Monitoring a Plants Machinery

[Abubrowski]

A client of mine would like to monitor uptime/downtime, line speed and several other things via personal computer.  Suggestions would be appreciated as to best software to accomplish this.  I am planning on putting in a brand new PLC that will monitor certain aspects of the machines.  What is the best software for their computers to utilize and see this information?  The software would need to do trends and record information.

[ATU]

My suggestion is to get with your client and layout the entire flow of information and what specifically they are looking for in both content and format. Especially if it is a large plant or if they plan to expand.  There are so many options out there and what you choose now will determine capabilities in the future. Don't forget the IT aspect of this too. It could be the biggest roadblock.  You may want to look at the company's MES software. It may already have that capability in an add-on package and only require an OPC server for data integration. If nothing like that exists, you can use anything from an HMI, or an OPC based logging package on up to something like Ignition. Its funny how you can put these systems in and get all this data, but the front office doesn't know what they want or how to use the information. The BRX PLC's are also a good data collection appliance to add to a machine that you can't gain access to the PLC or to the HMI.