How to justify Ignition to decision makers who are not familiar with the SCADA space

Ignition
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In my experience with Ignition I have loved learning how to use it and designing within it. I started working with PLC's and Ignition only within the last couple years, so I'm not the most experienced. I had used python and was writing personal projects in it before I entered the position I am in at my job now. We have used several different SCADA solutions over the years at my company from what I have heard from the guys that have worked with it the longest here. We have Siemens, older serial connection allen bradley PLC's, newer Rockwell PLC's (since the changeover), older Siemens 505's and CTI 505 racks. As well as several automation direct PLC's. Most of our tag fetching was done using Kepdirect and Kepware servers as well as TOP server for use with our historian. That's just to name a few.

But getting to the point of this, we were mainly using an old version of WW Suite on older Windows XP deployments at each of our stations. Using 3 different DDE servers across them and then tying the stations together across 5 floors to access the data to serve to the WW Clients being used on each machine. We had a portion of our plant converted from WW to Ignition about 3 years ago and they were looking to bring in another Integrator to finish converting the rest of our plant (which was mainly the 5 floors of WW/DDE software being used at the time) to Ignition and upgrading the computers.

I took the position I am in now as a Microprocessor technician about a year and a half ago and had never used any of the SCADA clients or PLC programming software before. I spent about 8 months converting all our old WW clients to a single Ignition client to be used in that department across all floors (they all tie together because all that equipment works together for our distribution), all while learning to use each and every one of the different softwares and learning how to design in Ignition as well. I'm sure some of my solutions may not be the best yet but so far they work and we have not had any issues and I am still learning as I go so I implement updates as I find better solutions and also remember what not to do for next time.

I was able to do all that in house by myself without and integrator through the use of online help from Inductive university as well as the forums. Saving the company possibly upwards of $30-50k based on what all would have been needed from an integrator. (Not sure of the exact amount, just what the higher ups were estimating based on cost quotes I believe). I'm not sure how many other SCADA softwares you could do that with as easily as Ignition. And based on my experience learning to navigate through siemens HMI's and WW HMI's and Rockwell. I much prefer Ignition over everything else. I would definitely recommend to anyone needing an efficient SCADA that is not outrageously priced.

10 Likes
62

Yes, the ol' double edged sword!! For us integrators at least :slight_smile: We've seen this happen at some of our customers' sites, where the curious onsite automation guy starts getting his hands dirty and all of a sudden we're out of a lot of the work we used to do! I certainly wouldn't trade it for working with another SCADA platform where one of its top priorities is to fast-pace hair loss and an early demise though...

I will say though, that what you do get from an experienced integrator is the experience to hopefully build a quality system that will be performant (both resource-wise and operator-wise), well structured, easy to maintain in the future, and looks good! (to name only a few) Not that these things can't also be achieved by non-integrators, but it does take time and exposure to gain a lot of this skill

5 Likes
63

Oh yes, I know an experienced integrator would have probably done a much better job than I did as my first big project. But I was definitely grateful for the opportunity to learn and hone my own skills and knowledge to branch into the field. I have learned a lot from building this system over the past year and like I said. So far no major issues, and I have learned some better practices since and integrated a few updates with the improvements I have found so that's a plus. Hopefully I will gain much more experience and become a better designer and who knows, maybe get into integration myself one day. :sweat_smile:

1 Like
64

I have had an operator express criticism of the scada because a plc was not talking to the gateway.

I want to tactfully create appropriate interactions and understanding.

Right now, I am thinking like:
"Sometimes your internet goes out.
Don't throw the computer away.
Power cycle the modem and maybe check for ISP outages."

Any simple explanations come in handy for you guys?

65

What about, if you work in the city and the road you use to drive to work floods or becomes undrivable (earthquake destroys it?), it's not your workplace's fault for you not being able to get to work. Unless your workplace ordered the flood/earthquake of course.

Where the workplace is Ignition, your house is the plc, and you are a data packet travelling to Ignition from the PLC through a network with issues

3 Likes