Bottle Filling Demo - FlowCreator

Table of Contents

• 1. Introduction
• 2. Prerequisites
  • 2.1. Environment
  • 2.2. Required Apps
  • 2.3. Required Files
• 3. Configure Applications
  • 3.1. Configure Databus
  • 3.2. Configure FlowCreator
  • 3.3. Configure IIH Essentials
• 4. Result
• 5. Contribution
• 6. Licence and Legal Information

1. Introduction

This app is a demonstrator that shows what data you could present via Industrial Edge for a bottle filling production system. For this purpose, it emulates the bottle filling station and the data it could provide.

2. Prerequisites

2.1. Environment

• Setting up a working Industrial Edge Hub / Industrial Edge Management / Industrial Edge (Virtual) Device environment (out of scope for this tutorial)
• Installing all required apps on the Industrial Edge (Virtual) Device (out of scope for this tutorial)

2.2. Required Apps

• Flow Creator (v1.18 or newer)
• Databus (v3.0.2 or newer)
• IIH Essentials (v2.0.0 or newer)
• Performance Insight (v1.18.1 or newer)
• Energy Manager (v1.18 or newer)

2.3. Required Files

• flows.json - Contains the Node-RED code to be deployed in FlowCreator. It simulates a bottle filling line and sends emulated production data to the Databus.
• iih-essentials-backup-config.json - IIH Essentials configuration file that contains the configuration data for setting up the data points in IIH Essentials
• Bottle_Filling_Line_Overview.json - Performans Insight Overview Dashboard
• Bottle_Filling_Line_State_Flow.json - Performance Insight State Dashboard

3. Configure Applications

We have to configure the applications so that they can work together. We need to achieve the following:

• Databus is configured to provide a topic ie/# with username and password for read/write access.
• FlowCreator needs to be configured by loading script files.
• IIH Essentials needs to be loaded with the configuration for the Bottling Line Demo app (data points). The project comes with a configuration file to use for this.
• Performance Insight needs to be configured to use Overview and State dashboards.

3.1. Configure Databus

We have to configure the Databus to handle a topic group ie/#. Note that the # is a placeholder symbol. We configure the Databus for any topic that starts with ie/. This is done from the IEM via the "Data Connections" tab.

Step 1: Click the Databus icon

Step 2: Select the Edge Device and click the Launch button

Step 3: Click the Users (+) button

On the next page, add a new user with edge as username and password (both the same). Then create a topic ie/# with Publish and Subscribe permissions for the user "edge".

Username: edge Password: edge Topic name: ie/# Permission: Publish and Subscribe

Step 4: Save username, password, and topic

3.2. Configure FlowCreator

In this step we import the FlowCreator script that simulates the data of a bottling production line. It is basically a Node-RED workflow. For this, navigate to the "Data Connections" tab in IEM and select the FlowCreator app.

From the Flow Transfer tab, Browse and select the flows.json file, then select the Edge Device and click the Deploy button.

Step 1: Deploy flows.json file

After having deployed the flow, we have to make sure that the Databus connection is set up correctly. This is done by injecting a simulation datapoint and a timestamp by clicking on the corresponding buttons in the flow. The connected MQTT output nodes should show a green "connected" flag:

Step 2: Verify Databus connection

If the green light does not show up double click on the MQTT output nodes and make sure that they are configured correctly with the username and password of the databus user edge which we configured in the previous section 3.1..

Note

Note that the core logic for creating the data is implemented within the function "Simulation". Feel free to open the function and review the JavaScript code.

3.3. Configure IIH Essentials

The IIH Essentials app must be configured to read the datapoints from the MQTT topics which we configured in the Databus (see Section 3.1.).

Step 1: Open IIH Essentials app from your Edge Device

Click on Settings and open the group Backup and restore:

Step 2: IIH Essentials Backup and Restore

Select the iih-essentials-backup-config.json file and click the Upload button.

Note

If you have other assets configured in your IIH Essentials which you do not need, we suggest to delete them (for example, there could be a default vPLC asset).

4. Result

Now open the Performance Insight app to see the result:

Congratulations! :party_popper:

5. Contribution

Thank you for your interest in contributing. Anybody is free to report bugs, unclear documentation, and other problems regarding this repository in the Issues section. Additionally everybody is free to propose any changes to this repository using Pull Requests.

If you haven't previously signed the Siemens Contributor License Agreement (CLA), the system will automatically prompt you to do so when you submit your Pull Request. This can be conveniently done through the CLA Assistant's online platform. Once the CLA is signed, your Pull Request will automatically be cleared and made ready for merging if all other test stages succeed.

6. Licence and Legal Information

Please read the Legal information.