Traditional manufacturers have a well-implemented FBD, LD, and IL. It would be a long article to create a side-by-side comparison of all these systems - so, here is a daring categorization into two groups (divided by the underlying philosophy behind the design of these systems): Traditional PLCs All of this to pave the way to industrial-scale programming, without the necessity of reinventing the wheel (or parts of it) for every single project. The aim was to create well-crafted libraries that would solve the most common programming problems - such as coordination primitives, and component libraries with a set of scalable, reusable, and testable components. It soon became apparent that the only way to be efficient was to select a limited number of systems - ideally one. There was no longer much sense in working with an unlimited number of PLC platforms. The explosion of requirements came roughly around the time of the Industry 4.0 initiative, and perhaps more importantly when people became familiar with smart devices, and fully realized the potential of such technologies.
It got seriously out of hand when the demands crossed the line into the expanding requirements for extensive data acquisition, data-driven applications, and rich visualization. This variety of systems was bearable until the machines’ software was limited to the control logic and some HMI. Lastly, some CoDeSys based platforms from Schneider (SoMachine), Rexroth (IndraLogic), and Beckhoff (TwinCAT). Here is a list of those that I can recall: Siemens, Scheider (Unity, PL7), B&R, Allen Bradley, Omron, Bosch, and some more exotic systems like Delta, Panasonic, Mitsubishi, and Horner. MTS uses different PLC systems - the mixture of platforms roughly approximates the spectrum of manufacturers currently present in Europe. Thus, this is a story about the quest to make this life much more meaningful and far more efficient. In this environment, the life of a programmer is extremely challenging: the last in the production chain (often finalizing the job in the truck on its way to the customer), yet also the first to be called whatever the problem is mechanical, electrical, software, etc. The company is growing, on average, about 20% every year, and it is difficult to find the right people for the right job. Some background: The perspective here is of a programmer working in a company ( MTS) that builds single-purpose machines - each original, rarely repeating projects. In this comparison, two main aspects are considered: the overall ecosystem of a given platform, and the programming/software development tools. This text is an amalgam of personal experience, gut feelings, and strong opinions developed over the years - so please, take it as such. This post is a response to Jakob Sagatowski’s invite for me to share my view on how Beckhoff's TwinCAT3 solution compares to other PLC manufacturers.
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