Technical Support Service monitors Simatic IT MES

A Siemens Automation and Drives product story

Edited by the Manufacturingtalk editorial team Jan 12, 2009

Siemens Industry Automation is offering peace of mind to all manufacturing customers of its Simatic IT MES application, through a comprehensive Technical Support Service (TSS).

Critical elements for any MES system are the capacity to react to a system event or problem that may have production downtime consequences, as well as having the ability to continuously monitor the critical performance parameters of the MES installation in question.

The TSS service provides remote, continual and active monitoring of MES system performance through the use of software systems called Agent-based Diagnosis Service.

They enable TSS to predict system events in advance, and initiate measures to prevent them occurring in the first place, thereby avoiding the potential for expensive production downtime.

The agents are non-invasive software applications which are installed on every computer that requires monitoring.

The agents then communicate directly back to the main TSS central server, and allow an expert engineering response to be implemented without delay if required.

Each agent is configured with specific norm values that describe which parameters require monitoring and what to do in the event that a system parameter is at risk.

Each risk is defined in a list of threshold values and parameters which will vary from one system to the next.

All the configurations are stored on the TSS central server.

Specific parameters can be continuously monitored and correlated with the IT infrastructure, the Simatic IT processes or with applications and their related behaviour patterns, including process activation status, network status and data storage.

The agents have no impact upon the MES application and can be reconfigured remotely without any disruption to the system that is in use.

TSS also offers conventional product and project-related consultation, fix-and-repair services, 24-hour real-time technical support, a reliable escalation procedure and full training programmes.