Aneko optimizes HMIs on its process line machinery (USA)

 

Highlights:

 

• Connectivity to any PLC
• Preconfigured templates and components save engineering time
• zenon Batch Control for detailed process analysis
• zenon Extended Trend for valuable production reports
• Freedom to innovate without technology constraints
• Simplified licensing
• Excellent support from COPA-DATA

 

Becoming more efficient in design

 

Aneko designs every piece of equipment with a mission to deliver the highest quality standards in the industry. From component selection to process design and assembly, its teams deliver a complete service, technical support, and state-of-the-art equipment.

 

This equipment is controlled via intuitive HMI screens developed by Aneko’s engineering team to ensure optimum ease of use and control. In the past, these screens were developed using a variety of SCADA software in order to accommodate customer preferences.

 

Aneko found that customers in different countries typically preferred PLCs from different manufacturers in their shopfloor architecture. This meant screens had to be developed to look the same but with different software to ensure compatibility with the preferred PLC.

 

“Although the user interfaces were standardized, the choice of SCADA software was not – and this meant our control system engineers were doubling up on work,” explains Alan Marino, Mechanical Engineer at Aneko. “We wanted to choose our own software that would work independent of the customer’s choice of PLC. This way, we can accommodate our customers’ preferences without creating extra work for our engineers.”

 

Selecting zenon from COPA-DATA

 

“We knew about zenon because we’d seen it in installations in our industry. We liked zenon’s connectivity and supplier-agnostic approach,” recalls Alan Marino. “We were impressed with the solution, the speed and ease of development, and zenon’s vast feature set. We made the decision to standardize on a single system – zenon.”

 

Standardization has brought a lot of benefits for Aneko. The engineering team no longer needs to update screens in multiple software versions. Everything is updated once in zenon and can then be used and reused as required.

 

“We have saved around 240 hours of development time per client,” Alan Marino estimates, “Plus, we only need to support one system.”

 

 

Nurturing expertise in a preferred solution

 

Aneko engineers enjoy working with zenon. It is easy to use, facilitating rapid development times. “zenon’s standard components are easier to work with; it has streamlined the development of the user interface for us,” reports Alan Marino.

 

The vast feature set and variety of preconfigured templates available in zenon is appreciated, especially the user-administration, alarms and events screens. Alan Marino adds, “We simply customize a few things on the template and it’s ready to go. No other software we’ve tried has this functionality.”

 

Aneko also benefits from the zenon Extended Trend and zenon Batch Control modules. The batch functionality has proved very useful for displaying production trend reports.

 

Freed from technology constraints

 

zenon’s native functionality has freed Aneko engineers from constraints on their ambitions to deliver the best user experience for their customers.

 

“Sometimes the system gets in the way of your ideas,” says Alan Marino. “We don’t have that problem with zenon. Everything we want to do, we can do.”

 

One example is a new user login system based on RFID tokens. This wasn’t possible in either of the softwares being used previously. With zenon, the tokenization is resolved in the Windows-based HMI. Performance is fast and reliable.

 

“We had the vision for this eight years ago, but it wasn’t workable,” says Alan Marino. “With zenon, we have delivered this for our clients.”

 

In September 2023, the newly developed RFID-token user-login functionality was showcased on one of two machines that Aneko demonstrated on its stand at the Pack Expo trade show in Las Vegas. Aneko won the event’s Technology Excellence Award at the show for the Emsys, a drum unloading system, celebrating Aneko engineers’ high-quality engineering and innovation.

 

 

Aneko loves COPA-DATA’s fast and responsive support

 

COPA-DATA’s simplified licensing has proven to be another boon for Aneko. It can use the same license for any machine requirement without being limited by tag counts, versioning, or limited features. This has further streamlined and simplified work for Aneko engineers.

 

“We get great support from COPA-DATA,” says Alan Marino. “We don’t have to jump through hoops to contact the right people. We get same-day answers; help is fast and concrete. We’re no longer waiting for days to get an answer and that contributes further to faster development times. It gives our engineers as much time for development as possible.”

 

All these time savings add up to help Aneko deliver faster for its clients. It estimates that, on average, development lead time has been reduced by two to four weeks. This takes pressure off the development team and the time can be reallocated to testing and ensuring the customer does not experience delays.

 

Enhancing the user experience

 

Aneko is very happy with its decision to standardize all HMIs and SCADA to zenon. It has met all the company’s requirements for ease of use and customer satisfaction. The HMIs are clear and convenient for operators to understand, with reliable performance.

 

“zenon has a low footprint and enables efficient hardware use, improving responsiveness and the user experience,” states Alan Marino. “Our customers are very satisfied. The HMI runs smoothly and the data can be seamlessly transferred with multiple other systems. We have a great relationship with COPA-DATA. Standardizing on zenon was undoubtedly the right decision.”

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