Instant detection keeps your plant running

Siemens advanced real time diagnostics detect and display the cause of faults simultaneously, allowing problems to be rectified immediately as they arise. This instant troubleshooting reduces unplanned downtime costs and boosts your plant output and productivity.

The Challenge

Diagnostics are essential to any control system. Unplanned machine breakdowns are forcing plant operators to continuously analyze and diagnose their production.

These unplanned downtimes are extremely costly, resulting in intense pressure to fix the fault immediately in the event of failure. Time required for fault finding and correction stops production, decreases the plantâs performance and makes the end product less cost competitive.

The Solution

Siemens advanced real time diagnostics system report the cause of faults graphically in real time via SIMATIC HMI (Human Machine Interface) integrated to your machine. Whether the problem is due to a faulty limit switch or to a controller failure, SIMATIC HMI enables you to diagnose the fault immediately.

Diagnostics without Siemens

Without Siemens diagnostics, fault finding normally requires specialist personnel, programming tools and PC. This manual diagnostic process can take hours just to locate a simple fault. Any diagnostic functions included on the machine must be programmed separately from the control program. As the diagnostics are not automated, every possible error condition must be programmed and alarmed.

The resulting diagnostics code can easily become as extensive as the control program itself and any modification to the control program will require reprogramming the diagnostics.

Diagnostics with Siemens

Siemens diagnostics tools automate this process. Failures occurring within the control system are immediately reported on Siemens HMIâs. Controller failures, network breaks or I/O card problems can be identified and rectified fast.

Siemens extends diagnostics to include process faults. Process faults are conditions that prevent a machine functioning as expected, and account for 80% of faults during normal operation, examples include a gate not properly closed or material not in position.

These types of faults are normally difficult to find but quick to solve. Siemens process diagnostics tools integrated with the user program reduce development costs and provide error detection directly via the HMI during normal operation.

The Benefits

no programming knowledge required
no specialised personnel or tools required
no PC required â your machine HMI becomes your fault finding tool
diagnostics through graphics and messages in plain english
fault finding time is much reduced

Return on investment through

immediate detection and diagnosis of faults - saving valuable time
reduced engineering and development costs
minimised unplanned downtime
maximised productivity of your plant

Reference

Siemens offers complete diagnostics solutions to customers in the automation of various industries.

Case Study: Cylinder block assembly line at a car manufacturing plant.

Customer challenge: Significant downtime due to machine breakdown. Time required for fault finding and correction cascades to downstream machines stopping production. Lost production makes line less efficient and the end product more expensive.

Siemens solution: Customer utilised the advanced real time diagnostics tools from Siemens. Through use of these tools customer was able to significantly reduce fault finding time required per breakdown. This dramatically decreased downtime overall and reduced the required operators and maintenance personnel.

The increased productivity provides this manufacturer with a competitive edge in the price sensitive automotive industry.

Contact

Contact your local Sales Representative or call National Sales 131773

Email: iac.sales.au@siemens.com