What is PCS Neo

PCS Neo is the newest automation system in the Siemens portfolio. This system is going to be the replacement for PCS 7 and T3000 (Power plant automation system), and so will have to include functionality of both systems. The feature highlights of PCS Neo are:

• Redundant PC Stations and Controllers
• Scalable solution with no install on client PCs
• HTML 5 based engineering and visualization
• Process safety, batch and route control in one control system (To be release by siemens)
• Telecontrol, powercontrol and T3000 control elements (To be release by siemens)
• Library is the same as the PCS 7 library for easy migration (Advanced Process Library)
• Hardware is the same as PCS 7 for easy migration (AS410)

Where will PCS Neo be used

PCS Neo is used in the process industries. a couple of industries that benefit from using PCS Neo are:

• Water and Waste water
• Food and Beverage (Controlling the process, not single machines)
• Oil, Gas and Power
• Pharmaceutical
• Chemical
• Biological
• Mining and minerals
• Pulp and paper

Due to the high degree of instrumentation and control items in a process line, a bigger capacity PLC need s to be used, and so the Siemens 410 CPU needs to be used in the process industry. When talking about single line – single product production on a small scale, TIA Portal should be used, In multi line or multi product cases or bigger single line instance, PCS Neo is usually the better option. This is due to the slower(max 10ms) but higher capacity PLC, and more complex and numerous Remote IO Systems including modular redundancy system.

What is the upgrade path to PCS Neo

From PCS 7 it is very straight forward to upgrade to PCS Neo. The only things you will need is the following besides a compatible PCS 7 version:

• PCS 7 system using the Advanced Process Library
• Compatible PC stations or Virtual enviroment (HTML 5 clients should run on most new devices)
• Compatible PLC (Siemens CPU410 or higher)
• Remote IO ET200 SP HA

Advantages of using PCS Neo

PCS Neo is fully compatible with PCS 7, and because it will replace this system, it will have all the advantages of using PCS 7 for your process automation system. Additionally the following added advantages can be gained.

• Industry 4.0 compatible
• HMTL 5 based client systems (Only 1 server system needed (or a redundant server system if required))
• Continued use of the well know objects and control options of PCS 7
• Common hardware platform PCS 7, that can be reused in PCS Neo. 

Engineering in PCS Neo

Because the engineering system is based on HMTL5, a multi user engineering system is one of the most important changes in this new engineering system. The library used in PCS Neo is the same as PCS 7 and so are the programming options. PLC Software is still programmed using the library blocks and charts and sequences are still visually programmed as a sequence, which will automatically configure and generate the visualization screens.

iAUTOMATION and PCS Neo

iAUTOMATION is an engineering company that specialized in solutions for the process industry. We have had a number of demonstrations and projects from the first Beta versions of PCS Neo. Due to our close contact with Siemens, and our ability to test PCS Neo at every development stage, we are very well informed on how PCS Neo works, and also how to implement and upgrade to it.