WinCC/ProAgent

Description

Increased productivity is being achieved more and more by cutting costs. In this context, the focus is increasingly on maintenance. The emphasis here is on rectifying faults as quickly and efficiently as possible. Ideally, the operating personnel should also perform part of the maintenance tasks. The operating personnel are on-site, they are familiar with the procedures and can intervene quickly. This saves time and reduces costs. It is precisely here that ProAgent can assist operating personnel in identifying faults quickly, particularly in the automotive and machine tool industries.

Benefits

• Component of Totally Integrated Automation: Increases productivity, minimizes engineering outlay, reduces lifecycle costs

• Support for troubleshooting, increased machine and plant availability, shorter downtimes

• No additional configuration costs for the diagnostics functionality due to automatic generation of the diagnostics- related parts for the controller and HMI

• Frees up controller capacity with regard to memory requirements and program execution time

• No special knowledge required to operate

Functionality

In the event of a process fault, process error diagnostics with SIMATIC ProAgent will provide information about the location and cause of that fault and support personnel with troubleshooting. The ProAgent solution has been optimized specifically for use with SIMATIC S7-300/S7-400 and SIMATIC WinAC. It can be used in combination with the S7-PDIAG, S7-GRAPH STEP 7 engineering tools. The ProAgent option package features standard displays that are updated with process-specific data during runtime.

Fig. Process diagnostics with WinCC/ProAgentand the Step 7 Engineering Tools

Standard views instead of configuration

ProAgent is available for various devices and software platforms from the SIMATIC HMI range: Panels and Multi Panels, WinCC flexible and WinCC. ProAgent contains standard views, which are attuned to the requirements of the process error diagnosis of a plant or machine. During configuration, the data that is relevant to process error diagnostics such as symbols, comments and alarm texts are saved in a standardized data management system. During runtime, the standard screens are then filled with process-specific data.

For SIMATIC WinCC, ProAgent directly accesses the engineering data and imports it into the WinCC project. The ProAgent standard screens needed for the diagnostics mode are automatically created in WinCC. ProAgent and STEP 7 engineering tools represent a standardized diagnostics concept for SIMATIC S7. No additional configuration overhead for the WinCC application is thus required for the diagnostics functionality. The standard views are: alarm view, unit overview, diagnostics detailed view, motion view and the sequencer operating display.

Functional scope

• Context-sensitive diagnostics initiation due to process error message

• Output of the operands with symbols and comment Switch-over capability between LAD, STL and signal list

• Supporting fault rectification by means of direct process access when using the motion view

• Output of the faulty operands directly in the alarm including address, symbol and comment

• Consistency test in runtime: Inconsistent diagnostics units are marked with icons. This permits quick locating of faults regarding configured data in the commissioning phase.

• Direct, unit-related entry point in the diagnostics view from user displays (by using ProAgent functions)

• Unit or alarm-related entry to STEP 7, e.g. LAD/STL/FBD editor, S7-GRAPH, HW CONFIG upon system error messages, is supported fully automatically

• S7-GRAPH OCX for the graphical display of step sequences (overview display)