Siemens Industry Automation and Drive Technologies has launched the Totally Integrated Automation Portal, a solution that promises to reduce the time of product development.
Engineering conglomerate Siemens says that the new software engineering framework enables users to develop and commission automation systems quickly and intuitively, rather than using separate software packages, and speeds up the time needed to take products to market.
To design it, Siemens studied many engineering applications over several years and analysed and evaluated its customer requirements worldwide.
Simon Keogh, Siemens Industry Automation and Drive Technologies, said: “The development of the TIA Portal has been based upon significant research to ensure that it will meet the needs of users, and can measurably play a central role in linking together the varied elements of the product lifecycle, from product development and planning through to engineering, commissioning and operation.”
The company believes the new Portal will be the basis of all future software engineering packages for configuring, programming and commissioning automation.
With the new product, all devices and networks in any automation system can be efficiently configured within one shared device and network editor. Project navigation, library concepts, data management, project storage, diagnostics and online functions are standard features made available to the user.
Additionally, all data management for controller parameters, blocks, tags or messages only need to be entered once.
The design of the TIA Portal is based on advanced object-oriented software architecture and centralized data management, providing seamless data consistency by automatically avoiding data entry errors.
The new single software framework will enable all Siemens’ Programmable Controllers, HMI operator panels and drives to be configured in the same development environment, reducing interfacing and configuration costs for the common tasks of communications setup between controllers, drives and HMI devices. For example, the user can drag and drop a tag from a programmable controller, and instantly assign it within the HMI.
Keogh added: “At a time when companies are facing increasing competitive pressures, the ability to speedily create, manufacture and deliver products to market will be crucial to success, and we believe the TIA Portal offers significant advantages in terms of operational efficiency gains and cost reductions to support modern automation and drive technology applications. The TIA Portal is redefining how users can approach tasks and is a major step towards a state of simultaneous engineering.”
