Then I found this link The 12 step process to download Microsoft SQL Server Express 2014. This does not contain the database, but only the tools to manage SQL Server instances, including LocalDB, SQL Express, SQL Azure, full version of SQL Server 2014 Management Studio, etc. Use this if you.

I agree with Brian regarding RSView. I am using it for the first time on a current project. So far I think it has about the same ease of use as Wonderware's Intouch, but with more power. If there is a big flaw in RSView, I have not found it yet. I don't want to make a list of the worst HMI products but I can point out some design flaws (IMHO) and offer my experience on the other popular HMI's I have used.

Intellution FIX: A linked list of function blocks is a clever computer science exercise, but it is a major PITA to work with. I do not specify and would be very reluctant to use FIX.

Wonderware Intouch: The graphics editor was great 8 years ago, but by current standards it is weak. The integration of ActiveX and VBA into Intouch is half-baked. Wonderware support is excellent, their licencing is friendly, and they have been very responsive in repairing bugs. The Wonderware applications I have developed just run, no calls at 03:00. Intouch is good enough for many applications, I do specify and use it.

USData FactoryLink: They should just give up and release the 6.6 source code so someone (with more time on their hands than me) can get it to run on Linux - a multi-user OS that Flink was actually designed to run on. I'm generally very skeptical of the OSS business model, but this is one case where a company might even make a small profit and generate some long term growth by going in this direction. I have stopped specifying FactoryLink. I will gladly use and support the 6.6 release and the 7.x release ( with 6.6 graphics ).

Iconics ( GraphWorX, AlarmWorX, etc. ): The Inconics products have a very clear and consistent design based on OPC.

Their Graphworx display builder is very good. But I have a problem with the concept of configuring tasks instead of tags ( Flink does this too, but alleviates some of the pain by supporting arrays ). It is much easier to manage the properties of a tag ( alarm limits, scaling, etc ) than to configure several tasks to manage properties related to a tag. The larger the application the more problematic task-based configuration becomes. I have not had the opportunity to make a specification decision on Iconics, I have used it and would be comfortable using it again on a small or medium sized application.

I expect, at some point, to specify their components like Graphworx and Dataworx, but not the whole package. All of the popular HMI's I have used share one major flaw: the database is fixed. About 12 years ago I spent some time along with another programmer designing and writing a QNX based HMI. The company went under, I left the project, but it was later completed and there are a few installation around. I think we had some good ideas which I have not seen in another HMI. The database was user definable. That is, the user says he wants an analog datatype and the user sets the structure for this himself.

It had to have a unique tagname, but everything else was soft. It could have a hi alarm limit, lo alarm limit, whatever. The realtime database engine instantiates as many of these as required, a scripting language or C program did the necessary processing, all user defined. We made some example prototypes so the user could just go with that or make the changes he required. There are a couple of companies that have taken a similar approach (and maybe a better one). Rather than a memory resident database, they use a relational database.

This is not what a relational database is really designed for, but it does work. I scoffed at this initially, but am having some second thoughts.

Database technology and faster computers are making the response issue go away. So, using Oracle or the like, the user designs tables and writes SQL procedures to operate on the records within the tables. This is a very open architecture in that it is portable and there are many graphics programs that can grab data with an SQL statement.

Another layer must be provided to make fetching the data friendly. Relational databases are inherently multi-user, platform neutral, and network ready.

I am not sure when or if this will happen, but with some middle-ware, examples, and support, there is a real potential to use commodity database engines and graphics programs to replace the shrink-wrapped HMI products. Funny, but just one month ago, I'd have agreed most enthusiastically with this assessment. But being forced to work with it, and having a tenacious personality, I've begun to wrestle some ability to design an HMI with this product and actually begin to appreciate some of its power. If anyone from Simatic is reading this, you should take a hint and radically improve your online help. No one wants to see an example code snippet that moves a static textbox ten pixels to the left.

Make the scripting properties identifiable within the graphics editor property viewer. And include some real-world software examples with your product. It's a great product, but figuring out how to do anything is more painful than suicide with a rusty butter knife. My experience with Wizcon (version 7.61) is about as bad as it gets. Tried to use the server option so multiple PCs on the network could display data (non-control) and the application on the server would crash in about 4 hours. Driver for the CTI Ethernet card for the TI 545 would not work even after a number of fixes (we eventually changed to an OPC interface from Matrikon to get data to the Wizcon application). As their technical people are in Europe (first Israel and now in France), the sales office here in the US could only handle the basic questions.

BTW, the application took about 7 minutes to start-up after the NT boot and about 5 minutes to shutdown in an orderly fashion. We had about 3500 tags mixed between 60% digital, 25% integer and 15% floating-point. I have good things to say about Matrikon as they provided great support and really got us to the point where we could make the system work. They are a bit pricey but provide an excellent product.

Perhaps you should tell us what you intend to do with this scientifically inaccurate survey. I have yet to meet anyone in the integration business who is entirely happy with their HMI and SCADA packages or entirely unhappy (I refer to power users who have pushed the packages to the point where their calls to technical support are handled by the package's authors rather than looking up answers on a CD-ROM). Heavy usage inevitably results in a call to technical support and then the actual programming team who tell you 'uh oh, is there any way you could do that without using feature ZZZZ, we obviously have a problem there'. As a development firm we have used iFIX, RSView, Wonderware and FactoryLink to name but four SCADA packages. With a little digging, I could rhyme off problems never addressed by the respective OEMs (i.e., bugs that we found) as well as features that are excellent on each package.

Dear Ranjan Acharya, I agree with almost every word of yours. This is certainly not a 'scientifically accurate survey', I think neither of us is going to use it for writing a paper. I was interested just in sharing experiences with SCADA. Technical support, price, embedded tools, connectivity, all these features are different in each package, so you should admit that sharing different opinions about that is, at least, an interesting matter. No software is perfect, as you said, but some of them are less perfect than other ones.

LD PS: I want to thank all the people who have answered, I really appreciate every comment of yours. That being said all you get are opinions. If you just happen across ten people with a beef about Brand A, then it looks as though Brand A is a bad choice. In the meantime Brand B could actually be much worse, but their users don't subscribe to the AL or cannot be bothered to reply to the thread (because they are too busy working around roadblocks). Unless you are going to try a rigorous survey with various methods of acquiring data, then you will end up with useless data - Garbage In Garbage Out. As a group of applied scientists (formally or informally trained) we should always recognise that.

If you want my unscientific opinion, we have found that RSView, WinCC, Wonderware, iFix and so on are all quite OK - you learn to love them and hate them. Truly, over the last few years we find less differences - especially if you follow their rules rather than doing it 'your way'. We could pick at each one - WinCC's (lack of) usability versus some dated approaches in Wonderware versus some bugs we found in RSView that case thin clients to drop out, but we still have not found a magic bullet. We are hoping that FactoryLink sees some improvements. Perhaps Schneider will buy them out and inject some capital.

USData wasted a lot of money during the.Com.Done boom. We could never recommend one package over another to a customer who comes in 'cold'. We lean towards RSView because we are an A-B integrator.

I suspect it is because most people in here are intelligent enough to realize that they have not worked long enough with a broad sampling of different systems to make a qualified judgement. Myself, I have worked with Wonderware, RSView, and a little bit of Cimplicity. I am in no position to judge which HMI system is worst, because I have only touched 3, and only worked with 2. I think that this is pretty typical of most people. Anyone is free to disagree, of course, but I suspect that since using an HMI takes a fairly serious commitment of time/resources, very few people have worked with more than 3 or 4.

Hardly enough to qualify someone as a judge. Besides, nobody wants to be the one who gets blamed if someone grabs this thread and publicly announces 'HMI ABC voted worst system by automation professionals!' --ugh I think the point of the 'list 11' exercise is exactly what you discovered.

Not many people can do it. The point is that anyone who is unable to list 11, let alone list 11 that they have used enough to be proficient in, is not in a position to offer judgement on the 'worst'. --Joe Jansen. >How about instead of the worst ten, somebody just LIST eleven SCADA packages, period. Hi Bob List Manager wrote: >------------ Forwarded Message ------------ >From: PETERSONRA >>Intrinsic merit is in the eyes of the user I would think, not someone >looking in from the outside with a very narrow view of what just is >meritorious.

Or for that matter, an objective observer. My point was that merit is subjective, which is the same thing you are saying.

>The fact is that all of the popular SCADA systems are quite servicable >and comparable in cost, thus arguably equally meritorious. The real >issues for end users are: >>long term support >training and familiarity internally >availability of outside support Yes, I doubt few of these are changed unless forced by lack of support for older versions, etc. Support is a two edged sword. Your best efforts can cease to be viable when support is withdrawn. Acer Aspire One D257 Drivers Windows 7 Starter. I'll bet everyone reading this has at least one item of perfectly usable software that's dead only because it's closed and there's no longer support for it.

That's the support issue everyone tends to ignore. It can be a much bigger issue than what's available right now. This is a major cost issue. Think about it, the major cause of system retirement is an artificial limit imposed by the vendor you choose. It would be very good to track who pulls the rug out most often.

I have a short list of candidates in my head;^). This can double or triple the true cost of a product over the life of the system. I think you missed a beat here, Brian. Ralph was just answering the challenge to list *any* ten HMI's. And we have all noted that that no one has actually used enough current HMI's to make a 10 best or 10 worst list. The trade journals seem to be able to sort this out ( just kidding ). In keeping with the 'Late Night' spirit of this, here is my top ten list of silly HMI features, or the lack there of.

( Not meant to be negative, this list can easily be turned around into a best features list. ) 10) The HMI won't let you enter an expression into a field field that animates a tag. 9 ) The HMI vendor makes you buy a comprehensive support package before letting you download the fixes to a product you just purchased. 8 ) The HMI won't let you select subobjects within a composite object without first breaking the composite object. 7 ) The HMI vendor makes you call the distributer, who has little detailed technical knowledge of the product, and couldn't fix a problem even he did, for support.

Heer Meri Hd Video Song Download on this page. 6 ) Zoom and/or snap-to-grid work in such a bizzare way that they are useless. 5) The HMI won't let you block a point or 'take it off-scan' and alter its value for graphical testing or alarm blocking. 4) The HMI sales rep wastes your time showing you how his ActiveX graphics can be pasted into a Word document. 3) The HMI won't let you display and individually acknowledge the most recent alarm. 2) The HMI does not store or document the format of its configuration and historical data files in any user accessible manner.

1 ) The HMI vendor supplies a complimentary mouse pad or CD case. I want a T-Shirt! ( size: XL, fabric: thick cotton ). I may return your product with these compliments, but I will keep and wear your T-Shirt. >I don't think he meant it as a worst.

He was just answering my >challenge to name any ten, not just poor ten. Yes (actually you asked for 11). And, I was being a little sarcastic (as usual) in observing that any list of the worst 10 will inevitably consist of the most popular 10. Therefore, if you pick the 'worst' 10 the remaining 'best' 10 would likely be the most obscure 10 too. I wouldn't be surprised at all that, with a little work, you could identify 30 or more such packages that are available world-wide.

As someone else pointed out previously, using this unscientific method for identifying the worst of these is likely a pointless exercise. Only the most obscure packages will likely not get a vote for the worst. In fact, I wouldn't at all be surprised to find the list of the best 10, the worst 10, and the top 10 in market share to be identical to each other. Regards, Ralph Mackiewicz SISCO, Inc. I have a fair amount of experience with both WW and RSView.

My expereince has been that WW support is pretty spotty, particularly at the distributor level. Its sometimes a bit difficult to get past that to someone who can actually help you sometimes. OTOH-Rockwell Software support for RSView seems to be leaps and bounds above their support for other products. Its still amazing to me how much better. If you have concerns about using RSView because of your support tech support experiences with their other products, i would urge you to reconsider.

Support for RSView is top notch. Bob Peterson. Honestly, graphics are least important, when we do engineering or the selection of scada, somehow yet to get time out error for communications. Graphics size[ mem ] IS very low compared to other packages since does not involve any bitmaps this increases the display time considerably.What we do normally each & every line objects is made dynamic & hence operator knows everything logically & for this BMP may not help. Again update period is independent of dynamic link in the graphics.

May be conservative in approach, but the basic requirement is for stable realtime communication for data & functionality. What current products are doing now,paragon have introduced in 1985 except the windowing environment. Again Paragon graphics is not open package. Which application you are using paragon, what H/W? How may tags.

Jari ICON CONTROL iconcnl@vsnl.net. I used to use Paragon a lot, back in the days when they had their own ROM chip for the Opto LC-4 controller. Funny how much that looked like today's 'new' hybrids.

Progammed the controller and the operator interface with the same graphical, self documenting language. As an MMI, it had a few holes (this is back in 1990) but combined with the Opto Paragon ROM, it was my system of choice back then. Glad to hear it's still out there! Genesis and Paragon split off from each other quite a few years back. Genesis retained the emphasis on a deterministic kernel, which loaded ahead of Windows back then. Saw Genesis at ISA this year. Didn't find Paragon, though.

Robertson, P.E. Manager of Engineering Saulsbury E & C grobertson@si-tx.com (915) 366-4252. >First it is a question of the application.

For some simple applications >probably the listed scadas are too expensive and good. For simple applications there are more economical versions available that allow only a small number of tags. I seriously doubt anyone could create his own SCADA package for anything like what you can buy it for. Even a full version package is less than $10k for the ones I am familiar with, thats only a few weeks of my time at our billing rate, and there is no way I (or anyone else) could ever create all this functionality in that amount of time, nor maintain it economically (an activity that probably costs more than creating it in the first place). For some simple applications you might be able to cobble up something on the cheap in VB or C (or whatever), but no enduser in his right mind is going to accept it.

The long term costs of supporting and maintaining it will just be too high. >For some applications like plants, pipelines etc, they are not good >enough. They run a LOT of plants, and I'd be willing to bet more than a few pipelines. They are not DCS systems, if that is what you are trying to imply, but in combination with appropriate PLCs they do a pretty fair job of controlling just about anything. >Can anybody give me a site where to find a table-list of scadas with >technical details that are relevant in estimating the quality of scada >and optional packages like trainers, leak detection package etc, quality >and price. Quality is in the eye of the beholder, but the likelyhood is that any package still around and doing OK after a few years isprobably adequate to the task.

All the packages have bugs, and all have quirks. Technical details, options, and training options are readily available from the rep or distributor, or the manufacturer's website.

For pricing you usually have to see you friendly rep or distributor. Keep in mind that the list price is not the price you should expect to pay unless you are after a single license. And most packages have all kinds of web based 'view only' options available at dirt cheap prices on a per seat basis. Some packages include drivers in the base costs, some charge extra for some or all drivers.

Some include things in the base system, that others charge extra for. You will have to do some digging to find out what is important to you. Bob Peterson. I have to disagree with this sentiment. We use OPC and VB.Net to create decent HMIs for steel furnaces. The flexibility of a full development environment is impossible to beat with any tool out there, and many of our repeat customers come to us specifically because we distribute the source code and development IDE with the solution so that they can maintain and further enhance their capabilities. Mind, these aren't solutions that are easily extended to a range of industries or even applicable to other furnaces within the same mill, so we don't really compete with SCADA tools, but for a specific application, I seldom hear complaints from our customers about costs of maintenance or support.

>How about instead of the worst ten, somebody just LIST eleven SCADA >packages, period. >>There is a point in there! Here's a list off the top of my head, in roughly the order I encountered them professionally. Intellution Fix Wonderware InTouch Wizcon Afcon P-CIM Scadabase (formerly Accesspoint) - SCADA for Unix/Linux RealFlex - SCADA for QNX from BJ Software USData FactoryLink Iconics Genesis GE Cimplicity Citect Elipse InduSoft Studio AutomationX These run the gamut from current best-sellers and relatively recent introductions to long-in-the-tooth packages still available but whose heyday has passed. There are plenty more, including general-purpose VB-and-Windows-based offerings from smaller companies like Parijat, and larger (often industry-specific) products like those from Honeywell (PlantScape), Valmet/Neles/Metso (OSSyS, OpenVECTOR) and ABB (MicroSCADA). I do not have any useful judgement to offer about which is 'best' or 'worst'.

I agree with Joe's assessment that an individual, with expertise in at most a handful of different packages, isn't in a position to make that call. I know I'm not. Greg Goodman Chiron Consulting.

Just a point about SCADA packages which I've failed to read in this thread of any comments on connectivity to different I/O devices!!! My experience for something different in here, has been heavily with Citect SCADA. I am most impressed that Citect can talk to numerous I/O Devices and have a well documented knowledge base, user list, and online / offline support, which does have issues of its own at times. If you are trying to integrate many DIFFERENT brand I/O devices somehow and have a common SCADA operator interface, Citect would be hard to pass up as a solution. Yes you can probably use OPC servers for a lot of I/O devices out there and just use an OPC client to collect the information, but if you want reliability, Citect write inhouse Citect drivers for most popular PLCs, THAT ARE BUNDLED WITH THE SOFTWARE! Yes there are bugs that EVERYONE finds as you get heavily involved in the implementation of the project as a whole, but you DO work around them if not have them fixed eventually by Citect support.

Yes,licensing is expensive too, but I guess not without reason;) RELIABIITY: Only as good as the PC you run the software on and the OS you are using on it! We've tried running Citect SCADA main I/O servers on winNT on standard desktop PCs but that was a joke, not to mention limited HD space. We've moved on to IBM eServer X240 machines, with 140gB storage data drives for trends and reports/eventing, and have never looked back since and now have reliability. My other experiences with operator interfaces have been Allen Bradley Plant floor terminal T35 and ABB Masterview, siemens OP27 and TD17s. You can't even rate the T35 as it is that old I'd bet hardly anyone in here has heard of it!

ABB, the worst of anykind ever, it has to be. Not even a PC based system, implementation is tedious and handling some instances of backups are pathetic. As a technical officer at a steelworks site, I'm not one to judge like many others in here whats worst and whats best, but alot of the time your job is to make what you've got WORK how you want it to, and to make it reliable. Yes, I do prefer to standardise and keep one brand instead of building up a 'peace-mill' system, each time a new project comes along that needs a HMI on our plant, I always push to integrate it into our existing Citect SCADA system, as there are advantages over buying the latest and greatest 'other' HMI packages mentioned in this list. In a nutshell: standardisation, long term trending/eventing, speed and reliability, ease of maintaining the system (configuration and backups), and open connectivity are what I look for and will always look for in a HMI/SCADA. >Here's a list off the top of my head, in roughly the order I encountered them professionally.

>>Intellution Fix >Wonderware InTouch >Wizcon >Afcon P-CIM >Scadabase (formerly Accesspoint) - SCADA for Unix/Linux >RealFlex - SCADA for QNX from BJ Software >USData FactoryLink >Iconics Genesis >GE Cimplicity >Citect >Elipse >InduSoft Studio >AutomationX. While this is true, I can assure you they are radically different products, although at one time I believe Cimplicity actually used Fix as its HMI front end. Having used both, I can tell you there are ups and downs with both, but overall I consider them comparable in features and ease of use.

I also consider Fix Dynamics, WW and RSView to have comparable levels of features and ease of use. Each has a few quirks and each has some really nifty things the others do not. If I left out your favorite SCADA product in my list, its because I have no experience with other SCADA products, not because I think they are lousy. Learning 5 of them is more than adequate for one person, until the customer comes along that wants to pay us to have me learn a new one. I have managed to escape WinCC so far. The guys that did work with it that I know, hated it due to its bizarre and sometimes inexplicable reactions to WinNT (while working very well in Win98), but I am told those issues have long since been resolved.

Bob Peterson. I wonder why you think that about RSView. I've done projects with all of them and Wonderware as well, and found them all to be quite similar in capabilities, and generally in ease of use, although each has certain things that are much easier to do then in one of its competitors. Cimplicity has a lot going for it, especially in later versions, but its not perfect. Fix is a nifty package but quite dated, and the replacement for it (IFix) is a nice idea but seems to take more work to make it do the simple things you need done, although this could be due to having only done a couple projects and being frustrated by how hard certain things were to implment that are so easy in other products. I have yet to find anything that is completely impossible or impractical to get any of the packages to do that another package does support. Bob Peterson.

As a former HMI grunt cranking out apps as quickly as possible, I rated the packages I've used on how much time it takes to create similar apps with each one, with the biggest time saver first. For me it boils down to counting keystrokes.

When I have to hold down a mouse button and then use the arrow key to move an object slightly, I start getting irritable. 1) Wonderware There's a big gap here. I can create the same app with Wonderware in 1/3 the time of RSView. 2) RSview 3) Intellutions 4) Factorylink - the least usable package on the planet, which is a shame, because it's so powerful.

Hello, I made a little list myself, I'm looking for the packages which are good at Web-Based Scada in a way so that it's possible to control a plant from any place in the world without installing a client. The best ones: 1. Factory Link 3. Wonderware because actually they have a great and complete list of communication protocols for a diverse range of PLCs, RTU, etc.

They don't charge if you need a driver that is not in the original list, also they have great integration capabilities through programming utilities, great graphic interface capabilities, etc. The worst: All siemens SCADA because they think just in Siemens products, it is hard to think about integration with their products and the documentation is for 'automation hackers', i mean, not every body, even unexperienced people is able to understand all Siemens documentation. Ivan Ospina Manager and Systems integrator IO Automation.net. It's not easy to be strictly rational because what you find good is often what you master the best. However, I used lot of different HMI software but Siemens WinCC Flexible is the one I prefer. I use it to control Siemens, Allen-Bradley and Schneider PLCs. Some of the features are awfully complex to do (compare to other ones) but the graphics are good and, with a simple design, pages are loaded quite fast.

As usual, there are some limitations that you'll have to live with. But its 21 CFR compliance makes it a very good choice for pharmaceutical companies. MTC Thierry Designer of Genesis, a free OPC Client www.tgmdev.be. I have worked with a number of HMI packages over the years and my list would be (from worst to best) Worst 1. Intellution Ifix - Absoutle crap. A nightmare 2. RSView SE/ME 3.0 - A complete disaster 3.

Lookout Direct - Functions but what were they thinking??? Wonderware Intouch - Powerful and easy to use 2. Cimplicity - Powerful I have found that I could create anything imaginable with Intouch. These folks know what they are doing. Ive heard Citech is pretty good too but my experience was not great.

>I think the worst is ABB COMPACT HMI. When you are In development stage It is very slow, Tag Generation do not work >properly, backup system does not work, OPC connection is very slow, in conclusion I hope not to use it again. You can check with your system, it must have 4 GB or more RAM if not available try to increase your virtual memory you can allocate same up to 10 GB. I am sure it will work fine, also please check and confirm u r using workstation grade PC??

New version of CHMI is already launched and we have execute almore 5 Project for System with around 800 to 1000 I/O and its working fantastic. If any help require you may contact us.

Interesting blog - From my 30+ years of experience and perspective all of the Master-slave systems which require point definitions and dedicated operator stations are really old school. Sure the good ones 'work' but where is the mobile support, the tablet support, the 'no software required app' we all see today on our phones. For me all the praised and cussed are 'stuck' in the past - the way-back past. I recommend checking out.

This is a very advanced system that is Client-Server based and only needs a web browser. Works with every phone, tablet, iPad, iPhone, Droid I try. Simple to setup - no software - quite cool. 'On one hand, it makes it easy to be a futurist and predict that open solutions will greatly benefit automation.

On the other hand, it makes it somewhat unlikely that I will live long enough to see the predictions come true.:^' The problem with 'open' systems, particularly those with relational databases as their core engine, is that database callups are slow. For realtime they can be horsepowered up. For responsive trends and historical queries, they suffer. For maximum uptime and reliability, they are also not up the standards set decades ago. Among modern HMI software from major automation companies, I'd have to rank WinCC SCADA 7.x the worst. Which is strange, because I don't mind working with other flavors of WinCC, especially within the latest version of TIA Portal. I don't mind the quirks of WonderWare, or FactoryTalk.

Here is a list of my pet peeves: - data export is VERY slow - data export is often poorly formatted. Ie, alarm message export is a non-conforming CSV that needs to be manually edited in Notepad before importing it back in. Excel can read it, but Excel fixes the formatting error when it saves. - completely useless cross-reference utility.

Worse than not having a cross reference function at all. - Unless you're scripting, it's limited to just one action per event - bizarre rules like disabling the script editor if your development station doesn't have the same PC name as the destination station - unreliable. Clients frequently drop and reestablish connections to the server, even with direct CAT5 connection.

Siemens can't solve it - features that simply don't work, like local variables in a client/server setup. You check the box to make it local, no change in behavior - alarming interface is complex to the point of absurdity - alarm export/import can't be done for analog alarms, only digital. You can export/import the MESSAGES, but you can't set up thresholds except one at a time through the interface, and each one is a lot of mouse clicks. No way to speed up development of this with excel like you can with digital alarms - poor integration with Siemens hardware.

Aside from not being symbolic (which TIA pretends to be, this doesn't even pretend), it has no way to import tag lists from the controller, and when you set up words and dwords for alarm bits, it reverses the byte order (no way to correct this, you just have to know and account for it manually). Just makes you want to pull your hair out when you have 8000 alarms and can't dedicate booleans to it because tag count would go through the roof. - graphical editor is clumsy, need too many clicks to reach common features. - worst trending control of any HMI I've ever worked with. I will say that it's also the most flexible trending system I've ever worked with.

But that's not a good thing when you have operators who want to see data, not get a PhD in Siemens trending. - bizarre set up for audible alarms. Another situation where they make it ultra-flexible, but ultra-clumsy so it's hard to even understand, much less configure. >13 year old post, and WinCC still among worst HMI xD >Some things never change!

13 Years Later. And I think the worst software could still not be identified. I guess its not about the most used software. I've all around the world and it all depends. America, Central America, Mexico, Colombia and these places Love the Rockwell products. Where European Countries love to use Siemens. So i Guess its not a matter of Wich software is the best or the worst.

Its about where the product is from. That way it makes Support easier when needed. I have had issues where Rockwell support could not help, i have had Siemens give up on me and sending the problem off to Germany with no feedback either. Also had some guys from Schneider and Wonderware scratching their heads. In my opinion the best and worst software only depends on the programmers choice and capabilities.

We all have our own way of doing things and doing our system designs. Some software makes some design skills easier than others and therefor I would say that this conversation will still be here for the next 13-20 years and will still be unsolved. I try not to judge but to give my client the best possible system that could be developed with his/her choice. National Instruments Lookout/Labview is arguably becoming one of the more progressive HMI programs.

They are following the example set by Microsoft decades ago by putting their software in collegiate engineering programs. My nephew worked with us for a few years during the summer and learned the program pretty well. He went to the Citadel for electrical engineering and they were using Labview in all of his automation labs. It has its drawbacks but so do all the others.

As far a price and ease of use, its one of the best around. I'm a control systems engineer of 6.5 years and have only worked with some of the larger flavours of SCADA (at least in Australia), my experience in brackets: Ignition (moderate-advanced), CitectSCADA(expert), FactoryTalk View SE/ME (expert), iFIX (monkey labour work only), ClearSCADA (expert), Cimplicity, Adroit (pulling a project apart only for conversion).

Sorry in advance, this could be long. The worst two SCADA packages that I've used are most definitely FactoryTalk View SE/ME and Cimplicity. I have never sworn so much in my life as when I'm using FactoryTalk. Their implementation of template objects (global objects) and parameters has to be the worst imaginable. For example, in order to use numbers passed into parameters into a page or template object as actual numbers, you need to use: 'IF 1==1 THEN #1*#2 ELSE 0'. Where #1 and #2 are references to two parameters. Otherwise, FactoryTalk assumes that the parameters are tags.

Of course that's not documented anywhere and was stumbled upon by trial and error. - Parameters are indexed, not named E.g. #1, #2, instead of Tag1, Tag2 - Parameters apply globally, not just to the page or popup you're on. And because the parameters are just numbers, this means you can't use #1 and #1 on page and popup - moving an object MUST involve the mouse, you can't just use keys - you can't nest template objects - there's no abs() function - the modulus function (%) cannot be used with expressions E.g.

Sqrt(x)% 1 will not work - the list of functions available is pathetic, there are maybe 20 or so, and that includes maths functions. Compare that to Citect and Ignition's 200+. - Project load time is incredible, 5-10mins for large projects, 2+mins for smaller projects. Compare that to ANY other SCADA. - You can't access tag properties such as eng min/max, units, format, etc. So that these can be used within expressions.

- The tag export/import function asks you every time what project type (SE or ME) and which project to export/import tags from/to, despite having the project OPEN ALREADY(!). - The trend chart looks horrid and is even more horrid to use. CitectSCADA has probably the nicest trends I've seen, followed closely by Ignition's. - Development environment is licensed. I concede, most are. Citect, Ignition, and to an extent ClearSCADA's are free.

- There is no central location to diagnose issues from. Ignition's management and diagnostic tool is outstanding. - NEVER use Microsoft ActiveX components (i.e. From mscomctl2.ocx) on a page. Changing versions of FT will install different copies of these which will then invalidate the objects on the pages.

I could go on. The takeaway is that FactoryTalk should only be used for small projects that require VERY basic pages and content. Cimplicity is a misnomer; Complexity is so much more appropriate.

Its ability to ruin your life should never be underestimated. Do not take comms to PLCs for granted with this product, as it will be the bane of your life. Oops, I got carried away with the worst offenders and forgot the best. The best in my opinion, is Ignition by Inductive Automation.

It's: - fast to install - it has a SQL backbone - has fantastic status and diagnostics tools - it's modern and designed from the ground up with security in mind - it's web-based and launched (using Java) - supports multiple concurrent developers - live-value development environment, meaning much faster development and error-finding - highly-customisable - modular licensing scheme - vector graphics with support for raster as well - resolution-independent pages that can be made to adapt to different resolution monitors the SCADA is displayed on. - Central and super fast project update rollout (no compiling project or manual processes to update the project on multiple clients and servers) - the list goes on.

Citect would probably be my runner up, albeit much further behind in technology. I just find Citect a less of a pain in the arse than of the other choices:/. FTViewSE has stuff going for it but there are maddening things as well. I have never especially liked the ability to scale inside a tag. The number should be what it is in the PLC. It greatly simplifies the code if 100 means 100 and not 100,000 or 0.01. You can create tag folders that will do all that you want the tag structure from other products to do, and then some.

Most people using FTVSE are not using tags anyway. They are using direct addresses. I use the HMI tags for descriptive info about the direct addresses such as units, description, etc. I think I may well switch to putting this stuff in the PLC in a structure and see if that works better. Global objects do have some quirks but used appropriately can dramatically reduce your work and testing. I truly hate that AB abandoned the old database format they used for data logging in RSView32.

It was directly importable into excel and made for very easy and quick data analysis. The new native format cannot be read directly and they seem to want you to use SQL. What a waste. I am not a database programmer. I can understand they wanted to incorporate the latest buzz words into the product but why scrap something that worked so well in favor os something that does not work as well for most uses and requires additional training to use? There also seem to be a lot of quirks associated with online editing. It mostly works but every now and then something strange happens.

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