COMPANY
SMS group
INDUSTRY
Manufacturing
COMPANY SIZE
Enterprise
COUNTRY
Germany
SCALE
Large installation, multiple PRTG instances per project
SMS Group builds production plants for the global steel industry. Modern steel production runs on digital control technology, HMIs, automation systems, and real-time networks. Before a plant is installed at a customer site, it goes through simulation, testing, and integration phases requiring servers, databases, and switches.
Frank Schweisfurth and the Centers of Excellence Electrics and Automation team are responsible for all IT and OT hardware and software, from small setups with a PLC and two computers to large plants with a hundred operator stations.
Without a unified view across IT and OT, overarching relationships stay hidden and complex issues are harder to resolve.
SMS Group selected PRTG Enterprise Monitor as its centralized monitoring tool. PRTG monitors X-Pact embedded automation controllers, third-party controllers, and Windows-based process control applications.
OPC UA and MQTT sensors measure real-time capability of Profinet networks. The REST Custom Sensor via RESTful API delivers status on entire operations per call. PRTG Maps visualize all processes and systems at a glance.
Memory leaks caused by software combinations used to require expensive post-deployment fixes. With PRTG, the team detects and eliminates them early in the test phase. Each project gets its own PRTG server instance with sensors distributed under a single license.
PRTG has become an essential part of the entire plant production process, from planning to acceptance by the customer. So much so that we are currently toying with the idea of expanding our portfolio to offer support for plants, even after they are operational. This might involve making PRTG part of the overall package by selling customers a PRTG license, or using PRTG to ensure the smooth long-term operation of customer plants based on SLAs that we monitor with the software.
