Shop Floor Connectivity via OPC
SAP Plant Connectivity (PCo) offers a comprehensive communications infrastructure to facilitate the exchange of information between the production level and SAP Manufacturing Execution Systems (MES) and SAP ERP.
Since it uses standard communications interfaces, SAP PCo features high flexibility and can be configured quickly and easily. PCo is based on Microsoft .NET Framework and uses web service technology.
SAP PCo is configured using the client application "Plant Connectivity Management Console“.
Functional Scope
PCo consists of the following elements:
- Source system
- Target system
- Agent instance
- Notification
SAP Plant Connectivity provides a buffering mechanism that supports network-based high-speed machine-level communication. In doing so, resources can be controlled so that a business system does not have to be called up each time.
SAP PCo Communication Architecture
Source System
The source system is the system from which information is retrieved by PCo. Using manufacturer-independent standards, a PCo installation can communicate with different source systems, such as:
- PCC Standard (OPC); PCo supports the following OPC specifications:
- OPC Unified Architecture (UA)
- OPC Data Access (DA)
- OPC Historical Data Access (HDA)
- OPC Alarms & Events (A&E)
- OLE DB (z. B. ODBC, MS Excel und MS Access)
- File Monitor
- Socket
Target System
The target system describes the system to which information is to be sent by PCo. The following target systems are capable of receiving data:
- SAP Manufacturing Execution (SAP ME)
- SAP Manufacturing Integration and Intelligence (SAP MII)
- SAP Cloud Platform for SAP IoT Solutions
- Business Suite-Systeme, e.g. SAP ERP or SAP EWM
Agent instance – individual connection
Agent instances are created using SAP PCo which provide high-performance data connections between SAP applications and industry-specific standard sources. Examples include standard sources for the plastics, semiconductor or food industries.
Notifications
SAP PCo provides notification functions with which the data source elements or tags can be monitored for changes. According to the configured triggers, corresponding messages are initiated and the required tags are sent to the defined target systems. The notification functions supplement the functions of the components of the SAP MII Universal Data Server (UDS).
SAP PCo Architecture Example
Live Demonstration
Ask for a live demonstration of SAP Plant Connectivity to learn more about functionalities in your manufacturing system.
