Plant floor data collection

Our company , is presently looking at a plant floor data collection system for 2 sites for both down time analysis and to reduce the excessive amount of QC generated paper work on the factory floor.
Both Rockwell (Bizware Plantmetrics) & Invensys(Wonderware)
are options.
One site is predominantly Rockwell, the other Mitsubishi with existing
Invensys systems.
Have any of you out there experience of both or either and can you
point out the short falls of both/either.

The Rockwell option vendor is obvious about the level os seamless
integration of Bizware with existing Rockwell kit, but seems shy
of looking at different manufacturers kit.
i.e. he's hesitant about anything other than out of the box comms.

Any comments , much obliged ?
Kevin

The only comment I have is that I do not understand why he is shy about other communication options. The data collection engine for the Bizware products is their transaction manager, RSSQL. RSSQL (usually pronounced rascal) is able to use/connect to OPC 2.5 (and below) servers. In fact RSSQL works best with RSLinx by connecting to it as a GENERIC OPC server. They have a specific connector for RSLinx, but if you want tag browsing capability with the ControlLogix platform you should use the generic OPC connector.

I have sucessfully used RSSQL with OPC servers from KEPWARE and ICONICS.

Darren

Have a look at Citect Plant 2 Business. It will communicate with almost anything.
Citect
beerchug

plant floor data

In fairness to the guy quoting for the job, perhaps I was'nt
specific enough. Sure RsSQL can talk to anything which is
open to OPC comms, but I'm talking about kit which perhaps
is not. Specifically I'd like to extract data from an Ishida weigher
and our Mettler "HiSpeed" Checkweigher.

The Ishaida people have offered an AB RIO card as the best/easiest
option , but Ishida have offered only the paperwork explaining
their protocol based on serial communications.

Has any one experience of talking to either of these machines.
I've heard a rumour that the Ishida weigher can act as a DDE server
but not from Ishida!

Any further comments (wise or otherwise) very welcome

thanks

Oh, that changes my answer quite a bit. Check out www.igearonline.com

We have used that product quite a bit and are very impressed with it for the very reason you state. Almost all the Plant Floor data collection products I am aware of concentrate on OPC comms, but I/Gear opens that up tremendously. Also they have an SDK so you can create your own datalinks (device interface) if their existing ones do not fit the bill. The next version will have a .NET assembly datalink so that you will be able to interface with custom business logic. Neat Stuff.


They have recently updated the website. Follow the link for "DTU data collection software"


Darren