Does anything beat Wonderware?

[Archie]

I meant development speed, not I/O polling speed

I apologize because my post was on two different aspects, but I made them run together without realizing it. I did actually mean in development time in my first statement, but comparing an HMI development time relative to a SCADA development time is not an apples to apples comparison because an HMI is generally simpler therefore faster to develop.

Not related to development time, if you need a tool with extremely high speed screen refresh, then nothing can out perform AdvancedHMI in neither the available HMI or SCADA software.

 

[arlenjacobs]

Speed of development is what makes Ignition leave everyone else behind.
Not to mention everything else mentioned here:
Online manuals, examples & support, as well as the different model of unlimited tags & clients!

Question for everyone: how do you feel about local & long-term support for Ignition?


I ask because it's a relatively small, single product company. Ignition is about 6 years young, so not a lot of history to prove there.
The SCADA features, licensing and framework are awesome. But I feel leery about these items:
- local people to maintain & code (ie. 3-5 years later who knows it?)
- support for the end user (that isn't the OEM or integrator)
- long-term support 15-20 years later


Siemens, Schneider, & Rockwell have been and will be around for a long time; they give you that stability. But their SCADA software is not.... modern.
I feel like they are the best after you develop and commission the SCADA. As was said by the OP, money is no object.

But something like Ignition definitely wins all the way up to commissioning (install, license, develop, help).

A battle between the best SCADA for development vs. runtime?

 

[Paullys50]

I ask because it's a relatively small, single product company. Ignition is about 6 years young, so not a lot of history to prove there.

Not quite entirely true. Ignition's roots are FactoryPMI and FactorySQL which were released back in 2003/4?, Ignition was born as Inductive Automation created a PLATFORM, much the same as the Factory Talk platform, or System Platform from WW. FactoryPMI became what is known as the "Vision" module (HMI), FactorySQL became the "SQL Bridge" (historian, sql transactions). So the roots of Ignition are quite established.

If you run through the list of integrators on their site there are plenty, pay more attention to certified ones as those integrators have vested interest. They have completed course work and have been TESTED on their knowledge. I am a certified integrator, and there is a large amount of work to be done to get to that point. It is NOT just attending and paying for a class to get a certificate by showing up. You have to prove you have a good understanding by being tested. Took me 60-80 hours to get through it all and submit my test project.

It's a great product, they provide extensive online free training, and a modern licensing model. I can't see them not being around long-term unless they disrupt the industry so much that it forces the likes of Rockwell and Wonderware to change their entire licensing structure to be price-competitive. With that said, I've run into many facilities that are "locked" into Factory Talk or Wonderware and simply put up with the BS of them both due to the $$$$ they have already invested. Who is going to take the bullet and say "I think we should change..."

You can do so much more w/Ignition, so much easier w/Ignition, so much cheaper w/Ignition that people are motivated to learn it and implement it.

 

[m_turk]

What?!? No WinCC fans out there?

Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha

I'm a bit biased because I've had to work with it a lot, so I didn't want to "defend" them, but...

What is exactly the problem with WinCC?

I'm angry at it every other day when I work with it, but when I had to do other SCADA/HMI, I was banging my head to the wall every 5 minutes.. (looking at you iFix more than others.. But RSView, Wonderware and a few obscure ones too).

WinCC in Tia is espetially user friendly when a project is middle sized.. (but still buggy and not for large projects).

I would really like to know...

 

[harryting]

I'm angry at it every other day when I work with it, but when I had to do other SCADA/HMI, I was banging my head to the wall every 5 minutes.. (looking at you iFix more than others.. But RSView, Wonderware and a few obscure ones too).

I know that feeling. The thing is, even when I hate iFix, now I know it very well to do things that would take me forever in other packages.

Always take people's opinion on matter like this with a grain of salt. I once had a PC programmer telling me to just use C for HMI, only a dummie would pay for a HMI package. Another time, a "engineer" tries to control an entire plant with a Siemens Building Control System, since... that's what he knows and everything else seems like overly complicated to him.

Having said that though, there are some members of this forum that I would listen to more than other on matters of opinion

 

[curlyandshemp]

Question for everyone: how do you feel about local & long-term support for Ignition?


I ask because it's a relatively small, single product company. Ignition is about 6 years young, so not a lot of history to prove there.
The SCADA features, licensing and framework are awesome. But I feel leery about these items:
- local people to maintain & code (ie. 3-5 years later who knows it?)
- support for the end user (that isn't the OEM or integrator)
- long-term support 15-20 years later


Siemens, Schneider, & Rockwell have been and will be around for a long time; they give you that stability. But their SCADA software is not.... modern.
I feel like they are the best after you develop and commission the SCADA. As was said by the OP, money is no object.

But something like Ignition definitely wins all the way up to commissioning (install, license, develop, help).

A battle between the best SCADA for development vs. runtime?

Don't agree with your comments. The product called Ignition has been around since 2010, but Inductive Automation has been around since the early 2000's.

Last time I was at Inductive's Folsom location, they had close to 100 employees, do you consider that a small company?


Best thing about about Ignition, it is not OS specific, where FactoryTalk and Intouch, W/W or whatever the heck is called now are at the mercy of Microsoft.

How many times have you seen a post on this forum where a new version of Windows is released and some FT, or WW software no longer works with the latest Windows release?

 

[arlenjacobs]

It's a great product, they provide extensive online free training, and a modern licensing model. I can't see them not being around long-term unless they disrupt the industry so much that it forces the likes of Rockwell and Wonderware to change their entire licensing structure to be price-competitive.

You can do so much more w/Ignition, so much easier w/Ignition, so much cheaper w/Ignition that people are motivated to learn it and implement it.

That's what I was getting at. Is the trade-off worth it:
What's good about Ignition (pricing, easy, capable) is better than what's good about the big automation vendors (longevity, global support, popular).

• Siemens 348,000 employees (91,000 related to automation)
• Schneider 180,000 employees
• Rockwell 22,000 employees

Those are big companies, and they have invested lots into global services and people. It has to play a part in saying "which is the best SCADA", right?
Or does the licensing, pricing, ease of use and training outweigh all of that?

 

[Paullys50]

Those are big companies, and they have invested lots into global services and people. It has to play a part in saying "which is the best SCADA", right?
Or does the licensing, pricing, ease of use and training outweigh all of that?

But what fraction of those resources are devoted to SCADA, 1/10? It is skewed due to the hardware/distribution services of these companies.

A software product like SCADA is different. Distribution is done over the internet, support is done over the internet. Completely negates the need for local resources. Need SCADA support from Rockwell, Siemens, Schneider, Wonderware? Well a local tech isn't coming out, you're calling a phone bank to some central office. In the case of SCADA, they will open a Webx or gotomeeting to get eyes on the problem and help you out in real time. Exception, if you're a BIG manufacturer that spends $$$$ then you'll have a corporate specialist on the first flight to/from anywhere.

If your company doesn't have the resources to be somewhat self-reliant, then you are correct the decision is more about finding the best local integrator you can and accept that you are a sheep to them, and the big boy they are in bed with. Regardless of the platform, if your local integrator provided it, they are pretty much your only option especially if it's complex. Doesn't matter if it's Wondeware, Rockwell, Schneider, Ignition.

The other side of the coin, big business means bureaucracy, slow updates, slow change and you may or may not get the best tech support anyway. Ignition being a smaller company is actually a nice change. I've been to their offices on a number of occasions, met the developers and staff. I've made suggestions to improve the software which have been considered and some implemented. Typically if there are bugs in the software they can address them and put out updates much much quicker than the big boys. Not to mention the framework it is built upon, Java. It can run on just about anything, the risk of performing windows updates is minimal as it won't impact Ignition (unless it wrecks java), Ignition updates are simple.

Imagine this scenario "Corp IT has mandated that all servers need to be updated to Windows 2012 R2, this includes all automation resources. "

Who panics because they are using Wonderware System Platform?
Who panics because they are using FactoryTalk View?
Who panics because they are using Ignition?

 

[mbartoli]

Not quite entirely true. Ignition's roots are FactoryPMI and FactorySQL which were released back in 2003/4?, Ignition was born as Inductive Automation created a PLATFORM, much the same as the Factory Talk platform, or System Platform from WW. FactoryPMI became what is known as the "Vision" module (HMI), FactorySQL became the "SQL Bridge" (historian, sql transactions). So the roots of Ignition are quite established.


It's a great product, they provide extensive online free training, and a modern licensing model. I can't see them not being around long-term unless they disrupt the industry so much that it forces the likes of Rockwell and Wonderware to change their entire licensing structure to be price-competitive. With that said, I've run into many facilities that are "locked" into Factory Talk or Wonderware and simply put up with the BS of them both due to the $$$$ they have already invested. Who is going to take the bullet and say "I think we should change..."

You can do so much more w/Ignition, so much easier w/Ignition, so much cheaper w/Ignition that people are motivated to learn it and implement it.

This is why we are giving a real hard look at biting the bullet and moving all 4 of our sites from our mix of Citect and Cimplicity to Ignition. Our annual license support fees alone will pay for the Ignition licenses, and I can see by our initial investigations that the development curve will be much easier to handle.

 

[AGill]

Although its more of the SCADA front end for ABB/Bailey Infi-90 and not an HMI platform, for the love of all that's good, stay away from Symphony+.

I have never in my career taken part in beta testing as an end user on a live system... feeeeling the pain...

 

[jgreenewv]

Although its more of the SCADA front end for ABB/Bailey Infi-90 and not an HMI platform, for the love of all that's good, stay away from Symphony+.

I have never in my career taken part in beta testing as an end user on a live system... feeeeling the pain...

I performed the same function using Honeywell Plantscape a number of years ago. The company I worked for at the time repped a system builder that decided to jump into Plantscape as a move away from WonderWare. The three jobs we installed and commissioned were horrendous, the software never worked properly for an extended period of time, and the two folks they had that went to the (I'm sure super expensive) training left after six months to go work directly for Honeywell. Plantscape lasted for max two years at each site before it was ripped out and replaced by (of course) WonderWare.

 

[KNeland]

Easy to choose

I've worked on ifix (Intelution), Cimpliticy, FT and Wonderware and all have their Hi and low points, but after working with ignition it's no contest. Previous posters have detailed the advantages...Only issue possibly that I've heard is possible security issues as it's java based.

 

[bluenoser337]

If everyone posting here had ever tried VTScada software for their HMIs, there would only be one answer here. Check it out at www.trihedral.com.

 

[padees]

Not getting into this pony race, but the only two facilities up here that had Wonderware switched to FT. I would like to try Ignition some day, but when you get older and can do much better things with your free time, Why?

 

[arlenjacobs]

If everyone posting here had ever tried VTScada software for their HMIs, there would only be one answer here. Check it out at www.trihedral.com.

Bluenoser?!? Doesn't that = NS love
You can't have an unbiased vote when Trihedral is FROM Nova Scotia!

...kidding aside. VTScada does look interesting.