Wincc-based process simulation for virtual commissioning of scada system integration

In order to provide possibility for system integrators to verify the correctness and effectiveness of functions of a supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) system before on-site installation and actual commissioning, this paper presents a process simulation based on software-in-the-loop technique by using VBScript in WinCC for virtual commissioning. Design of integrating an existing control loop in water tank process of pharmaceutical manufacturing plant into a new SCADA is used as a case study. The interested process, which consists of inlet water pump, inlet control valve, level transmitter, and outlet water pump, is controlled by proportional-integral-derivative (PID) algorithm in a programmable logic controller (PLC) to maintain hydrostatic pressure in the water tank. Operations of the simulated process can be controlled in either manual mode or automatic mode. Moreover, the proposed simulation provides an option to imitate device failures that could not be done in real process due to damages for ensuring SCADA fault notification based on failure modes and effects analysis (FMEA). Experimental results of using the proposed process simulation for testing whether the created human machine interface (HMI) screens of the SCADA system integration fulfill functional design specifications are also included.