Shulou(Shulou.com)06/03 Report--

Matrikon is a supplier of OPC UA-based and OPC-based control automation data interoperability products, providing automation vendors' advanced OPC UA development kits for all product lines from embedded devices to cloud applications. For end-user customers, Matrikon provides key data tools to best facilitate widespread data sharing among enterprises.

Provide one-stop solution for plant and equipment monitoring

Husky injection Molding Systems is a leading supplier of injection molding equipment and services in the plastics industry. Many companies use Heskey's equipment to create a variety of plastic products for the food and beverage, medical, automotive and consumer electronics markets.

Figure 1-Heskey H120

Challenges

Heskey has introduced a new generation of injection molding equipment in its more than 50 years of industry experience to provide better performance and functionality. The new generation usually includes a new controller platform that uses different protocols. Customers need to create new communication drivers between the new Husky controller and their existing control and monitoring applications. This is time-consuming and expensive for customers who rely on third-party vendors to create interfaces. Another disadvantage is that the end user is locked in the vendor's software solution. Without the resources or expertise to write their own drivers, they cannot change their monitoring software without losing their connection to the Husky device, so they are limited to vendor-provided solutions.

Heskey reduces integration efforts

Customers are finding it increasingly complex and expensive to connect other husky devices with new controllers to existing control and monitoring applications. "our customers are having problems with the third-party interface," Carlos Sanchez said. To solve this problem, Husky developed a protocol to connect applications to any type of Husky device. Husky mainframe has been a great success with customers because it eliminates many adoption rates, reduces integration costs, makes it easier to upgrade factories, and reduces the need for Husky to support problems caused by third-party interfaces.

Figure 2: before the Husky mainframe, six separate drives are needed to connect three different injection lines to two control applications

Provide maximum value to customers

Customers began to ask Heskey about a complete one-stop solution that would provide equipment and plant monitoring capabilities. Factory monitoring software will provide customers with many benefits, including the ability to access real-time device status, display trends, receive device notifications, visualize processes, view machine performance reports, and collect data for analysis. Instead of writing a comprehensive monitoring application, Heskey chose to use existing applications that use Matrikon. Based on corporate culture, corporate commitment and detailed performance review, Husky has become Matrikon's ProcessNet ™Web-based monitoring application. Branded as Heskey SmartLink ™, it will provide one-stop control and monitoring software components for its products.

Figure 3: using the Husky host protocol, only two drivers are needed to connect two applications to all three devices

To complete the solution, Heskey needed a way for customers to connect their different generations of Husky devices to the SmartLink. They realized that the proprietary Husky protocol did not allow them to make the necessary open connections in their applications.

Again, after studying the alternative, Carlos Sanchez, the Husky project manager at SmartLink, chose MatrikonOPC to provide the connection. OPC is a standard-based software communication protocol that provides a general method of data exchange between industrial equipment and applications. With SmartLink's built-in OPC function, OPC is a natural choice.

Although the new controller found in the Husky device has a built-in OPC connection, most users have traditional devices that they don't have. DCOM (distributed component object Model) is the basic technology used to carry OPC messages. It raises configuration and security issues, which makes it very difficult to connect devices. To solve these problems, Heskey asked Matrikon to develop a MatrikonOPC server for Husky Host.

"MatrikonOPC is very sensitive and professional in designing and building OPC servers. Over the past two years, the server has been successfully deployed in factories around the world and has operated trouble-free from Australia to the Americas and Europe." -Carlos Sanchez, Heskey project manager, said.

With the MatrikonOPC server for Husky Host, the company continues to use Husky Host to reliably connect old devices together, avoid DCOM setup and security issues, and provide data to SmartLink. With SmartLink and OPC servers, Heskey has a complete one-stop solution that provides the flexibility and open connectivity of SmartLink to customers' other devices. Heskey's customers can now rely entirely on Heskey to provide all the services they need for communication, data collection and display without the complexity of third-party headaches.

Heskey customers understand value.

Amky PET Packaging is a Heskey customer and is one of the largest plastic packaging manufacturers in the world. They produce a wide variety of containers, from plastic beverage containers to food and personal care products.

Robert Cooper, Control Engineering Manager at Amcor North America, led a program in 2003 to integrate all Amcor plant equipment into a plant-wide SCADA system to improve operational efficiency. At that time, there was no commercial solution to provide a connection from the SCADA system to the Husky machine.

Amcor considers two different solutions. First, create a hardware interface for each different controller platform to aggregate data into a separate system.

This solution has many disadvantages:

1. Hardware-based systems require special programming for each machine

two。 It is difficult to deploy the solution to other factories

3. Heskey does not support the solution

Because it is hardware-based, it is more expensive than software solutions, and each generation of Husky machines requires different hardware configurations.

Figure 4: Husky machine data integrated into SmartLink through OPC

Amcor is also considering using DDE (dynamic data Exchange) provided by third-party companies as part of its visualization package. However, when deploying DDE over the network, it is known that there is a problem with DDE, and the use of non-standard visualization tools is not in line with Amcor's policy.

When Husky released his OPC solution, Amcor began testing it with the built-in OPC connector in its SCADA system, and within months decided to standardize the method.

The OPC solution provides them with many benefits, including:

1. Standard Ethernet interface

two。 The solution has the full support of Heskey

3.Amcor can adopt central data fusion and achieve comprehensive network integration.

4.OPC can be easily deployed to other factories

5. OPC with Heskey mainframe can connect different generations of Husky machines without extra effort.

6. There is no need to add hardware.

Cooper commented: "Amcor's development approach is to build a modular object-oriented SCADA system using industry standards such as OPC. Based on the Heskey host interface and MatrikonOPC server, we have developed an automation object that has all the communication, logic, scaling and interface needed to connect to the Husky injection molding machine, which is installed in a container and can be placed in our SCADA like a plug-in component." "We are impressed by the benefits OPC offers and have standardized all connections across the company," he added.

advantage

The success that OPC provides to key customers inspires the importance of Heskey's standards-based OPC. The MatrikonOPC server is provided separately and attracts businesses that could have been used by third parties. Sales of SmartLink, an one-stop solution, have been growing.

About Heskey

Heskey designs and manufactures the most comprehensive injection molding equipment, including machines, molds, hot runners and robots. The company also provides value-added services, including plant planning, customer training and system integration.

About Amcor PET Packaging Amcor PET Packaging

Is one of the largest packaging companies in the world, providing customers with the highest quality standards and innovative packaging solutions, reliable service and partnerships based on excellence. With annual sales of US $2.3 billion, Amcor PET Packaging has 5800 employees in 50 production sites in 20 countries and 20 on-site operations. Amcor LTD has annual sales of about A $11 billion and has 240 factories in 39 countries.

About MatrikonOPC

MatrikonOPC is the largest OPC company in the world. MatrikonOPC is a chartered member of the OPC Foundation. With more than 500 OPC products and interfaces and more than 100000 installed worldwide, MatrikonOPC is the world's largest developer, trainer and distributor of OPC products.

Figure 5 introduction of merchants

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