Software
The interface your people work with every day.
Mechanics and electrical engineering are half the plant. The other half is the software: the operator screen, the sequence, the control loops, the limits, the calibration and the record at the end. Below is a section of it to click through — the containerised MK-12 plant with four media circuits and 26 measuring points. The values are simulated, the layout is the real one.
Six views LabVIEW · Beckhoff · B&R · Siemens Usable without logging in Values simulated
MK-12Media conditioning · 40 ft container·Test run
Sequence KF-22 · step 4 of 9 Running time 00:14:26 User Test bench operator
MK-12 flow diagram — four media circuits, 26 measuring points
Water/glycol, thermal oil, chilled water and gases in one container. Every measuring point carries its value right next to the circuit; a click shows the last 45 seconds. The lines are drawn in anthracite and turn turquoise as soon as the circuit is flowing — switch a circuit off and watch what happens.
ISO 10628 · IEC 60617
The flow diagram is wider than the screen — scroll sideways.
Live measurement — dials, bars, trend
Industrial-style dial instruments with fine graduation, a warning mark and a shutdown mark: when the needle passes a mark it changes colour and a symbol is added — colour alone never carries a state. The trend below shows four channels over time, with two axes, a limit band and event marks.
Update rate 2 Hz
—
TI-01 · water flow
within band
—
TI-11 · thermal oil flow
within band
—
TI-41 · test item core
within band
Actuators and flows
Temperatures, 180 s window · limit lines labelled for TI-01 · vertical marks at each step change in the sequence.
Flow rate — its own chart, because the quantity needs a different axis
A dual y-axis is not permitted by our house standard — two quantities with different units get two charts.
Sequence KF-22 — nine steps, each with its own enabling chain
A step starts only once its preconditions are complete. Whatever is missing is named — not as a collective “not ready”. Select a step on the left to see its chain and its setpoints.
Test instruction PT-2026-PRT-118
Step chain
The buttons act within this demo only.
Step
——
Setpoints in this step
| Quantity | Setpoint | Actual value | State |
|---|
Enabling chain
Message list
| Time | Class | Source | Message | Acknowledgement |
|---|
Control loops — coefficients against the simulated process
Every loop is designed against a process made up of a first-order lag and a dead time. Adjust Kp, Ti, Td or the dead time and watch the step response recalculate. The five figures below are set against the limits from the acceptance specification — anything outside them is shown in red.
Acceptance to PT-2026-DOK-042
Water flow temperature
—What acceptance requires
- Settling time at most 120 s to ± 0.5 K.
- Overshoot at most 8 % of the step height.
- Steady-state control deviation less than 0.2 K.
- Manipulated variable reserve at least 15 % in the steady state.
Manipulated variable — its own chart
Limits — type, hysteresis, delay, response
Every measuring point carries its own limit. The type determines which fields take effect; the hysteresis keeps a message from chattering at the limit; the pick-up delay holds back short peaks that say nothing about the test item. Select a row on the left and change the values — the switching behaviour on the right follows along.
Level: test bench operator
Flow temperature
TI-01 · Cooling circuit flow
Measuring range −20 to +90 °C
Message in the list, the sequence continues
Switching behaviour
—The message comes when the upper limit is exceeded and only falls back once the value is below it by the hysteresis.
Effect on the plant
- The limit takes effect only in the states selected above. During start-up a deliberately wider band applies than during the test run.
- “Shutdown” brings the sequence down in an orderly way — it is not an emergency stop. The emergency stop is hard-wired and does not sit in the software.
- Every change made on this screen is entered in the plant’s change log with the user, a timestamp and the previous value.
Configured limits
| Measuring point | Tag | Type | Low | High | Hyst. | Delay | Response | State |
|---|
Calibration — from raw signal to measured value
The sensor delivers a raw signal; the software turns it into a measured value. Four methods are available. The characteristic curve on the right shows your entry in turquoise, the factory curve behind it as a grey dashed line and the live raw signal in yellow. The test points below are assessed against the tolerance.
Traceable to a DAkkS standard
Pt100 4-wire · raw signal 80 to 140 Ω · measuring range −20 to +90 °C
Two test points are enough as long as the sensor is linear across the range. A Pt100 meets that within the tolerance.
Test points against tolerance
| Test point | Reference | Indicated | Deviation | Assessment |
|---|
Tolerance ± 0.3 °C to class A. A row that is out of tolerance blocks the transfer until the point has been recorded again.
Platforms
We write in the language of your house
A test bench rarely stands on its own. It stands in a works where a control platform is already in place — and after acceptance your maintenance people should be able to open the plant themselves. That is why we do not commit to one platform, but work in the one already running at your site.
Measurement and test sequence
LabVIEW
We are an NI Alliance Partner and have been writing in LabVIEW for years: operator interface, data acquisition, test sequence and record. Alongside it TestStand for sequence control in series production, PXI and C Series for acquisition, TDMS as the measurement data format.
PLC
Beckhoff
TwinCAT 3 with structured text to IEC 61131-3, TwinCAT HMI for the operator screen, EtherCAT as the fieldbus, TwinSAFE for the safety level. Our standard choice when measurement and control move close together.
PLC
B&R
Automation Studio with mapp components, POWERLINK and openSAFETY. In houses where Bernecker + Rainer is the given, we build the plant entirely in that world — with nothing foreign alongside it.
PLC
Siemens
TIA Portal with SIMATIC S7-1200 and S7-1500, SCL and ladder diagram, WinCC as the visualisation, PROFINET and PROFIsafe. The route for works whose maintenance people speak Siemens anyway.
Programming is done in the IEC 61131-3 languages — which of them is decided by the task, not by taste. Control algorithms and calculations in structured text, interlocks in ladder diagram, sequences in sequential function chart.
- ST · Structured text
- FBD · Function block diagram
- LD · Ladder diagram
- SFC · Sequential function chart
- G · LabVIEW
- C# · Evaluation and interfaces
- Python · Recalculation and test equipment management
What we hand over is the source code — commented, with a change log and the library versions. There is no locked block that only we can open. That is not generosity, it is the condition for a plant still running in fifteen years.
What you have seen above
Six views, one idea
The interface is not an accessory to the test bench, it is the part your people touch every day. It is built to one rule: what is needed for the next decision is on the screen — and nothing else.
Read it off instead of hunting for it
In the flow diagram every value stands next to its measuring point. The line turns turquoise as soon as it is flowing; anyone who wants to know whether a value is holding or drifting clicks the measuring point and sees the last 45 seconds — without leaving the screen.
Colour never carries it alone
Yellow means a limit, red means a fault, green means an operating state. Every coloured state also carries a symbol and a text — so that the plant stays readable for people with colour vision deficiency and on a faded monitor in the hall.
No step without an enable
Every sequence step carries its own enabling chain. Whatever is missing is named — not as a collective “not ready”. That saves half the fault-finding on a Monday morning.
Structure
What lies behind the interface
The operator interface is the top one of five layers. Below it lie the sequence, the control loops and the conditioning of measured values, and at the very bottom the hard-wired safety — which is deliberately not software.
- OperationOperator screen, sequence editor, limits, calibration, message list, user management with levels from observer to maintenance engineer. Each level sees what it needs and may do what it can answer for.
- SequenceSequences made up of steps with pre- and postconditions. A step starts only once its enabling chain is complete — safety, medium, plant. Sequences can be edited in plain text and kept under version control.
- ControlControl loops with Kp, Ti, Td and dead time, the step response checked against a tolerance band. The coefficients are held in the plant file and recorded at the factory acceptance, not passed on over the telephone.
- Measured valuesCalibration for each sensor, traceable to a standard. Raw signal, characteristic curve and test points are stored separately, so that a recalibration does not overwrite the measurement history.
- SafetyEmergency stop, safety circuits and interlocks are hard-wired and implemented in TwinSAFE, openSAFETY or PROFIsafe — not in the operator interface. The software can hold a sequence, but it cannot bypass a safety circuit.
- DataMeasurement data as TDMS or CSV, the record as PDF. Connection to your test data management on request; we write no data into a cloud that does not belong to you.
Where we draw the line
What this demo is not
What runs above is a section of it in a browser. The real interface runs at the test bench on an industrial computer, talks to the controller and writes to a file — it looks the same, but it can do more. What is deliberately reduced here: 26 measuring points instead of several hundred, one container instead of the whole hall, simulated values instead of measured ones. The operating logic, the dimensions and the states are the same.
If you would like to see the interface in operation: we show it on a running plant in Neuhofen an der Krems, or we mirror the screen to you in a video call.
Tell us what is to be operated.
For a first conversation it is enough to say: which measuring points, which sequences, which records should come out at the end, which control platform applies at your site — and whether an existing plant is to be retrofitted or a new one built.
