Software Development for a Process Control System
To guarantee that no detergent enters the production line it was necessary to store the valve states on every process step. The manual preparation of the valve states lists is very time-consuming. Thus we upgraded the software with a so-called teach-in-mode, were the user can edit the route lists comfortably on the front panel. In addition it was necessary to develop an adequate strategy to manage the comprehensive parameter inventories.
Other components of the software were mainly developed for service and diagnostic purposes. Finally we edited respectively regenerated the basic library functions in order to increase the efficiency.
The resulted software supports two basic functionalities:
a) the active state, where
the PC communicates with the system control and acts as monitoring and surveillance tool,
and
b) the passive state, where the PC works as administration-, diagnostic- and
programming tool.
Both states we realized in two different programs but with a common menu structure and a common function and subprogram library. Thus, effectiveness and flexibility were equally taken into account.
