendor: Anytech
Contact person: Cedric Brown
Product name and version: ZenOn Version 5
Telephone: 011 708 1992 or 082 418 9110
e-mail: [email protected]
URL: www.copadata.com
General
Q: What industry (eg mining, food and beverage, automotive) is the scada being applied in? Describe the application briefly.
A: Automotive sector, The Paintshop application. ZenOn is the officially nominated product used in BMW Paintshop plants worldwide.
Q: Who did the system integration?
A: Eisenmann and Wetron.
Q: How is the after-sales support handled (eg remote-dial-up, e-mail)?
A: Local representation in the form of Anytech provides the support for the product as well as communication with COPA-DATA via e-mail.
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: The licensing for the system is unique, in that it provides flexibility for each customer to purchase only those modules and types of variables required for the particular application.
System architecture
Q: How many tag points does the installation have? Maximum possible?
A: The project has a tag count of 10 000 implemented over 21 workstations communicating to S7 Programmable controllers from Siemens. ZenOn has licences for Systems from 256 I/O to 16 000 and an open (unlimited) licence.
Q: What operating system is the scada running on (eg Windows NT, Unix)?
A: Microsoft Windows CE/ME/NT/2000/XP operating systems are supported. Once engineering of an application is completed Windows 2000 or XP for example, the application can then be simply be ported to another OS, for instance Windows CE.
Q: What impressed you most about the architecture? Open standards, wide range of drivers, the ability to upgrade, etc?
A: The flexibility of the product, being able to be used on operator panels as well as PC workstations. A wide range of drivers is available for PLCs, soft PLCs, operator panels, databases and fieldbus systems.
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?
A: The application is connected to the BMW intranet. Remote configuration of the system via the network is of great benefit, as well as full remote control.
Q: What sort of redundancy is built into the system?
A: The redundancy functionality is the real strength of the package in that the architecture allows any of the machines in the topology to be allocated as a standby machine; this is particularly useful in operator panel HMI applications.
Graphics
Q: Describe the graphics development process - eg did you use standard library images, or did you have to draw images from scratch?
A: The images used were previously generated for the Munich Plant. Graphics can be imported in the following file formats: jpegs, bitmap, gif, dxf and Windows metafile.
Compatibility
Q: Did you run the scada in conjunction with any third-party application software?
A: Not in this application.
Q: Does the scada allow for the user to create scripts to perform specific tasks? Describe.
A: The major strength of the product lies in the integrated VBA (Visual Basic for Applications) scripting, which provides integration across the Microsoft Office Suite of applications. The use of VBA, being a popular programming language will enable our staff to reach a level of expertise speedily.
Management reporting
Q: Is a trending and historical data reporting system included?
A: All trending and reporting is implemented in the system.
Q: Is a management reporting system included in the package?
A: Yes, production and manufacturing reporting is implemented in the software and is complemented by the ZenOn's VBA functionality and Microsoft Office.
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: The standardisation policy-makers at BMW identified the multi-operating system flexibility, circular redundancy functionality and networking capability of the software as key factors to the successful operation of the paintshop application process.
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