Due to increasing demands on the HMI software in terms of design and operation as well as growing demand for support for mobile devices, Christ Packing Systems began researching alternatives to the visualization tool previously used. The company is a manufacturer of packaging machines for secondary and end-of-line packaging. Based in Ottobeuren, Bavaria, the company can look back on over 65 years of experience in the field of packaging machines.

One of the key requirements for the future HMI tool was that the interface should be easy to configure without any programming or web knowledge. Graphic and design requirements had to be easy to implement. In addition, the interaction of the HMI software with PLC types from different manufacturers was of fundamental importance. After intensive evaluations, Christ's software development department opted for the 'Procon-Web' HMI/SCADA software from GTI-Control at the beginning of 2016.

The operating concept and the appearance of the interface were completely revised and optimized with the support of usability experts.

The HMI customization

This resulted in high demands on the graphical display. These include specially designed controls, customized system dialogs and an individually configurable cockpit function. Procon-Web supports the designability of all controls such as dimensions, radius, shading, background color, control color (for example, depending on the button status) or the integrated touch keyboard via the central style guide. Procon-Web also enables the simple integration of customer-specific controls via the plug-in concept. With configurable interactive lists and chart displays, the desire for extended production data management (MDE, machine time recording, fault statistics, quality statistics) and evaluation is also taken into account.

The cockpit functions can be customized in the HMI via Procon-Web.

© GTI-Control

The entire user interface was designed exclusively based on a layout or container concept with integrated gesture support. This makes it easy to configure a modern web interface without the need for web knowledge. Designing in layouts and containers enables automatic recognition of devices (responsive design) and display diagonals. Navigation decouples content from navigation. By reusing image and navigation elements across the browser-based pages, the tool enables potential savings in engineering and the maintenance of variants.

The consistent focus on user roles was important for user-friendliness. Procon-Web supports a very complex role and rights system and is able to offer the user interface in a device- and role-specific manner. This means that every machine operator is shown exactly the information that corresponds to their tasks and their display device. User recognition can be realized either through the unique assignment of devices (such as IP address) or through the assignment of user data (user with password).

Requirements for the pharmaceutical environment

As the Christ machines are often used in a regulated pharmaceutical environment, requirements from the 21 CFR Part 11 guidelines of the FDA (Food and Drug Administration) must be covered by the HMI software. This includes internal FDA-compliant user administration with an audit trail and electronic signature. For integration into the customer environment, it should be possible to integrate the user administration into the customer domain via LDAP.

Requirements for the panel hardware in terms of hygienic design are covered by the panels manufactured in-house at Christ Electronic Systems. In addition to a smooth IP65-protected housing, which is made from a solid aluminum block, the devices have an easy-to-clean glass front that merges seamlessly into the housing. The resolution-independent HMI software makes it easy to use panels of different sizes. By configuring in layouts and containers, a resolution-independent changeover is also possible without additional effort when replacing operating devices (panel PC, tablet, smartphone) on the productive system during servicing.

In an intensive 3-day product training course at GTI-control in Marktheidenfeld, the course was set for the conversion of the visualization to Procon-Web. The first converted machines were presented at Interpack in May 2017.

Project planning by Christ employees

The complete implementation of the user interface was carried out by Christ employees, supported by hotline advice and workshops. The software development department at Christ was quickly able to familiarize itself with the Procon-Web development environment and is impressed by the range of features on offer.

A structured and fair license model enables easily calculable implementations for both simple and technically very complex machines. At GTI, visualization licenses are generally calculated depending on the number of data points and the target operating system used.

Flexible license model

All licenses for both the engineering tool and the runtime can be upgraded and scaled at a later date. The advantage of this in the development environment is that one and the same tool can be used to implement both simple HMI projects and complex SCADA applications with well over 100,000 data points.

The extensive data processing functions of Procon-Web allow the management and documentation of orders, batches or maintenance tasks. In addition, reporting functions based on the integrated SQL database are just as possible as extensive evaluations or statistics. An additional software module is available for calculating machine times in accordance with DIN 8743, with which all important KPIs, such as availability or OEE, can be determined online and displayed in a cockpit, for example. The 100% web-based solution can also make this available for mobile devices or on the desktop PCs of production management. Any internal data can be made available to external systems via an OPC UA server, enabling integration into a complex IT environment.

Authors: Michael Meyer is Product Manager Pharma & Medical Devices at Christ Packing Systems and Jürgen Sauter works in HMI/SCADA software sales at GTI-Control.