Programming additional function for WinCC

J

Thread Starter

JRouke

A new function is required to go along with WinCC we used in the plant. The efficiency of a machine is obtained and displayed in WinCC runtime. What the new function is required of, are:

1. Archiving the efficiency reading over the period of that job;
2. Plotting the efficiency graph over time;
3. Following a job change, will be manually set to start another new archive;
4. Having the ability to refer to previous efficiency data/graph.

The intention of this is to be able to monitor how the machine efficiency was during the period of that job, and so will have some reference when doing the same job in future.

Are there any Siemens add-ons that do this function?

If not, I was thinking of programming it ourselves; Any idea what language will be more appropriate for this application: acquires data from WinCC, logs periodically, runs in background...etc?

Many thanks.
 
D

Daniel Chartier

Hello;
Your project description seems to require the WinCC Storage option; this allows you to archive trended values over as long a time as required (and allowed by the size of your hard disk)and display the trended value in the regular WinCC trend pages (with Storage you can then display a trended value by date/time). All you would have
to do is to create and use one or a few tags, either in the PLC or with a Script, to calculate your efficiency, then use the Tag logging setup to trend that tag, as usual.

Another option could be to transfer the tag value through an OPC client to a VB application for example; it could then acquire, archive and trend the value, buit you would have to create all the code.

Hope this helps,
Daniel Chartier
 
Hi

There is an add-on called WinBDE which is supposed to calculate downtime and efficiency information. I haven't seen the product but am led to believe it may be too limiting.

In order to program a solution I would recommend passing the data into a relational database, such as MS SQLServer or Oracle, and then performing the analysis on this data in the database. Because the data is stored in a relational format you may then use a client of your choosing to analyse the data, such as Excel, Visual Basic, web pages or even back into WinCC.

This type of solution where a central database server is used to hold the plant data is fairly common nowadays. Passing the data from WinCC to the database is easy enough, due to the fact that WinCC itself has an inbuilt relational database, supports Microsoft's ADO database scripting and has several add-ons available to pass the data from WinCC to a database.

Downtime and efficiency analysis is something that more and more of our customers are asking for and we have found the solution of pumping the data into a central database and performing the analysis there has proved very successful.

Hope this helps
Salma
 
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