Can someone briefly explain Wonderware HMI/SCADA offerings?

I'm going to be working on some InTouch and System Platform projects - I've not worked with WonderWare before and am wondering if someone could give me a quick run-down of the different HMI/SCADA offerings so I can wrap my heads around their potential applications.

With the transfer of IP between Invensys / Schneider, and Aveva, I'm a little confused on how the different products are positioned, who the target end-user is, and potential use cases.

The Wonderware / Aveva website outlines a few different products, and I'm not sure the difference between them.
- InTouch HMI
- InTouch Edge (InTouch Machine Edition?)
- System Platform (formerly Archestra System Platform?)

I understand (roughly) InTouch is HMI and System Platform is SCADA. Not quite clear on the difference between the two InTouch platforms.

To make things a little more confusing for me, from what I've read there seems to be a lot of info about InTouch interoperability with System Platform. I get the sense that they are moving toward a single IDE, kind of like Rockwell FTView Studio manages both ME and SE applications.

Also noticed OASys which appears to be marketed toward Oil and Gas. Citect seems to be a competing offering (originally part of Schneider?).

Thanks!

InTouch is, as you have suggested, their HMI offering. I've only ever seen it used on PC's for rather large/complex/potentially dangerous systems though, and only as an HMI.

I'm not sure about their SCADA platforms, though. Generally, with something like this, I don't mind calling up their tech support department or sales and asking to have the differences explained to me.

Something else I just thought about: WW has their own scripting language. It isn't an offshoot of VB like a lot of HMI systems are (such as FTV and iFix). Just wanted to give you a heads up in that regard. All-in-all though, it isn't too bad of a system to work with. I've honestly been pleasantly surprised when I've had to use it / modify it.

There is no brief explanation to that one!

InTouch, historically speaking would be an "HMI" project, but at the same time it did evolve into a SCADA product and was pretty powerful.

System Platform, well it's a "platform" which connects various types of software services. Within this platform ,"InTouch" still exists and and really has duties as the "Visualization", albeit that's not entirely accurate thanks to WW's fudged up licensing options. System Platform introduced "Archestra" graphics, Objects/templates, .net script functions, all kinds of "Engines", can't forget "Galaxies", as well as the new IDE. The platform also has options for historian, reporting, device connectivity, central management and deployment.

Best of luck! Make friends with your local WW distributor, get signed up for their WDN (knowledge base, previously called Wonderware Developers Network) and find things you can throw in the office that won't cause serious injury!

I cringe anytime I have to touch a System Platform project, "Hokey", "undeploy/redepoy", "uninstall/reinstall" are all descriptors and solutions proposed by technical support.

Oh, and if you want to install just InTouch, you still need the full 4.5+ GB file repository of all things System Platform to just install InTouch.

"Classic" Intouch has been around for ages. Its relatively easy to use if you've used other HMI packages. Tag database, simple graphics linked to said tags, either a flat file historian or ability to link tags to a historian. Easy peasy.

System Platform is a whole different beast. It allows you to build object templates, define attributes for those objects, link graphics into each object etc. And you can build objects into more complex objects, e.g. 3 motor objects into a conveyor object.

If you're smart, then your object structure follows your PLC tag structure, i.e. Conveyor1.Motor1.Running in the previous example. Then tag auto assignment works great.

But.. complexity goes up, and i wouldn't recommend even attempting to work on a system platform implementation without being trained first. Classic Intouch.. I've never been trained and i figured out the basics in a day.

I personally think that System Platform is good for very large systems with multiple engineers where you need a way for the system to enforce standards. But for smaller plants... you really do need to do a LOT of work before you even put your first graphic on screen.

Another wrinkle is that Aveva also includes Indusoft. The long term plan I believe is to have Indusoft Web Studio be the HMI and embedded platform, Wonderware for the upper level and to discontinue Citect. There are developments with every release to make Wonderware and Indusoft file formats common and/or portable.

For a new system, selecting Wonderware for an HMI level application would not be a good choice. Indusoft is lower cost as well, particularly if you use a Windows embedded O/S.

Thanks for the info - definitely clears things up.

Regarding InTouch:
They are still marketing two different versions on it on their website:
- InTouch HMI
- InTouch Edge (InTouch Machine Edition?)

Still confused on how these two are different, but it sounds like one is more the "legacy" InTouch and the other is meant for more integrated applications.

This should explain InTouch Edge. Given that Wonderware is basically Indusoft http://www.indusoft.com/Products-Downloads/HMI-Software/IoTView

Cody said:

..... and to discontinue Citect.

Click to expand...

That's certainly not the message that's been spread around by Schneider and Aveva in the UK......