Automation technology, which is widely used in the industrial field, has brought changes to modern manufacturing enterprises. Standardized production and increasingly fierce market competition have also enabled more industrial automation production to start digital transformation. Many enterprises often face some challenges in the process of digital transformation:
- How to effectively collect production data from field equipment and mine its value?
- How to efficiently schedule different automation systems to work together?
- How to realize the seamless integration of industrial operation technology (OT) and information technology (IT), and then complement the advantages of the two?
We often hear that HMI solutions help the digital transformation of manufacturing enterprises. As the data center of the factory, it can help enterprises better meet the above three challenges.
The traditional HMI is called the Human Machine Interface (Human Machine Interface), which generally refers to the industrial panel, which is used for the operator to monitor and operate the equipment. Today’s HMI is interpreted as Human Machine Interaction, and HMI can be conceptually extended to an industrial visualization system, which includes a series of software and hardware product combinations at the industrial operation layer. In addition, human-computer interaction also emphasizes the feedback interaction of the visualization system for people, that is, user-friendliness and user experience.
Siemens Technology Riding the Industrial Wind
Rooted in the soil of China, what kind of flowers will bloom?
Faced with the development of the HMI industry, how does Siemens as a technology company do in it? The first thing that must be mentioned is the rich product line of Siemens.
Siemens SIMATIC HMI includes hardware and software products, and is one of the core products of Siemens factory automation. Its technological advancement and reliability reflect Siemens’ consistent craftsmanship of excellence.
HMI hardware provides us with a visualization window, including well-known wonderful panels, simple panels, comfort panels, and unified comfort panels; while HMI software refers to PC-based HMI, SCADA (Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition, Supervisory control and data acquisition system), and industrial operation layer software products, including WinCC (TIA Portal), SIMATIC WinCC, WinCC OA, SIMATIC energy management and Braumat/Sistar, etc.
It can be said that for any size project, we have the right products to meet the needs of customers.
The overall SIMATIC solution integrating Siemens PLC, HMI, industrial communication, etc., plays an important role in assisting the digital transformation of many Chinese enterprises. One of the successful cases, the National Speed Skating Hall, is a good example of how we know what our customers want and help them solve problems efficiently.
As an important venue for hosting international competitions, the National Speed Skating Stadium has the largest full-ice design in Asia, and has high requirements on the ice surface—for different sports, the temperature control requirements of the ice surface are also different.
In order to centrally control the operation status of the control system and auxiliary equipment in the venue, the Siemens SCADA system SIMATIC WinCC with high reliability and flexibility is used in the venue. With its existence, the condition of the whole ice surface is clear at a glance. Combined with the automatic control system based on Siemens redundancy and safety PLC, it can independently control the temperature of different units on the entire ice surface, and can make ice by sub-regional and sub-standard ice-making according to different competition events.
In addition, the energy management software SIMATIC Energy Manager Pro, as the core of the energy management solution in the ice-making system, can continuously monitor and evaluate the operation efficiency of the equipment, realize the visualization of the energy consumption of the venue, and provide data support for further decision-making and implementation of energy-saving measures. , which reflects the world-leading technological elements and low-carbon elements of the National Speed Skating Hall.
SIMATIC Energy Manager Pro helps venues continue to save energy and costs.
In addition, SIMATIC HMI can also be seen in many domestic industrial application scenarios. For example, SIMATIC operation panels are used in various OEM equipment and production lines; WinCC/Audit software that conforms to GMP standards is the first choice for SCADA solutions for pharmaceutical equipment; WinCC Advanced/Professional is used in internationally renowned automobile production lines; WinCC OA is widely used in the tunnel industry. Shine bright; Braumat/Sistar helps beer companies upgrade their production lines; SIMATIC energy management helps realize transparent low-carbon dairy factories, etc.
In order to meet the challenges, SIMATIC HMI is constantly innovating.
In recent years, Siemens has introduced the WinCC Unified visualization system for industrial digitalization to the market. It can be configured in Siemens unified engineering platform TIA Portal (Totally Integrated Automation Portal) or industrial edge software. It is based on HTML 5, SVG (Scalable Native Web technologies such as Vector Graphics, scalable vector graphics), JavaScript, and can run on a variety of devices.
WinCC Unified also supports the VoT (View of Things) function based on the SIMATIC S7-1500 PLC, which is extremely flexible.
In addition, the open interface of SIMATIC WinCC Unified allows it to exchange data and work together with other systems, providing a solution for building a future-oriented industrial IoT data and scheduling platform.
Prospects for the development of SIMATIC HMI
Digital technology is continuing to affect the development of the manufacturing industry, and the production process of modularization, autonomy, and full digital integration has gradually become an indispensable part of the manufacturing value chain.
I believe that in the future, production machines will be connected to the Industrial Internet of Things in the form of “things”, self-learning and self-optimization through various applications, and the automation system will be upgraded to the level of “machine intelligence”. Give more intelligent tasks.
In this trend of technological development, Siemens SIMATIC HMI will incorporate the latest IT technology, AR (Augmented Reality, Augmented Reality) / VR (Virtual Reality, virtual reality), voice and gesture control, facial Identify and other disruptive technologies, focus on building a digital production platform and ecosystem intelligence at the industrial operation layer, and further help Chinese corporate customers to take the lead in the tide of digital transformation.
