PRODUCTS & SERVICES
ZENON AS A MODULAR AUTOMATION PLATFORM In the second part of the interview with COPA-DATA founder and CEO Thomas Punzenberger and Vice President Software Engineering Günther Haslauer, the thought leaders provide insights into the future of equipment configuration with zenon. The latest zenon version – zenon 12 – represents an important milestone in the continued development of our software platform. INTERVIEW: PETER KEMPTNER, FREELANCE TECHNOLOGY EDITOR IN SALZBURG
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The combination of modular production and Module Type Package (MTP) offers a promising solution that is revolutionizing manufacturing workflows in the process industry. Other sectors share the demand for flexibility and fast time to market. Does MTP also make sense as an approach in these cases? MTP comes from the process industry. How can other industries benefit from MTP and a modular automation platform? Thomas Punzenberger: MTP can help users address the urgent shortage of skilled workers everywhere by enabling flexible and modular automation in heterogeneous production landscapes. Of course, the individualization provided by these modules does not go quite as far as custom programming. However, the effort is significantly reduced not only for creation, but also particularly for testing, software maintenance, and subsequent adjustments. That’s why we will make the MTP concept available to other industries, as we did, for example, with recipe management. Originally created for chemical and pharmaceutical production, recipe management is now also proving its worth in energy generation and discrete manufacturing. Some-
thing similar to the MTP concept has been around in the energy industry for 15 years, i.e. IEC 61850. This includes functional descriptions for individual devices as well as entire device groups and it is reproduced fully in zenon in the form of libraries. How can devices without existing MTP files be integrated into zenon? Günther Haslauer: Because there are still many devices without suitable MTP files, we created an MTP gateway to integrate them. This option and a library of ready-made components for the process area allow zenon to be used as a distributed control system (DCS). Thomas Punzenberger: Speaking of DCS, the intelligence in machines and equipment is becoming more widely distributed and fragmented. It doesn’t always make sense to equip machine or equipment modules with their own PLC. With the IEC 61131-3-compliant SoftPLC zenon Logic, which comes as standard in zenon, the functionality required can be mapped directly. This creates a DCS based on fully configured, pre-validated MTP files. It was a short step from there to our idea to build a modular automation platform.
