I am doing a project, which is based on coneecting around 13 workstations in the cable industry. The workstations have S7-300 & S7-400 PLCs. The main task is to connect all those independent machines via cables, and its operations monitored on a single PC. What is the most efficient possiblities of connection? Profibus-DP with WIN CC on the main PC... Thought of networking via MPI connection or the use of ITCP (new)-use of HTML.

Please do help me out. Don't have much knowledge in this field... am an engineering student

 

You should study the possibility to use industrial Ethernet and HMI software to control PLCs.

Ethernet today is the most advanced technology.

It is easy to use and (re)configure. HMI (like Citect) would be perfect for monitoring all PLC's work.