SIEMENS

Jimmy Bruner is programming the control system for a new gas boiler. He uses a drag and drop function on his monitor to transfer data from the previously developed components that he needs for the new product. “We used to need two or three days to configure a new boiler — now it’s done in four to five hours,” says Bruner, a systems manager at Hurst Boiler & Welding Company, Inc., a manufacturer of gas and oil-fired boilers in Coolidge, Georgia (USA). Such high-speed development has been made possible by a Siemens solution: the Totally Integrated Automation Portal (TIA Portal) — a platform that for the first time makes all the tools needed for automation systems available in a unified and integrated development environment.

In the past, engineers typically used a variety of software tools to create functionality for control, operation, and monitoring. But with the TIA Portal, the same components can now be used for separate applications. The data have to be entered only once and are then immediately available for all applications. Previously-developed components are stored on a central server — tried and tested project data and earlier versions can be reused again at any time. The engineering quality of the first tested program can thus be carried over into all future projects. The TIA Portal therefore saves the customer a great deal of effort, time, and expense. This solution has been on the market since mid-2009 and is now used by more than 10,000 companies. All of them work with automation solutions from Siemens, which form the foundation of the TIA Portal. At the moment, the customers using the solution are primarily medium-sized firms like Hurst Boiler & Welding. Siemens is using their experience to further improve the portal, which will then increasingly be used in the complex automation systems of larger companies.

A Look Back. As early as 2005, it was clear to experts at Siemens Industrial Automation Systems that their software architecture had to change in a fundamental way. “We wanted to put software together to form an automation system as easily as Lego pieces are combined to create a new miniature world,” says software architect Ronald Lange, who played a key role in the creation of the portal and was named Inventor of the Year by Siemens in 2011 for his work on it. This idea gave rise to development of the TIA Portal, one of the largest software projects ever conducted by Siemens. It involved 400 developers from three continents who spent years conducting tests with customers and partners. Siemens deliberately opted for a process of distributed development in order to integrate requirements from different cultures and maximize user-friendliness.

The reduction of complexity in engineering is no less important at Siemens today than it was during the TIA Portal’s development. For instance, the Mechatronic Design project at Siemens Corporate Technology (CT) focuses, among other things, on the efficient development of systems that are used to control machine tools or service robots. “These systems are characterized by a high degree of complexity, because mechanical, electronic, and information technology processes interact synergistically in them,” explains Project Manager Rainer Wasgint.

In the past, mechanical, electronic, and control components were initially developed separately by different individuals. Bringing the results into agreement with one another required a great deal of effort. “In our project team, we specifically did not want to develop a new tool; instead, our goal was to bring together existing models, improve them with new methods, and make them available in a common framework,” says Wasgint. Using this approach, different pieces of development data are brought together and integrated into a comprehensive model. “In this way, static designs are transformed into designs that can be simulated dynamically,” he adds. A single model is created automatically, which covers all existing disciplines. The major benefit of this process is that changes to the data in individual designs are always automatically adopted, so that the model always incorporates the most up-to-date data. If an engineer changes a detail in the information technology, for example, this change immediately appears in the comprehensive model. As a result, developers can take a product’s overall mechatronic functionality into account even during its design process.

This method of automatic model generation was used at Siemens’ electronics plant in Amberg, Germany prior to the launch of a new manufacturing line for programmable logic controllers (PLCs) that was scheduled for mid-2012. Here, mechatronic designers launched a virtual version of a firmware “load module,” which is used to load the software onto the PLC. This made it possible to discover and eliminate errors at an early stage. “We showed that automatic model generation significantly reduces product lead time, because the costs resulting from errors are avoided during virtual development, and redesign cycles are minimized,” says Wasgint.

Better than Virtual. Meanwhile, another CT team has specialized in designing factories. In view of the fact that modern design tools are often so complex that only experts can work with them, the team chose to work with IntuPlan (Intuitive Layout Planning). “Despite its benefits, virtualization on a computer isn’t always the best method for designing factories — especially not when the goal is to bring together and discuss the ideas and experiences of as many people as possible at the very start,” says plant design expert Gerald Meckl. That’s why a process is needed that is simple enough to enable everyone involved to actively take part, which is exactly what IntuPlan does. With this Siemens technology, true-to-scale models are made of production and logistics components so that experts can move the individual modules around on a table and arrange them into layouts that optimize material flows. Alternatives are then photographed and special software, which was developed in-house, converts the images into virtual 3D layouts for further processing. To date, 15 factories around the world have been remodeled or designed from the ground up using IntuPlan.

Green Ideas in the UK. Environmentally friendly factory design is the goal of the “Think Green” project at Siemens’ Motion Control Systems’ electronic inverter plant in Congleton, UK. “In the medium and long term, in a world with diminishing resources, only companies that operate sustainably are going to be successful. So what we have to do is to make our employees more aware of environmental issues,” says Kevin Dutton, head of Environment and Health and Safety at the plant.

Since Dutton and his coworkers began the “Think Green” project in 2010, many steps have been taken to reduce the use of electricity, gas, and water and the amount of waste material generated at the Congleton plant. These include simple improvements, such as setting room temperatures lower, as well as the installation of equipment at the site to produce solar, geothermal, and wind power. The results at the plant are impressive. Since the project began, consumption of water and electricity, as well as the generation of CO₂ emissions, have been cut in half, and gas consumption has been reduced by about one third.

At Congleton, the motto is “practice what we preach” — in other words, use as much Siemens technology as is reasonable, such as lighting equipment from OSRAM, building systems from Siemens Building Technologies, and of course inverters made at the plant itself. Working with local and regional suppliers when possible also helps to lower costs and save energy. Each of the plant’s 500-plus employees is invited to contribute his or her ideas; unusual measures are welcome too. One such initiative that generates excitement during factory tours is the “wormery”: a composting facility at the plant where approximately 6.5 metric tons of organic waste decay into high-quality compost with the help of 50,000 worms.

“The project is working because everyone is actively participating. We’ve discovered quite a few people here who have a hidden talent for ecology,” says Dutton. “Thinking green has become part of our corporate culture.” In this way, he is summing up the central theme of a number of projects. After all, the TIA Portal, the Mechatronic Design platform, and IntuPlan also save resources and energy and protect the environment by organizing production processes more efficiently.