As hardware constitutes less of the price of an auto

mation system, the costs for creating user software

become more important, accounting for an average

of more than 50% of the total cost of an automation

project. This makes it clear that the mechanism, by

which cost structures can be changed to the user’s

advantage, must begin with engineering.

That‘s essentially why we‘ve developed Freelance

800F: to enhance cost efficiency by reducing engi

neering costs, while keeping hardware prices con

sistent with those of programmable logic controllers.

How can engineering costs be reduced?

• Use of only one engineering tool (Control Builder F)

to configure the entire system, consisting of  auto-

mation functions and the operator interface- with

displays and logs, as well as to configure fieldbus

lines (PROFIBUS, FOUNDATION Fieldbus, HART,

etc. ) and to parameterize field devices

• Automatic generation of the entire communication

between controllers and operator stations

• Lower cost and time investment for data input

due to a system-wide uniform database for field

devices, process stations and operator stations,

leading to data consistency within the entire system

• Uniform, system-wide plausibility check of user

programs via all process and operator stations up

to intelligent field devices, including formal check

for completeness and consistency of the user programs

• Graphical configuration with high-performance

editors in programming languages according to IEC 61131-3

– Function block diagram (FBD)

– Ladder diagram (LD)

– Instruction list (IL)

– Sequential function chart (SFC)

– Structured text (ST)