Reviewer details
Name: J.A. Meintjes
Position/Designation: Process IT Specialist
Company: Alpha Cement Dudfield
Telephone: (018)633 6112
E-mail: [email protected]
Product details
Vendor: Siemens
Contact person: Rocco de Villiers
Product name and version: SIMATIC WinCC Version 5
Telephone: (011)652 3683
E-mail: [email protected]
General
Q: What industry (eg mining, food and beverage, automotive etc) is the scada being applied in?
A: Cement Industry. SIMATIC WinCC covers the complete plant from the mill, through to the final product, including the palletizer and bulk loading.
Q: Who did the system integration?
A: Inventory Technologies.
Q: Approximately how many man-hours did the integration take?
A: 700.
Q: How is the after-sales support handled?
A: Remote dial-up using PC Anywhere.
Q: What sort of licensing agreement is used on the system?
A: SIMATIC WinCC is modular in design and can be expanded as our needs dictate. In this instance, the basic WinCC module was sufficient for our requirements. Each system has a software licence dictating its capabilities.
System architecture
Q: How many tag points/I/O does the installation have?
A: Approximately 4000 digital I/O and 400 analog I/O. The maximum capability is 64 000 I/O per SIMATIC WinCC server; however, servers are sizeable down to 128 I/O.
Q: What operating system is the scada running on?
A: Windows NT version 4.
Q: What impressed you most about the architecture?
A: Totally open standards and the ease of integration to the hardware.
Q: Is the system integrated onto an intranet or the Internet?
A: An Internet Web Server is available, which allows full read/write capability from a normal browser such as Internet Explorer/Netscape Navigator, depending on the user's rights. This is available with no additional re-engineering, even for scripts.
Q: What sort of redundancy is built into the system?
A: SIMATIC WinCC offers full redundancy. However, with nine individual plant areas it was decided that an Engineering Station loaded with all the projects would serve a dual purpose of remote on-line engineering, as well as system back-up node in case of a server failure.
Graphics
Q: Describe the graphics development process.
A: Inventory Technologies used their own Graphics library mainly, although SIMATIC WinCC has an inbuilt library for generic use. The open environment of 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: The variety of Graphics Images offered to us by Inventory Technologies were sufficient for over 90% of the plant's graphics.
Q: Did you use any 'special' images?
A: Full-blown 3D graphics were utilised on the auto sampler. Photographs or video clips can be easily utilised, but do not offer the same advantages or detail.
Compatibility
Q: Did you run the scada in conjunction with any third-party application software?
A: We created an interface to a third-party statistical process control trending system to optimise the cement mill control.
Q: Does the scada allow for the user to create scripts to perform specific tasks?
A: A full blown C++ editor is imbedded and allows for full module engineering within SIMATIC WinCC.
Management reporting
Q: Is a trending and historical data reporting system included?
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 built-in 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, to CIMS (Cement Information Management System) AKA Knowledge Manager.
Q: Is the scada system integrated into a management reporting or control system?
A: Information is currently being shared with SAP and full integration to SAP R4 is being planned in the next 6 months.
Q: Who integrated the scada into the MES?
A: Inventory Technologies integrated SIMATIC WinCC into our existing MES system with no difficulties.
Q: Describe the integration process.
A: The integration was done with a custom product designed by Inventory Technologies called the Database Replicator, which allows for data manipulation between any combination of databases without any additional engineering or database specific expertise.
Q: Was any additional software development needed?
A: Database Replicator was built using the standard C++ tool embedded in SIMATIC WinCC.
Conclusion
Q: What impressed you the most about the system?
A: The ease of use, especially in conjunction with SIMATIC hardware, and the ease with which it allows easy communication and integration to third-party PLCs and applications thanks to its open architecture and adherence to industry standards (C API, OPC, DNA, COM, DCOM, ODBC, etc). The integration to SIMATIC S7 allows for easy diagnostics and maintenance due to the fact that it uses the standard Symbol library within Step 7 as its database and allows 'jumping' from SIMATIC WinCC graphics to PLC code, by clicking on the object indicating a problem, ie a pump or drive.
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