WinCC is designed on a non technology-and industry-specific basis, it is modular and you can extend it in a flexible way. 

 WinCC makes possible both demanding single-user applications in mechanical engineering as well as complex multi-user solutions or even distributed systems including several servers and clients - also internet-based - in plant visualization.

WinCC combines both production and process automation - numerous references across any number of applications and branches of industry prove this. WinCC has established as an industry standard in the field of process visualization, no matter if you look at it as an autonomous SCADA-System (Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition) or the HMI component  of SIMATIC PCS 7. 
A large number of WinCC Options and Add-ons allows industry-specific solutions, e.g. in pharmaceutical industry or water treatment applications.

Efficient in engineering and during runtime

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WinCC leaves nothing to be desired when talking about efficiency or user friendliness. Libraries and wizards make the generation of a project fast and easy and reduce error-proneness considerably. 
As a software for most complex HMI tasks WinCC is able to handle comprehensive projects and mass data. 
(Configuration Studio, Cross reference Lists,..) 
Libraries and wizards make creating projects faster and easier while substantially reducing the possibility of errors. 
User-specific faceplates can be created at a central location and managed with the help of block technology. Changes are automatically implemented at all points of use. Efficient operation is made possible with application-specific menus and toolbars that are "fixed" or "movable" as is customary in Windows.

Ready for global use

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The engineering system lets you choose from 5 European and 4 Asian languages. Each display language can be easily and efficiently implemented during runtime. UNICODE allows you to change to individual languages at any time, both in the engineering phase and at runtime. Such changes are independent of the language of the WinCC Server and of the language activated on the operating system.

Integrated data archiving

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Historical process information is saved in process value archives. The archiving of data and events in the form of process value,message and user archives is implemented with high performance: up to 10,000 measured values per second and up to 15,000 messages within 10 seconds as a message burst. The memory requirement is very low thanks to powerful compression functions.  In the WinCC basic system, it is possible to archive 512 archive tags. PowerPacks allow an increase up to 80,000 tags for each server. Central and optionally redundant long-term archiving can be implemented with the SIMATIC Process Historian option.

Integrated User Management incl. SIMATIC Logon

Using WinCC User Administrator, you assign and control users access rights for configuration and runtime. As the administrator, you can set up at any time - including at runtime - up to 128 user groups each containing up to 128 individual users and assign them appropriate access rights to WinCC functions. A total of 999 access rights is possible. Starting with WinCC V7 SIMATIC Logon is part of the WinCC basic system. The user administration with SIMATIC Logon integrates into the security system and user management of Windows and thus meets enhanced security requirements according to FDA regulations. SIMATIC Logon which is part of the basic system comprises a number of security mechanisms and provides a plantwide user management..

A configuation tool allows user specific settings:

·         Language and environment (domain and workgroup)

·         Login device: Keyboard / Chipcard Reader/other devices

Thus users can login in their own language via keyboard or with a chipcard on which name, domain and password are encrypted.

Intuitive operation with 2-finger multi-touch gestures

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State-of-the-art, innovative operational concepts with multi-touch gestures are rapidly gaining significance in the industrial environment.  The gestures that users know from consumer devices are particularly useful for more simple and intuitive operation of complex production plants.

SIMATIC WinCC V7.2 accordingly supports two-finger operation. You can implement functionality such as zoom or wiping, for example, for screen navigation and panning. SIMATIC HMI WinCC V7.2 also supports two-hand operation that can be used, for example, as enable function for setpoint input.

·         more about innovative HMI displays

Virtualization

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To reduce the administration and maintenance effort, the automation world is turning increasingly to virtualization and the opportunity it provides to decouple applications from hardware. This enables centralized management and further simplifies backing up and restoring the system environment.

Client environments can be installed once and distributed among one or two virtualization servers using virtual sessions (instances).