Integrating SAP Plant Connectivity with SAP MII and the socket system

This blog describes the SAP© Plant Connectivity (PCo) services and management tools that enable you to integrate with SAP Manufacturing Integration and Intelligence (MII) to create the following elements:

• Connectors
• Communication paths between control systems
• Control devices
• Files
• Historians
• Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) sockets

These days, manufacturing automation software offers fast data exchange between SAP systems and external sources such as programmable logic controller (PLC) controls, plant historian systems, and more. The SAP PCo system is one of the major software applications that SAP introduced to exchange data between SAP Shop Floor and the SAP MII system. SAP PCo delivers the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) and machine-to-machine (M2M) connectivity to the business.

SAP PCo is the second generation of the SAP Manufacturing connector technology. It replaces the xMII UDS (Universal Data Server) product that was initially developed by Lighthammer Corp. It increases the value of production data and lets you build smarter products with smarter machines. It distributes manufacturing intelligence across your factory and enterprise with robust
standards-based connectivity.

This post explains the SAP PCo installation and integration with SAP MII and the socket system. It provides step-by-step configuration screenshots of the source and destination systems. It also explores the notification creation process to
let you monitor production facilities, identify undesirable events (such as rule violations or changes in measurement readings), and report them to a destination system.

SAP PCo

This section explores SAP PCo.

Overview

SAP provides a software component that enables the exchange of data between a SAP system and the industry-specific data sources of different manufacturer process control systems such as:

• Plant historian systems
• Supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) systems
• Programmable logic controllers (PLCs)
• Statistical Process Control Software (SPC) systems

With PCo, you can receive tags and events from the connected production source systems either automatically or by requesting and forwarding them to the connected SAP systems.

Advantages of a PCo system

1. You can quickly configure PCo systems. No additional development is needed to connect production source systems.
2. PCo systems communicate with different software systems on the shop floor and connect machines to solutions such as SAP MII, manufacturing execution systems (MES), SAP Extended Warehouse Management (EWM), and more.
3. You can configure a PCo system for one or more locations and distribute manufacturing intelligence across your factory and enterprise with robust standards-based connectivity.

The following diagram shows the SAP PCo architecture:

Socket to PCo process

The following sections cover installing and configuring the PCo, based on the
following steps:

1. Install the latest PCo version.
2. Install key files with the corresponding hardware key.
3. In PCo, create a source system, `Socket Agent`.
4. In PCo, create an agent instance with the socket agent and specify the IP address with the port number.
5. In PCo, create a destination system, `SAP MII`.
6. In MII, create a Business Logic Server (BLS) transaction to retrieve data from the source system.
7. In PCo, configure the MII BLS transaction path in the PCo MII destination.
   

Prerequisites
Before starting, consider the following prerequisites:

To find the latest guide, go to the SAP support portal
Then click Download Software and log on. Finally, click Support Packages and Patches -> A-Z Index -> P -> SAP Plant Connectivity -> SAP Plant Connectivity 2.3 -> SAP Plant Connectivity 2.3 -> Win32

Install the SAP PCo system

Before you install the SAP PCo system, you must install Microsoft® .NET Framework version 4.5.2 or later.

Reference this help document for planning, software download, installation, and post-installation assistance
as needed.

The PCo Management Console, shown in the following image, is the WinForms application that provides the configuration and management of the PCo source and destination systems, agent instances, and notifications.

Image Source
Go to
SAP Business Suite Applications -> SAP Manufacturing SAP Plant Connectivity -> SAP Plant Connectivity 15.1.
The following image shows the structure of the connection flow:

Go to SAP Business Suite Applications -> SAP Manufacturing SAP Plant Connectivity -> SAP Plant Connectivity 15.1.

After you install the .NET Framework, use the following steps to install PCo:

1. Install the latest PCo version.

2. Install key files with the corresponding hardware key.

Create the source system
Use the following steps to create the source system:

Set the source system and agent

Click Source System, provide the name, and select the source Agent type (OPC DA, HAD, OLEDB, UA`, or IP21) as Socket Agent as shown in the following screenshot: