Integrated tools and environments became established many years ago in the engineering of automation and visualization solutions. In this way, machine and plant manufacturers, as well as operators, have been able to significantly reduce the effort required to create and maintain automation systems. On the other hand, there are still more or less pronounced system discontinuities in the area of superimposed system visualization itself. Typically, there are two independent solutions for SCADA and machine-related HMI - the result: double engineering, double data management and inconsistencies in the data. In addition, information is not available everywhere or is displayed differently. An inhomogeneous visualization landscape also harbours numerous hidden costs and risks: Operating errors, restrictions on the use of resources and poorer system transparency for employees. Last but not least, the acceptance of the visualization solution decreases if operators have to 'read in' to many different displays if consistent solutions are not possible; especially because in the private environment it is now taken for granted that the essential functions of the PC are also available on the smartphone, applications and apps have a similar look and feel and functions can be added or removed without great effort. Users increasingly want to use these options in an industrial environment, especially as modern technology is required in the context of digitalization and rapidly growing data volumes. At the same time, companies want to benefit from the lower costs of an end-to-end solution for industrial visualization, which result from more efficient planning, implementation and maintenance or expansion.

Technologies for a consistent user experience

The new generation of a visualization system now takes these changed requirements into account: Simatic WinCC Unified enables a uniform solution for industrial visualization regardless of the respective end device or application scenario. At its core, this solution is based on browser-based plant visualization. Simatic WinCC Unified uses web technologies such as HTML5, SVG and JavaScript. The user interfaces can be configured in the TIA Portal so that users can use a tool for configuring automation and visualization as usual. Elements can be reused and graphics can be scaled without loss of quality. Furthermore, any design can be used on a panel as well as on a PC-based SCADA system. In addition, thanks to HTML5 support, machines and systems can be monitored and controlled from HTML5-enabled mobile devices(Fig. 1).

Thanks to its open interfaces (API), WinCC Unified is able to integrate other software applications, such as its own web controls, and combine them into a standardized operating concept. This makes WinCC Unified an integration platform for linking data from production with other data and information. In addition, a uniform visualization system at production level facilitates the integration of systems and data. This means that modular system concepts with different configurations or even extensions within a line can be implemented more easily than before, including in the visualization. To this end, the visualization system works with a collaboration mechanism that can initially be used to exchange operating screens - and soon variables, alarms and historical data - between WinCC Unified systems. This saves users duplicate project planning for different areas of a plant. Distributed configurations can also be implemented using this mechanism. The visualization of individual machines can be easily integrated into a superimposed line monitoring system, where it can be expanded to include cross-line content.

Another innovation concerns the concept of the visualization solution. In addition to the classic, data point-oriented configuration, users can now work object-oriented with 'type-instance' concepts and structure the visualization according to the technological hierarchy of the plant: Each plant object consists of properties such as visualization, tag, message. This structure can then also be found in operation: The user navigates through the plant using the technological hierarchy and automatically receives the information filtered or bundled for the respective plant section, such as messages from an object at a lower hierarchy level, which are displayed on the superimposed nodes. The messages of the node or the assigned visualization of the node can then be displayed directly.