Compatibility and familiarity

Rockwell Automation, an expert in the programming, troubleshooting and timely deployment of automation solutions, uses a common development environment for its Logix-based solutions. The benefits, it says, extend across all of the Logix family - from lower-level devices such as drives and motion, through the core Allen-Bradley CompactLogix L3 programmable automation controllers (PAC), to the top, operator-interaction and visualisation layer.

By offering a suite of tools with the same consistency, look and feel, that interact seamlessly with each other, coupled to a single, common data source, all engineers on a project have access to all the information they need, when they need it and at the right version number.

Core to the Rockwell Automation programming environment in terms of visualisation is its FactoryTalk View Studio package. By linking into the PAC, which remains the core repository for data and programming throughout the developmental stages, users can access faceplates to hook directly into data structures. They can define linkages by browsing the tag database, which creates a reference to the data in the PAC. A single location for code and tags means everything can be referenced and updated without moving the data.