SCADA/MES Recommendations

[AustinConrad]

Hi Everyone, My company is about to have a meeting to sit down and talk about where we want to head with developing a SCADA and MES system. Currently we have some WonderWare and some home grown applications doing both. We want to see what some integrators and other engineers/Technicians have to say about a lot of these SCADA and MES systems. We don't want to go with our home grown application anymore and want to seek which directions would be the best bang for our buck. Some background information, We currently have about 15 buildings on site and about 5 more buildings in other states. about 98% of our PLC's are Rockwell ranging from PLC 5's to the newest compact logixs and control logix. But we have been brining in some siemens PLC's. We were looking into ignition for its cheaper costs to run compared to WonderWare but we want to hear from everyone on their Pro's and Cons of the different systems that you guys use to help us base out where we want to go. Thank you in advance!

 

[Old Man]

Ignition "Hands Down". Mqtt for your remote location and Opc-Ua for your local network.

 

[AustinConrad]

Ignition "Hands Down". Mqtt for your remote location and Opc-Ua for your local network.

What MES is best to go with Ignition? From what i see ignition just seems like a SCADA from just playing around with it a bit.

 

[JordanCClark]

Sepasoft makes an MES package to use with Ignition.

https://www.sepasoft.com/

 

[AustinConrad]

Sepasoft makes an MES package to use with Ignition.

https://www.sepasoft.com/

Have you used Sepasoft? pros/cons with it?

 

[Old Man]

Here's a great read.

https://inductiveautomation.com/blog/the-benefits-of-integrating-your-mes-system-with-scada

 

[the_msp]

Ignition all day over WonderWare.

They play real nice with Allen Bradley, and also have drivers for Siemens. If you say just bringing in Siemens, then likely 1200 or 1500, which you can talk to over OPC-UA rather than using the Siemens device driver. You can talk to the older s7-300 and 400 using their driver, or KepWare OPC too.

The SepaSoft MES, is, in my opinion not as polished in resources as the IA core SCADA. If you only have basic MES requirements, such as OEE, these can be scripted directly in Ignition. If it is full block track and trace, you may want to go on a SepaSoft training course.

Have a search for "Inductive University". You can learn Ignition there, at your own pace, for free.

One last thought, for now. If you are coming from WonderWare, you would be better off choosing Vision. It is older, more stable. Their new release, Perspective, was primarily released to make their software friendly for display on mobile phone and tablets. While it is more modern looking, it is still in active development. Vision looks slightly dated now, but the learning curve for someone coming from WonderWare will be much easier.

IA has a great forum, too.

 

[JordanCClark]

I was using Ignition before the Sepasoft package came along, so my MES operations are home grown within Ignition.

+1 on use of Vision to start if you're coming from another Scada package.

 

[cardosocea]

I can't quite tell you what the solution is other than it's not GE. Good luck.