PLC/Drives File Management System Advice Needed

[jj28west]

Hello PLCS nation,

I am a newbie hoping you can point me in the right direction in starting my journey.

I work for a company that has several manufacturing facility division.

In my plant we do continuous processing of metals like rolling mills, strand annealing, etc

We have a typical layout where a manufacturing process cell is in a specific area

For example....we have a rolling mill work center designated by a number code from our enterprise system for each specific roiling mill and within that roiling mill we have stations separated by stand # or takeup spooler which obviously have different panels and drives, etc

Just like any other company we have several OEM PLCs such as Siemens and AB and GE and some Automation Direct along with Parker Drives, Siemens Drives, Gefran Drives, etc

What I am trying to do is improve the current management of the PLC/Drive changes that are made. Currently the 3rd Party Integrators leave a usb flash drive in the panel which has the latest changes.

What I am looking for is a file management system that is able to accommodate the various PLC software and drive OEMS, etc that is able to incrementally backup "x" amount of rev changes.

I was thinking sharepoint but I dont know of the file types can be managed this way.

In time I hope to be the main point of contact for Integration Controls but I never see myself not working with 3rd Party integrators

I do not have anything listed in weighted priority as considerations but cost and security will definitely be up there.

Thanks for reading!

 

[PreLC]

I would highly recommend utilizing Git. If you are using Windows, you can use GitExtensions to make your life easier when using Git.

Commit any type of file into it, Text/Binary, you will have good support for it and will be able to have a changelog of virtually infinite revisions, although you can setup your own rules to limit that, or compress the intermediate revisions.

Here's a good starting point:
https://git-scm.com/book/en/v2/Getting-Started-About-Version-Control

 

[jj28west]

I would highly recommend utilizing Git. If you are using Windows, you can use GitExtensions to make your life easier when using Git.

Commit any type of file into it, Text/Binary, you will have good support for it and will be able to have a changelog of virtually infinite revisions, although you can setup your own rules to limit that, or compress the intermediate revisions.

Here's a good starting point:
https://git-scm.com/book/en/v2/Getting-Started-About-Version-Control

Wow! Thanks for taking the time PreLC! I will check this out.

 

[theColonel26]

C-O*P#I_A.io uses Git on the backend but provides Diffing views for code changes etc.

PreLC will say it is a waste of money but apparently he has a lot of free time on his hands where he can Cobble a system on of his own.

I just need stuff that work, and I don't have time for that stuff

This is a diff view for a change I just made while debugging some IO on machine in the field.

 

[PreLC]

Haha theColonel is a sellout, that's all I'll say.

Never pay for something that you can get for free, plus, this software wouldn't work for your application with drive data backup/storage...

 

[TheWaterboy]

I like what C*0*P*I*A has to offer. Git with a visual frontend. It's just not something I can afford to spend on every month.

And whoever reported him for this needs to settle down a bit.

 

[theColonel26]

Haha theColonel is a sellout, that's all I'll say.

Never pay for something that you can get for free, plus, this software wouldn't work for your application with drive data backup/storage...

Free is relative, You ever heard the joke about the free horse?

They have PLC auto backup for plants now. But you are correct it wouldn't help him auto backup drives.

but he could still store the manually backup files from the drives in a ***** Repo, there just wouldn't be a Visu Diff for those files.

I can't live with out ***** anymore, makes my life so much easier.

 

[AlfredoQuintero]

Free is relative, You ever heard the joke about the free horse?

I have not. Would love to read the joke to understand the context of your explanation, and because I suspect will be hilarious. I like this discussion and I am learning a lot.

By the way, I can not find the webpage or information about C-O*P#I_A.io

 

[theColonel26]

Free is relative, You ever heard the joke about the free horse?

I have not. Would love to read the joke to understand the context of your explanation, and because I suspect will be hilarious. I like this discussion and I am learning a lot.

Well "free horse" is the actual punch line of the joke. No such thing.

The purchase price of the horse is the cheap part. The expensive part is hundreds of dollars for grain ever month, vet bills, bill for horse shoes and huff care, price for saddles, and bridles etc and saddle and bridal repair, price to have a place for it to graze and roam. Horse Blankets, and Heating Lamps for winter, oh and Groomer. Or you could do most of that your self, but poorly spend alot of your time doing it.

C*O*P*I*A.io just handles all the details of a git system for you. GIT for PLC is alot more complicated than just using GIT for Text base programming languages like Python, C++, C# etc.

C*O*P*I*A.io has server that run the various propriety IDEs and have custom software in place to seamlessly convert your .ACD or .Project binary files to XML based where their servers further render it back to you as a visual project structure with a Diff. All of that is done automatically for you, plain git will do none of that. you can set up a system to automatically open things in Rockwell's Compare tool, or Other vendors compare tools, but it will take forever to load each diff, and it will just be a pain. ***** caches diffs so you can switch back and forth between commits rapidly and see what changed.

By the way, I can not find the webpage or information about C-O*P#I_A.io

The PLC Talk website owner censors the actual word *****.io because someone reporting me for advertising. I have in no way affiliated with *****, I just like there software and have been wanting the solution they offer for a long time, since I was familar with Git using it for dotnet/c# development.

The owner seems to have a person dislike for me, and ignored me when I tried to talk to him about it he even deleted my thread talking about the ban in the "Casual-Talk" room.

Here is a screen shot with the web address

 

[TheWaterboy]

I don't think the word is censored because of anything you did, several manf names are censored, NOWE (spelled backwards) is another one. I believe the reset creds to old SLC500s is another one.

The owner of this site deems it necessary for some reason. Might be a personal feeling about the manf, might be professional as in the manf read something bad and threatened action against the publisher.

He doesn't go out of his way to filter beyond that.

And he pays the bills.

 

[AlfredoQuintero]

theColonel26, thanks very much for your explanation. Very enlightening. I am also impressed about your knowledge of horses.

 

[jj28west]

Thanks to all who shared their insight.
I am going to share the two solutions with IT that the security meets their standards and play around with both solutions.
Again...thanks for taking the time!