“Well before it went live, we had worked out a clear plan for exactly how we were going to use the new versiondog versioning and data management software from AUVESY,” says Michael Mrugalla, who works in process automation at the Mainz plant. “We also had to think about what backups really meant for us. With all our field devices, control programs, drive systems, programming languages, file formats and software applications, we needed to know precisely what we have to back up in case a breakdown (e.g. a power outage) stops production. Because the whole point of making a backup is to be able to recover data quickly and easily when something goes wrong and continue working as if nothing had happened. But that means more than simply restarting production, it also means we need to be able to pick up where we left off with our ongoing process maintenance and optimisation.” It was particularly important to Nestlé that their backup strategy be built around a sin-gle continually active and universally appli-cable solution. And they wanted it to maintain a centralised backup of all the data necessary for both recovery and further development for all devices and all related projects (i.e. every piece of hardware and software). And the programs actually running on controllers need to correspond precisely with the data on the server. If not, the reason must be easily identifiable and the valid version always available to be reloaded onto the device.

Egger Ltd at Hexham, Northumberland, UK, manufactures chip board and associated products on highly automated production lines. The programs within numerous manufacturing systems and controllers are vital to the resulting OEE of the company and require frequent back up, version control and automatic administration. Egger standardised on Versiondog software from SolutionsPT to undertake and manage this task.

Data management system versiondog, an indispensable instrument in operations engineering at Warsteiner. Preventive maintenance has long been the norm at the Warsteiner Brewery. And yet, unplanned maintenance activity can still occur. It is therefore of great importance that the latest update version for each and every PLC be stored centrally. In this industry, there is no time to waste trying to conduct a search.

When complex systems are developed for a customer and commissioned with a particular delivery state, a data management system can make it easier to archive commissioned versions and track subsequent changes made by the customer.

Tasks such as manual documentation and the fact that new software and hardware is constantly being integrated to the automation network makes the lives of maintenance staff difficult.

Between 2005 and 2010, Aluar went through a substantial growth phase where most of the production facilities were upgraded. As a result of this expansion, the number of PLCs increased from 100 to 300. When it came to managing the control program software, however, flaws and cracks began to show in the established workflow and version control procedures that had prior to the growth phase, been based on manual backups and documentation. A rapid growth in the number of automation and maintenance staff (>100 users) also coincided with increasing accounts of infrequent and incomplete documentation of software versions, which then required an increasing effort where bug tracing and detection were concerned. This increased the risk of incidents that could not only affect operation, but that could also result in stoppages at the mid-term. It also increased the risk of safety risks remaining undetected.