What is WinCC OA?

"WinCC OA" is the abbreviation for "SIMATIC WinCC Open Architecture", a software package designed for the use in automation technology. The main application area is the operation and control of technical plants using VDU workstations with full graphical capability.

This application requires In addition to the presentation of current process states, this application also requires the possibility to transfer conditions and commands to the process and its control equipment. The user uses the mouse, the keyboard and other input devices interactively with an immediately displayed response on the screen. Alerting in case of critical conditions or exceeding of a threshold as well as historical archiving of data for later presentation and interpretation also belongs to the core functions.

Such systems are mostly called control systems, visualization systems or according to the Anglo-american acronym as SCADA or HMI. SCADA is the abbreviation for Supervisory Control And Data Acquisition which describes the manner of the programm package very well. HMIstands forHuman Machine Interface.

Figure 1. The role of WinCC OA within an automation system

Therefore, WinCC OA is a supervisory software for the control centreormachine operation.PC-basedservers and work stations are used as the hardware platform. Together with control systems of the basic automation (PLCPLC[1], DDC[2], RTU[3],...) plus their sensors and I/O modules, it forms a complete automation system.

[1]PLC Programmable Logic Controller (industrial computer system for digital control and operation)

[2]DDC…Direct Digital Control (family of control devices in building services management)

[3]RTU…Remote Terminal Unit, Remote Telemetry Unit