5.5
Working in the plant hierarchy
5.5.1
Introduction to plant hierarchy
Plant hierarchy
The plant hierarchy (PH) maps the hierarchical structure of your plant. For example, a plant,
unit or function. PH provides you with many settings. The most important ones are:
● Number of hierarchy levels:
The nesting depth of these levels is determined by the plant structure. Rule: If your plant
structure is complex, you will require higher number of hierarchy levels to reflect it. With
PCS 7 wizard, hierarchy folders with default names are created according to your
specification.
● Determination of the hierarchy level(s) which influence the name of plant ID (HID):
The PCS 7 SMART project contains many instances of the HID. Messages generated in
the active process and tag names contain this HID in order to allow operators to quickly
recognize a specific plant unit associated with a message or tag. Rule: If your individual
HID part is longer and if you define more hierarchy levels, the entire HID becomes less
recoginizable.
● Deriving the picture hierarchy from the PH:
The process pictures are grouped in a specific hierarchy. This allows you to change from
an overview picture to a lower level picture in process mode. The subordinate pictures
represent a portion of the overview picture that is very accurate. The hierarchy of the
process pictures corresponds with how they are stored in the plant hierarchy.
5.5.2
Plant hierarchy settings
Prerequisites
● The color_gs project is open in SIMATIC Manager.
● The plant view is activated.
Procedure
1. Select the "color_gs_prj_MP\color_gs_prj_Prj" hierarchy level in the tree view.
2. Select Options > Plant Hierarchy > Settings
The "Customize Plant Hierarchy" dialog box opens where you can set the plant hierarchy
options.
3. Enter the value "4" in the "Number of hierarchy levels" field.
This setting allows up to four hierarchy levels to be defined.
4. Enter the value "10" in the "Max. number of characters" boxes for all four hierarchy levels.
This setting limits the length of the HID string to 10 characters per hierarchy level.
Initial work for the project
5.5 Working in the plant hierarchy
PCS 7 SMART Getting Started - Part 1 (V9.0 with APL)
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Getting Started, 12/2017, A5E42181435-AA
