Which HMI should I use? Cimplicity, WW, WinCC

G

Thread Starter

glen.boston

We are looking into replacing our Siemens COROS HMI with a new HMI system. (COROS is no longer supported by Siemens.) We currently have Cimplicity and WonderWare in use in other areas of our plant, and of course, Siemens is interested with using their new WinCC. This will be communicating mainly with Siemens S5 and Sim-D control systems. This is a large system with many terminals and a large amount of data transfer.

Does anyone have experience with all three systems? Which did you prefer and why?
No sales calls please. I’m trying to get an unbiased opinion.
 
Hi Glen,
why don't you check out Iconics? I would recommend you to investigate their product. For large systems it is more suitable then the others. Specially with the large amount of terminals you may use the WebHMI where Iconics has got also references.

What I like at Iconics is the short development time and they provide development free of charge.

Hope that helps
 
I have not experienced with Wonderware and cimplicity but have experienced WinCC. It has not very good response. Quite cumbersome in configuration and has low performance specially when multitasking is required. I used it only for monitoring of Power Plant Loads. I used version 4.02 but may be new version 5 is better.
 
D

Donald Pittendrigh

Hi All

Siemens has some large WinCC installations as reference but you should also be looking at Citect, I believe they still have one of the largest SCADA applications in the world running in Australia. There is information on their website.

DP
 
I would use anything but Wonderware. Wonderware seems to charge more than anyone else to do the same thing. plus they rev the software and release it before its tested then you have to go download their patches.
 
I've installed a multi client WinCC application with 4 servers and 14 clients running an entire plant. Things to beware of before using it. You need strong C programming skills as all your scripting and major development will be done via this. Ensure the drivers to your plcs are available and have been stress tested by Siemens......I had serious issues with TI plcs...and their meant to be Siemens owned. Other wise the system is very powerful, super graphics with a much better look and feel than Intouch and Fix.

Before choosing WinCC be sure you spec your system totally, tag count, system design (client server etc) and get guarantees from Siemens that your design can be implemented or else you'll spend most your time writing c programs to get around your issues, trust me, been there. Anyway be willing to spend time developing, it's not as drag and drop as intouch and the like. But I would recommend it just for its power...
 
Hi Glen !
I have been working with both WinCC and Wonderware (also FIX).

Now to the point:

Intouch
Advantages:

I think that Wonderware is really easy to work with. You can quickly build your application and most of the functions you just "point and click".

So you can learn how to work with Intouch in a short period of time and there isn't many major errors that you can do when you build your app. It's easy for the maintainance people to understand how to work with it and alter pictures and connections..

Disadvantages:
But as soon as you must make something out of the standard the solutions will tend to be a bit messy. And you can get to problems that you don't can solve by just using Intouch. And one big problem (but they can have changed it now since I havent worked with it for 3 years) is that the Tag database isnt fun to work with. The main problem is to get a nice overview and a structered storage of different groups.

Siemens WinCC:
This system is the application that I have worked with the last 4 years. Version 4 (especially the early ones) was a bit instable and could lock up quite a lot under the development.
Late versions 4 was much better.
Version 5.1 is really stable.

Now the advantages (as I think).

It's well structured.
For example:
The different functions of the SCADA is divided into several different programs.
Picture program.
Alarm ...
Taglogging ...
Reports ... (this program is of no or little use)
Global Scripts ...
Textlibary ... (for multiple languages)
User admin ...
and others...

This is good because in a big project it will get easier to get an overview of the app.

WinCC is also very open. This is good when you must do something out of the standard. Then you can make C-scripts that calls the different WinCC API:s (dll) or the Microsoft SDK:s and make your own functions in a very standardised way. Also if you must make a script you can make it in ANSI C then you can get a good structure and fast processing.
And the script language together with WinCC is very effective if you want to build smart auto adressing objects (valves, motors...). Also there is a wagon load of examples and functions that you can find on the net.

The UADMIN is also a very good example on the structure. You can make different permissions
that you can use on the objects (for example P field on your Controller you can have a P-change permission). Then you make users groups and if you add a user the user will get the default permisssions of the group but you can easily add/remove permission on the individual user. In Intouch you must have som sort off authorizations value and give the user a certain value.

The WinCC is made later than Intouch so it's a newer technology (object oriented and a "real" SQL database).

The disadvantages:
It takes time to learn.
In a small project it will take time to configure.
If you get an unexperienced WinCC programmer then you might get a real mess of a project that you can directly "drag and drop" to the trashcan.
It's rather hard for the maintainance people to understand how to work with it and alter pictures and connections.
It's easy to make C-scripts (for the unexperienced programmer) that make your app to crash irregulary (by using pointers in scripts).
There is many new "addons" that are very unstable and stupid (addons can be like MS "let the users find the bugs").
If you find a obvious bug then it's very hard to get Siemens to understand that and to fix the problem.
The WinCC app demands a very powerfull computers and the server must be a dedicated server (no picture viewing).
The common phone support is understaffed (in Sweden anyway) but you can get better support if you pay for it.

I have never worked with Cimplicity so i can't say anything about it...

Another advantage (maybe) with WinCC in your case is the import function for COROS LS-B/FlexOS or COROS LS-B/WIN. You can import some of your old app. into WinCC. But I assume that you want to get a "fresh" start with your new app (as always when upgrading old systems).

I hope that this helped :)

Best Regards
Mathias Lindgren (Sweden)
 
A

Alok Varshney

Leaving apart the technical differences between the 3 systems that you have in mind (as there may not be much significant differences anyway), what you would like to consider are other factors like how was the support with Siemens, how much stake does Siemens have in your plant to give you good support in future, local support available from the other vendors you have in mind and especially what other people in the same industry as yours are doing.
 
I've installed a multi client WinCC application with 4 servers and 14 clients running an entire plant. Things to beware of before using it. You need strong C programming skills as all your scripting and major development will be done via
this. Ensure the drivers to your plcs are available and have been stress tested by Siemens .....I had serious issues with TI plcs... and they're meant to be Siemens owned.Other wise the system is very powerful, super graphics with a much better look and feel than Intouch and Fix.

Before choosing WinCC be sure you spec your system totally, tag count, system design (client server etc) and get guarantees from Siemens that your design can be implemented or else you'll spend most your time writing c programs to get around your issues, thrust me, been there. Anyway be willing to spend time developing, it's not as drag and drop as intouch and the like. But I would recommend it just for its power...
 
P
I suspect that the Chorus system you refer to is in a plant and performance is an issue. We have looked into making a listener on the network so that the replacement system can be tested passively on the system and then be switched to active.

One of the upgrade issues is the development of replacement HMI screens and here if there are many, it becomes better to automate the translation to lessen the initial work and possible errors.

Finally, commenting on the large Citect system, that was a very slow system with some scan times in minutes. We have 20,000 point systems checked out at 50-100Hz update rate on all points.

Peter Clout
Vista Control Systems, Inc.
176 Central Park Square
Los Alamos, NM 87544-4031
(505) 662-2484
FAX (505) 662-3956
[email protected]
http://www.vista-control.com
 
M

Martin Roberts

Hi Peter,

Which Citect system are you referring to that has a scan time of several minutes? The large Citect system at Olympic Dam as described on our web site
has a scan time of less than 1 second with 450,000 tags.

Martin Roberts
General Manager, Technology
Citect

Peter Clout wrote:
> Finally, commenting on the large Citect system, that was a very slow system with some scan times in minutes. We have 20,000 point systems checked out at 50-100Hz update rate on all points.<
 
P
Hi Martin,

I was referring to a project that was highlighted at an ISA show some two years ago. I do not recall the name but the parameters you mention are about right.

Performance is multi-dimensional of course. Some of the dimensions are:

1. Number of physical and logical IO points. A common limit used to be around 64k but now the normal limit 4B

2. Rate at which IO can be read. This is limited by the capability of the hardware itself, the communication channel, the operating system and the HMI software architecture running on the operating system. For this purpose, when comparing HMI packages, the IO hardware and the
communications channel should not be considered.

3. How the data read has to be analyzed and distributed. Clearly if it is read and simply thrown away, one can go much faster than if alarm checking, data conversion, data distribution and recording data to disk has to be all done. In fact, if some of these are at adjustable rates that are slower than the scan rate, more dimensions are added.

Now, back to the ISA show. When one multiplied the numbers, one saw that about 500,000 values were being read, stored to disk, checked and
distributed to many operator nodes every second. I asked a Citect representative about this and was introduced to the person who was, as I recall, the Citect project manager for that very project. Well, it soon turned out that the actual load that was achieved by a single computer was
much less than the multiplication of the numbers would suggest.

I am not knocking Citect but rather pointing out that over-enthusiastic marketing department claims have to be looked at in detail against the
requirements of a particular application and its requirements. Any benchmark has to reflect the application in mind to be useful.

Peter

Peter Clout
Vista Control Systems, Inc.
176 Central Park Square
Los Alamos, NM 87544-4031
(505) 662-2484
FAX (505) 662-3956
[email protected]
http://www.vista-control.com
 
M

Martin Roberts

Hi Peter,
Yes, performance is multi-dimensional and the 'scan rate' is just one part of that measurement. Sure, the system is not storing to disk 450,000 tags per second or processing all of them as alarms. It's storing 20,751 tags to disk at rates between 1 to 60 seconds and processing 61,737 as alarms. As with typical controls systems, most of the data is not that important, but just useful information to operators.

But it's not correct to say it has a scan rate of several minutes. The response time of the system is less than a second. So if you flip a bit in the PLC on any of the 450,000 tags, an operator at any of the 75 control station will see the change on the screen sub 1 second.

Martin
 
J
I have used both WW and Cimplicity. I have used Wonderware for the last 7 years and not much has changed in 7 yrs. Apart from the fact that they moved from 16 bit to 32 bit.

Cimplicity I have used since it broke away from the Wonderware engine that it used before, approx 4-5 years ago.

Cimplicity has move features and tools and is still easy to learn and use out of the box. Cimplicity is true client/server and larger range of licensing choices. At our site we have 5 Servers and 15 clients, the client can be resticted to 1 project or connect to any project. Security control is way ahead of WW.

We use Cimplicity for data logging and on demand trending, something that is very clunky in WW. In Cimplicity you can right click on any object on the screen and trend it, great for troubleshooting.
We have used Cimplicity API's to built custom programs and extentions, with great success.

Cimplicity is very, very stable.

I like Wonderware, and I would recommend it for small simple projects, however, Wonderware has limited expansion capibilities. Cimplicity can take you further in enterprise wide solutions if you wish to go in that direction.

I have seen GE add great features and tools to Cimplicity in the last 3 years. That is clearly surpases WW in larger solutions, more than 2 connect projects, or if you want to use process data on the business systems.

We have looked at Siemens products, we have one Siemans S5 on site. And I would consider it if you have a majority of Siemens equipment, but Siemans seems to be more 'closed' or Siemens centric about their products. If your controls are all Siemans then its not an issue.

Siemens would have better support for their Controls, because both WW and Cimplicity have very limited selection for communication with Siemens equipment and you will most likely need a 3rd party solution. We looked for an Interface to an Ethernet Card on a S5 PLC and found nothing for WW or Cimplicity, only serial comm and both included this.

I tried to sum this up in a small message, if you have other questions you can contact me directly.

Jason David
Process Control Programmer
IRM
 
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