SCADA - Ignition vs Wonderware, Siemens S7-300 via Profibus

From the sounds of things you really need to be looking at an MES package or module on-top of the SCADA system. It is possible to do it just with SCADA although you will be rolling your own code and reports a lot of the way. Might be OK at the start, but once things start growing and expanding can easily get out of hand.

I've recently just deployed a mid-size MES system (4 sites, 50 entities, 40+ PLC's) using Wonderware Line Performance Suite and the end result is great. LPS is basically a wrapper on-top of the MES Performance module suited for production/packaging lines.

There was some hiccups along the way, and still some minor niggling issues (LPS is still only early days at V1.1, with 2.0 being released early next year) although the built-in web interface and reporting is fantastic.

There is subscription based licensing available as well, which makes entry cost for a pilot system easier to get over the line.

A caveat is that typically the architecture is a multi-server design. We are utilising 3 cloud based servers for the IDE, MES database and Historian with an Application Server at each site.

PM me if you want some more info or real-world screenshots of the system.

http://software.schneider-electric....ns-management-and-mes/line-performance-suite/
 
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Definitely do NOT connect to the Profibus network for the data acquisation system. Definitely keep all Profibus masters from each others network.

As to the interface, I'm looking at adding a SIPLUS Lean Ethernet modue to the PLC
I am guessing that the "SIPLUS" is a misunderstanding. SIPLUS are regular hardware with wider temperature tolerances. They are correspondingly more expensive.

That one will work fine, only the performance of any CP on an S7-300 isnt great since the data has to pass over the relatively slow MPI backplane bus. If the data rate is not very high it will be OK.
 
Thanks for the clarification Jesper. Siemens is not my first language so I'm always on the learning curve with the Germans :)

There is not a huge amount of data required and there is no real requirement for control of the system per se. So speed should not be a big issue.
 
"Downtime tracking" is a bit of a grey word. It's the gateway into MES functions. The company that provides MES functionality for Ignition is Sepasoft. They have an OEE module for Ignition (among other MES modules), so I was trying to understand what downtime meant in your case. You can create some basic tracking with just Ignition, but depending on your vision it might be good to look at the OEE module as a starting point. A bit more of an investment up front but you won't out grow it like you might a custom Ignition solution.

I had a look at the Sepasoft module. Looks really good, but $20k? Ouch!

I can see that at the right scale it would be massively worthwhile, but for a one-machine proof-of-concept starting point, that would absolutely price me out of the job. I think I'll keep that module in my back pocket for now (y)

Edit: just saw that you can get a single machine license for a mere $5k. That might be an option...
 
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Edit: just saw that you can get a single machine license for a mere $5k. That might be an option...

Glad you realized that!

Anytime you cross into the "MES" world it's going to cost more, no matter who you go with. For POC, you could run in 2-hour demo mode as an in-house POC.

So yeah depending on what the long-term goal is and if capital funds will be available...
 
Also note that, in my opinion, MES is harder to implement than the basic scada. Yes, there is inductive university for both, however getting up and running in 30 mins first time for SCADA wasn't the same for MES. If it's simple MES functions, you can code your own in Jython. I've done this for some SPC functionality.
 

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