SAP Plant Connectivity (PCo)

Any business wanting to be competitive in today's market must be able to rapidly and flexibly adapt production to current market conditions. The SAP PCo tool provides you with a link between the shop floor and other areas of your business, which facilitates smooth data transfer between production systems and the entire logistics network.

Plant Connectivity (PCo) is a windows-based application. It has been developed in C# and is based on the .NET framework. This means that high-performance data connections can be established between SAP applications and branch-specific standard data sources. PCo comprises source systems, target systems, agents and notifications. 

Source system

All common software interfaces are supported by PCo via agents. A sample of the standardized interfaces that are supported includes:

• OPC Data Access
• OPC Historical Data Access
• OPC Alarms & Events
• OLE DB for connections to ODBC drivers, Microsoft Excel or Microsoft Access
• File Monitor
• Socket

Target system

A target system is a system that receives information from PCo. The following target systems are available as data recipients:

• MES CAT
• SAP Manufacturing Integration and Intelligence (SAP MII)
• SAP Manufacturing Execution (SAP ME)
• Business suite system, e.g. SAP ERP or SAP EWM
• SAP HANA database

Agent and notification

An agent monitors a source system, logs the most recent actions, and sends notifications. A notification specifies which target system the tags are sent to and defines a trigger for the notification.

Advantages:

• PCo quick and easy to configure
• No additional in-house development necessary
• Possible to communicate with various software systems
• A range of source systems available, can be used without any programming knowledge
• High level of standardization thanks to the use of SAP technologies combined with Microsoft .NET components 
• A PCo installation can communicate with multiple source systems