Log analyzer and historian

Good afternoon,
i have in the shopfloor many hmi each producing its own production reports in various formats, xml, txt, pdf; usually these reports are stored in a local directory and i should collect them using a usb stick.

I would create a system to collect automatically each log from every machine and display trought a consistent and unique gui interface eg a dashboard, with a query system, filters etc.
Anyone faced a similar issue and what could be the best approach to solve the puzzle?

Tnx and regards.

Best approach is to not use any HMI for this at all.

Set up a (central) historian that has a connection to each PLC (not HMI) and logs all information needed directly from each PLC. This could include other things like temperatures, speed etc besides whatever is in the reports.

Make the historian accessible from the "office" network. Then you can build reports and present data by using the data from the historian.

This way you can also use data from multiple PLCs in the same report.

This is how enterprise customers do it. They collect tens of thousands values and it is stored in the historians database. You can access anything from real time data back to what happened several years ago if you want.

Thank you Pete for the reply, my concern is due to the fact that we work in a strictly regulated enviroment and i can't access directly to plcs (and most of them are pw protected and built on eterogeneous systems eg vxworks).

So i should work on raw data files generated by them, basically i should:
- import reports via ftp or other regularly on a hourly/daily basis
- index the files by date/year
- search with filters
- present each report (also in original format, without modifications)
- permit print
- hide report source or shared directory to user and prevent modifications to original files
- manage user and permissions;

bregards

marcellodj said:

Thank you Pete for the reply, my concern is due to the fact that we work in a strictly regulated enviroment and i can't access directly to plcs (and most of them are pw protected and built on eterogeneous systems eg vxworks).

So i should work on raw data files generated by them, basically i should:
- import reports via ftp or other regularly on a hourly/daily basis
- index the files by date/year
- search with filters
- present each report (also in original format, without modifications)
- permit print
- hide report source or shared directory to user and prevent modifications to original files
- manage user and permissions;

bregards

Click to expand...

OK, you need a webserver then. And you need to program some background jobs on it that does the work you need. And you need a user database and to keep track of logins. And you need to program webpages to show links to your documents etc.

So a webserver, a database and a scripting language.
This is not something that you can buy. It has to be built from scratch.

I suggest PHP as scripting language both for background jobs and for dynamic webpages. Database should be mySQL.

You looking at a couple of weeks of work for an experienced programmer IMHO - if you can ftp to all your control systems. Maybe some of them has smb share support in which case they could store their files directly on the webserver.

PS. If you like microsoft you could also use a windows server OS with IIS as webserver and vb.net for scripting. MS SQL express as database. You might have to get some libraries for VB to do ftp communication though or run the ftp communication outside vb.net.
Plenty of options actually. For instance you could stick with PHP and still use IIS and SQL express as database.