billysmithde2
Member
I have a great opportunity - we are building a new plant and moving out of our leased facility. I can recommend what our new network will look like in the plant, and I ask any of you if you would kindly share any nuggets of knowledge in designing/building a control network from the ground up.
Currently, we have mostly islands of automation, though we are moving to more central control / data historian type setups. I want to put a system in place that meets the following needs:
1. Meets our current needs, and will scale easily in the future for whatever may come
2. I am able to publish a list of specifications for equipment builders / designers so that systems that come will ready to connect to the plant network
3. I would like a central data server for all manufacturing operations with trending / historian, etc. We are evaluating various software proposals (AB Factory Talk, Wonderware, Inductive Automation, etc.).
4. The current plan is to support Ethernet/IP and Modbus/TCP, and require ethernet on all new systems. I also would like to limit the number of PCs on the plant floor: hard to manage with updates and security, lease vs buy, reliability, etc.
Any thoughts on other things I should do in our new plant? What tips and tricks have you learned along the way that you would do or not do if you had to build a new plant control network?
Currently, we have mostly islands of automation, though we are moving to more central control / data historian type setups. I want to put a system in place that meets the following needs:
1. Meets our current needs, and will scale easily in the future for whatever may come
2. I am able to publish a list of specifications for equipment builders / designers so that systems that come will ready to connect to the plant network
3. I would like a central data server for all manufacturing operations with trending / historian, etc. We are evaluating various software proposals (AB Factory Talk, Wonderware, Inductive Automation, etc.).
4. The current plan is to support Ethernet/IP and Modbus/TCP, and require ethernet on all new systems. I also would like to limit the number of PCs on the plant floor: hard to manage with updates and security, lease vs buy, reliability, etc.
Any thoughts on other things I should do in our new plant? What tips and tricks have you learned along the way that you would do or not do if you had to build a new plant control network?