Siemens sees Industrial Operations X as a tool portfolio for production planning, execution and optimization in the new world of IT/OT convergence. The focus is on the integration of IT capabilities and methods from software into the world of automation: low-code, edge, cloud computing and artificial intelligence (AI) are combined with automation technology and digital services from Siemens. The aim is to make plants and production lines more flexible and modular so that customers can react to changes at the touch of a button.

World premieres at the Hannover Messe

The first virtual controller from Siemens is based on the functionalities of an S7-1500 hardware PLC and is offered via Industrial Edge.

© Siemens

Industrial Operations X is a continuously growing, interoperable portfolio of products and services for product development, execution and optimization. Siemens presented three world premieres at the Hannover Messe:

• Virtualization of automation: Introduction of a completely virtual controller. Based on the functionalities of the Simatic S7-1500, the virtual programmable logic controller (PLC) is hardware-independent, so that applications can be managed centrally and flexibly adapted to changing customer requirements. Projects can be scaled using virtual control and easily integrated into other IT offerings via open data interfaces.
• Making automation programmable with IT code: Simatic AX. Simatic AX offers IT professionals a familiar development environment based on Visual Studio Code and version control via GIT, for example. Simatic AX is cloud-based and available as a service.
• Visualization for the Industrial Edge environment: WinCC Unified for Industrial Edge. Industrial Edge makes software management easier, more flexible and more secure. There are already a large number of apps that focus on the acquisition, pre-processing or analysis of machine or plant data.

Siemens will continuously integrate technological IT advances into existing automation solutions - Simatic S7, WinCC, PCS neo, Sinumerik. Industrial customers will also benefit from a wide range of interoperable offerings from Siemens partners.

Mindsphere becomes an insights hub

Sinamics DriveSim Advanced is an advanced simulation software for drive constellations, with which both engineering and commissioning can be carried out on the basis of a digital twin.

© Siemens

Siemens has also set itself the goal of integrating MindSphere into the core of its operations software portfolio and focusing more strongly on generating business value from IoT data. Siemens continues to develop MindSphere as part of Industrial Operations X and the Xcelerator ecosystem into the Insights Hub. Insights Hub generates actionable insights from plant and operational data by analyzing data locally or in the cloud. With the Insights Hub, Siemens wants to offer its customers industrial IoT solutions with a variety of different applications.

New simulation software for drives

Cedric Neike, Member of the Managing Board of Siemens AG and CEO Digital Industries: "With Industrial Operations X, we are bringing the development of OT to the speed of software."

© Siemens

Siemens also presented Sinamics DriveSim Advanced, an extended simulation software for drive constellations that can be used for both engineering and commissioning on the basis of a digital twin, for the first time at the trade fair. Sinamics DriveSim Advanced thus expands the simulation portfolio for motion control drives at Siemens, which was launched on the market in 2021 with Sinamics DriveSim Basic. At the same time, Sinamics DriveSim Advanced complements the Industrial Operations X offering.