I work in a very diverse and large manufacturing firm. We create applications that interact with our lines and that tie the line in our business system. Each of our plants are very different but yet have many similarities. For example, each plant has goals on what they should be doing, each has to download there orders, etc.
We currently use Visual Basic .NET to create Windows form applications that interact with plc's via internet and the business systems via an FTP server.
We want to create a standard user interface that would call different components based on what line it is. We also need to be able to have staged deployments out having people go up to every line to install software. Also if we make an update to one application that is needed on all of them we don't want to have to change it in 20 different applications.
We looked into the idea of going with a web based HMI for a while but decided against it for a few reasons..
1) Initial infrastructure investment - In a typical web infrastructure you have at least three servers. A Dev, Stage, and production. If you have a large number of users you may also have load balancing (3 production servers). If are spread across multiple sites you may need multiple production servers, some for each site if you do not have reliable communication between sites. This put the server count for my company at 10, at a total cost of about $50,000. This does not include software to run on the servers.
2) User Issues - I have a large number of users that think they are "experts" and try to "fix" stuff on there own. If they find out the web address they will try typing it in on there office computer. We some of the automated equipment we have tis could cause issues if they started some thing. I realize there are ways around this, but it is still a concern.
3) The down time dilemma - What happens if you have a web server go down. Before if a pc went down you lost one line. Now if you have a server go down you could loss lots of lines. There are ways to address this if you spend the cash.
I am not against buying some servers or software, it is just very hard to justify over $50,000 plus the added server support makes it look like i am trading one support cost for another.
Does any one have any ideas? What do other people do?
We currently use Visual Basic .NET to create Windows form applications that interact with plc's via internet and the business systems via an FTP server.
We want to create a standard user interface that would call different components based on what line it is. We also need to be able to have staged deployments out having people go up to every line to install software. Also if we make an update to one application that is needed on all of them we don't want to have to change it in 20 different applications.
We looked into the idea of going with a web based HMI for a while but decided against it for a few reasons..
1) Initial infrastructure investment - In a typical web infrastructure you have at least three servers. A Dev, Stage, and production. If you have a large number of users you may also have load balancing (3 production servers). If are spread across multiple sites you may need multiple production servers, some for each site if you do not have reliable communication between sites. This put the server count for my company at 10, at a total cost of about $50,000. This does not include software to run on the servers.
2) User Issues - I have a large number of users that think they are "experts" and try to "fix" stuff on there own. If they find out the web address they will try typing it in on there office computer. We some of the automated equipment we have tis could cause issues if they started some thing. I realize there are ways around this, but it is still a concern.
3) The down time dilemma - What happens if you have a web server go down. Before if a pc went down you lost one line. Now if you have a server go down you could loss lots of lines. There are ways to address this if you spend the cash.
I am not against buying some servers or software, it is just very hard to justify over $50,000 plus the added server support makes it look like i am trading one support cost for another.
Does any one have any ideas? What do other people do?
