Hmi tool

While HMIs are focused on visually conveying information to help the user supervise an industrial process, SCADA systems have a greater capacity for data collection and control-system operation. In the past decade, changing operational and business needs have instigated interesting developments in HMI technology.

These modernized interfaces are creating more opportunities for equipment interaction and analysis. Operators and users are increasingly moving toward high-performance HMI, a method of HMI design that helps ensure fast, effective interaction.

By only drawing attention to the most necessary or critical indicators on the interface, this design technique helps the viewer to see and respond to problems more efficiently, as well as make better-informed decisions.

Indicators on high-performance HMI are simple, clean, and purposely cleared of any extraneous graphics or controls. Other design elements, like color, size, and placement, are used with discretion to optimize the user experience. Learn more about designing high-performance HMIs here. Touch screens and mobile HMI are two examples of technological advances that have emerged with the advent of smartphones.

Instead of buttons and switches, modernized HMIs allow operators to tap or touch the physical screen to access controls. Mobile HMI offers a variety of advantages to operators, including instant access to HMI information and remote monitoring. Mobile-friendly remote monitoring allows greater flexibility and accessibility for operators and managers alike. With this feature, an offsite control system engineer can, for example, confirm the temperature of a warehouse on a portable device, eliminating the need for onsite supervision after working hours.

Edge-of-network HMIs are also in high demand because they allow operators to access data and visualization from field devices.

Additionally, it is becoming more common to send data from local HMIs to the cloud, where it can be accessed and analyzed remotely, while keeping control capabilities local.

On the horizon, leading engineers are even exploring ways to implement Augmented Reality AR and Virtual Reality VR to visualize manufacturing functions. As data takes on an increasingly essential role in manufacturing, the future looks very bright for HMI. This technology may have come a long way, but its potential for growth remains virtually limitless.

SCADA systems are crucial for industrial organizations since they help to maintain efficiency, process data for smarter decisions, and communicate system issues to help mitigate downtime. Meister is an award-winning cheesemaker in Muscoda, Wisconsin. The company has been in business since and is currently in its fourth generation of family ownership and leadership. Over the past years, Meister has grown into one of the top makers of premium cheese and whey products in the world. Operators were constantly having to jump from system to system in order to monitor and control the piece of the plant that they were operating.

This brought about problems with tracking down and solving process issues because none of the historical data in these systems could be shared or used outside of the localized HMI. Call Us Schedule a Demo. Ignition Exchange Discover Ignition resources. Services Training Pricing. The bottom line is that ME has a low upfront investment, but costs more on a per terminal basis. On the flip side, SE has a high fixed upfront cost in server and licenses to deploy, but is significantly cheaper than the ME alternative.

That being said, other factors may influence the selection process. For example, many of our customers would utilize the server for other functions once deployed. They would also shorten the repair time of the SE terminal and would be able to deploy additional HMIs much faster than they could otherwise. The applications built for HMI terminals will require different hardware depending on their nature.

From our experience, HMIs will be typically deployed onto one of the three types of equipment:. These HMI terminals are rugged, capable of running without interruption, and are pre-loaded with the software required to run FactoryTalk View Studio ME applications out of the box. As mentioned above, the standalone terminal is the fastest path to getting an HMI terminal onto the manufacturing floor as it comes pre-configured with the right software.

However, the downside of having this capability is the cost of the terminal. Generally speaking, a standalone terminal would cost significantly more than a distributed client. The panels from Allen Bradley come in multiple variations. Depending on the need of the facility, engineers may choose a board with external buttons, monochrome versus RGB complexion, different widths, different software packages allowing a single or multiple PLC connections, and more.

As PLC Programmers gain experience in programming a controller, they naturally start to require an interface that would simulate certain items.

In this section, we will discuss the typical learning path on how to get into HMI development as well as recommend a few entry-level terminals one should consider using with their PLC. This solution allows the user to create applications that would be deployed onto standalone PanelView and PanelView Plus terminals.

Furthermore, FactoryTalk View Studio allows the user to simulate the entire application through the development software and experiment with the different configurations before uploading it to the terminal. Due to these reasons, it is the recommended path to learning HMI development.

First, install the software and to become familiar with the essential drawing tools first. These tools are similar to what you would see in visual design software such as Microsoft Paint but do create a different way of interfacing with the elements.

Second, create basic input and output structures tied to a PLC-based process. A beginner project may be to create a simple Street Light System that would allow the user to start the process and display the appropriate street light depending on the direction of the road. Third, once you become comfortable with that, we recommend exploring intermediate functions of an HMI terminal. Advanced features of a standalone HMI terminal may include alarms reported by the system, a security system based on the permissions for the users, a series of elements that are hidden from an operator but are available to the maintenance team and so on.

For example, this could mean the difference between inserting a numeric value of the tank level and displaying the actual level through a filling scale. Although they are sometimes used interchangeably in casual conversations, there are components which would be more common to one than the other.

Such terminals may be distributed across the plant and often have no knowledge of each other. It is aware of all the HMIs in the field and will intelligently assign information to be displayed. Level-up your career with unlimited access to practical, in-depth technical courses taught by industry experts. Explore our courses. All rights reserved. Get Started for free Login. Put simply, an HMI is an industrial computer that is correctly put in place to communicate between the PLC and the operator of the manufacturing floor.

HMI Programming. A well designed HMI would allow the user of that area to have access to the right information and control without the need to jump through multiple hoops. You must keep the following essential design considerations in mind during the HMI development and HMI programming stage of a systems integration project: Are the buttons of the appropriate size? Can every screen be accessed without excessive navigation loops? Can the process be started and stopped from every relevant screen?

An experienced HMI programmer will take into account the limited knowledge of an operator when it comes to the systems controlling different machines, create an easy to follow navigation menu and allow the user to navigate to critical elements quickly. The first option is to create a standalone client that will run on a windows PC The second option is to create a network distributed architecture that would pull the data from a server application and distribute it to clients across the manufacturing floor.

The third option involves a network layout that would contain several HMI screens that would be networked together to provide a better experience to the operators on the floor. A rule of thumb we use based on the prices of terminals is that if you're looking to deploy less than 10 terminals it's going to cost less on ME; otherwise SE is a cost effective solution. These terminals are only capable of running the software developed through the tools of their respective vendors.

Distributed HMI solution - similar to the dedicated version, each vendor, would specify the hardware that is capable of running their distributed version of tools.

An example of this would be ThinManager from Allen Bradley. This distributed solution would dictate the specifications of the hardware it requires to run. How to learn HMI programming and development.