Metal refiner Collini adds direct SCADA-SAP connection

Vorarlberg, Austria - Metal refiner Collini, based in Vorarlberg, Austria, is one of the most important refining companies in Europe. When the company planned the supervisory control of an electroplating system, it engaged system integrator Protec, which tailored a solution with the zenon process control system from COPA-DATA – including a direct connection from Collini’s SAP application to the process.

Protec was given a long list of requirements: It started with the design and engineering of the complete electrical equipment and the zenon supervisory process control visualization for operating the system. Production data was to be transferred directly from a SAP application at the ERP level to the SCADA system. As an additional process data acquisition task, all production data was to be measured and logged.

The barrel plating system at Collini was designed and engineered down to the last detail. zenon is the heart of the system, providing redundant central process visualization with continuous data synchronization utilizing zenon’s in-built circular redundancy.

Alexander Ettinger of Protec: “With our multi-faceted knowledge of machinery construction and COPA-DATA’s software expertise, we developed a solution using zenon that exactly met Collini’s requirements.”

zenon establishes a direct connection to the SAP application via a standard interface and gets its production data from it. While the truck is still arriving with the raw materials, the SAP system already has basic data such as lot number and article number and assigns them to the appropriate production processes. For this purpose, it combines data from 7 recipe groups each having a hundred recipes.

All that the operator has to do now is read the lot number of the raw materials with a barcode scanner. It is then automatically compared with a table that is held on the server. This is where zenon gets its production data from. The zenon operator then checks the data, confirms that it is correct and then zenon automatically sends it directly to the PLC.

During the refining process, all relevant data such as temperatures, currents and pH-values are logged. This records which lot part was processed where, when and for how long. zenon sends selected production data directly to the SAP application, thereby keeping the SAP information up to date with real events.

“We were able to use standard interfaces for connecting to SAP, which saved us a lot of detours and additional programs," Ettinger said. "We were particularly impressed by the huge amounts of data that can be processed directly via the SAP application and by the reliability of the archiving function. After all, we store about 2GB per year in the zenon file format.”

Since the system was launched in summer 2003, a number of changes and optimizations have become necessary. zenon made it easy to implement these changes in a fast and secure way.

It is very easy to enter recipes and target values in the object-oriented HMI/SCADA system. The alarm management and archiving functions make processes secure and always under control. Data recorded during production is available as trend curves and as numerical values, creating an exact overview. This way, each lot is fully traceable.

COPA-DATA product manager Reinhard Mayr: “The open design of zenon allows communication with many systems. We can directly address SAP applications via different interfaces. Since summer 2008, we also have a certified bidirectional interface – no additional software is required”.

Security matters

For sensitive applications such as electroplating, fail-safety is of vital importance. This is where zenon’s circular redundancy comes into play. With a few mouse-clicks, you can turn nodes into application servers and standby-servers. If one of them crashes, the standby-server takes over its tasks without loss of data.

According to Ettinger: “Another useful zenon feature for us as integrators is the remote maintenance of SCADA and PLCs. We can use a secure connection to access our system at any time, without any time lag.”

Protec has used zenon to create a solution that exactly meets Collini’s specification – including functions for process data logging and production data acquisition (PDA) as well as an SAP interface.