Register now or log in to join your professional community.
All systems are more or same its the strong support one always seek
I would like to share my opinion. I have been working as automation engineer doing visualisations for almost 20 years now. I have worked with Rockwell Automation - Factory Talk, SIemens WinCC, Wonderware and many others. True is, these big brands are for quite some time on a market, so you get quite stable well tested system. However on the other side, they are not able to inovate their products and most of them are quite outdated especially compared to a newer products.
The best experience I have had so far is with product myPRO from mySCADA technologies. They are quite young company, however they succeeded to deliver quite popular product, with some advantages as running on Windows, Linux and even Mac OS X, scalable graphics, web based, I think they use SVG and HTML5 for that, very nice Graphical designer with many functions to speed up development (other are light years behind) and what is the best integrated drivers for all major PLC makers including OPC UA
The Scada Software in terms of Price and Efficiency is difficult to classify as what i say is Scada selection should be on a Price to Performance Ratio
Most of the Major Player
SIEMENS - WinCC , WinCC Flexible
Rockwell - RSView
GE - Cimplicity
Schneider Electric - WonderWare . Vijeo Citect
National Instrument - Lab View
First of all, I want to make it clear that I work for Wonderware... but I am not trying to sell you Wonderware because ultimately the decision is based on your individual needs.
ALL HMI/Scada will essentially deliver you the same type of end application, and unless you need to do anything advanced (integration with other applications, long term history, etc) you will be satisfied.
Within our market space (HMI / Scada) there are what we consider the4 major players that make up the most marketshare. Wonderware (InTouch), Rockwell AB (RSView), GE (Cimplicity) and Siemens (WinCC) - NOT NECESSARILY IN ORDER OF MARKET SHARE. There are MANY others, that are good, and could work for you... and a quick Google will find them.
You can look at these products many different ways, but I like to use an automotive industry analogy.
These products are very similar to trucks from the top automakers. All trucks, regardless whether it is a Ford, GM, Toyota or Dodge (HMI companies), will get you to your location (end application)... otherwise they wouldn't be trucks (HMI's). The difference comes from the journey, beginning to end.
The things that I believe are important to the user (driver) is:
1 - Ease of use in development. Some HMI's (good, bad or indifferent) require a functional knowledge of coding. Some are point and click configure. Find the development environment you are most comfortable with and enjoy, because you will be spending a long time in it... and the overall success of your application will depend on it. (Equate this to the trucks interior and ergonomics)
2 - Service and Support. When you do have a problem, whether it is application specific or software bug, how good is the effort to help you resolve your problem. When it is time to upgrade your application, is your previous engineering effort protected, or will you have to re-do everything. If you need engineering help from a third party Integrator, how easy is it to find someone to help. (Equate this to having trouble with your vehicle, and then finding a service station that can help you tow it in, fix it fast, be cheap and friendly)
3 - Training. Always important to the success of any project. Obviously your comfort has a lot to do with your ability to develop an application. The more comfortable you are, the more time you can spend on actual projects versus figuring out the HMI software.
4 - The Vendor. The used car salesman of the analogy, but they play a very important part in the success of your projects. A saleman should be able to help you architect, and sell you only what you need, not for the sake of selling licenses. A good saleman will listen to you, and offer you advice based on past experience. If their product does not fit your need, then they will not try to force you to buy it and should recommend something that WILL help you.
My suggestion to you is to invite all of them in to see you. Keep in mind the above things when asking your questions, and ask them to perform (or demonstrate) their development environment to do something simple (add a graphic of a device, add a pushbutton, trigger the device on/off, set an alarm, trend data, blah blah blah. This will give you a good idea, by watching the "expert", what your experience MIGHT be.
Then go with your gut. There are Chevy drivers that will NEVER drive a Ford, even though they are both capable of doing the job. Their reasons are usually the ones I outlined above.
It depends on the application you are working with, but from the view of advanced tools, rich programming environment Wonderware InTouch is the best but it's pretty costy, also you have FactoryTalk view SE but it's limited in visualization, programming environment, and needs third party OPC servers to communicate with protocols other than used with its own brand (Rockwell Automation), but it's cheaper and very handy in assigning tags and interfacing with physical Controllers IOs.
WinCC is pretty much used with Siemens Automation families, you also have Vijeo Citect which is more enhanced in visualization, programming environment than FT View and it has one more advantage that it can be used for interfacing with stadard communicaion protocols (like Modbus TCP or RTU) without needing third party OPC server, also cheaper than Wonderware.
SIEMENS WinCC7.3 and WinCC V are the best SCADA softwares for in terms of efficiency.
Schneider WonderWare and GE Cimplicity will be the best by considering price.
Hi,
I would like to share my opinion. I have been working as automation engineer doing visualisations for almost 20 years now. I have worked with Rockwell Automation - Factory Talk, SIemens WinCC, Wonderware and many others. True is, these big brands are for quite some time on a market, so you get quite stable well tested system. However on the other side, they are not able to inovate their products and most of them are quite outdated especially compared to a newer products.
The best experience I have had so far is with product myPRO from mySCADA technologies. They are quite young company, however they succeeded to deliver quite popular product, with some advantages as running on Windows, Linux and even Mac OS X, scalable graphics, web based, I think they use SVG and HTML5 for that, very nice Graphical designer with many functions to speed up development (other are light years behind) and what is the best integrated drivers for all major PLC makers including OPC UA
they also have solution for mobile devices working quite well especially the iOS version. The Android version is OK but bit behind as is not yet updated to latest version.
However what I liked the most is independence on WIndows updates, we have several installation of myPRO running on WIndows Server 2012 and there never was a problem even when upgrading to newer OS (If you have tried that with Rockwell Factory Talk you know what I am talking about!)
Oh and one last think, there is no limit on number of clients connected.
To be fair to other SCADA makers, I still didn't see many references mySCADA is having so I am not sure if they are known outside Europe.
If you have tried mySCADA, please share your opinion, I would be very interested.
Ignition is the best SCADA software. its free software and very reliable
In my point of view Schneider Electric- Vijeo Citect SCADA is the best in efficiency and price
I think the answer is requiring a lot of search for meeting the standard in your industry and the process. So, Does this product meet global standard? In the world security and cyber-attack is very important to look for these. Mrs. Geetika Pahuja has a lot of information I agree with her is very good idea in inventing multiple vendor.
The Question we should ask Does these systems of Scada (ALM system/security/ human factor etc.) meet global standard.
There are standard in how easy the HMI is easy to use (Human factor engineering)
Here are some standard to make the control room more easy to use (human Engineering):
ISA RP60.3
ISA 101.01
ISA RP60.3
And others related to human factor and how it make the control room is easy to use.
