It is a question of scale and functionality. Schneider Electric has a number of HMI or SCADA products and hence the confusion. Citect SCADA is a SCADA software for single stand alone workstation up to a plant wide installation, with multiple client screens, mobile devices displaying its screens and multiple servers offering a high level of redundancy and availability. It can grow with the system it serves and you increment the license as you need to. Machine SCADA formerly VIJEO XL, formerly Indusoft Machine Terminal Expert is a smaller scale SCADA system which to me is better used for smaller systems. Standalone or possibly with separate server and client application. Its price and complexity is usually lower and for a single PLC control is an option to consider. Both products can provide what your require and in many cases it will depend on what you or the client has experience with. In my discussion I have only mentioned two of the potential products. There is also an option for a local display screen which runs on our Magelis platform (check the web site for this). I would call this a local indication HMI which gives the person control of the PLC with some very basic HMI functionality but is a single display rather than a PC display and a PC server which is more of what I call SCADA. I hope this helps. Please correct me if I am incorrect as you can see we have undergone a number of product name changes which lends to confusion in the initial stages. Most of this is to highlight our move to an design philosophy called EcoStruxure which defines how your control and data management is integrated over three tiers. 1. Intelligent devices which is where your data is collected, 2. edge control where your data and control is put into play this includes our PLC and our SCADA / HMI solutions and this will channel into 3. Apps and analytics our third layer. RaiMahi if your were based in Australia you could probably attend one of our half day workshops running later this month which will demonstrate Ecostruxure Machine SCADA
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