The present disclosure relates to control systems for controlling and dynamically configuring a production line. The production line includes one or multiple peripheral devices respectively located throughout the production line. A controller, or control unit, may, in one embodiment, extract binary instructions included in a file received from a source external to the controller, and the controller operates each of the devices on the production line based on the binary instructions embedded in the file.

A call unit transmits a call signal to verify the presence or absence of slave devices, which correspond to motors, to all of the slave devices after a master device is activated. A response reception unit determines the number of the slave devices, based on the number of response signals to the call signals. A communication speed change determination unit determines whether or not a data communication speed between the master device and the slave devices should be changed from a first speed to a second speed different from the first speed during a period from the time when the number of the slave devices is determined to the time when the drive of the motors is stopped, in accordance with a result of comparison of between the number of the slave devices and a predetermined number.

An industrial integrated development environment (IDE) supports the use of graphical device profiles to configure device parameters as part of an industrial control project. To allow an edit to first device represented by a first device profile to be applied easily to other device profiles, the industrial IDE system can record a user's interactions with the first device profile during a session of editing the device's parameters. These interactions are recorded as a sequence of cursor movements, mouse-click selections, keystrokes, and other such interactions. The user interactions are stored as a reusable interaction record which can be selectively applied to other device profiles to recreate or replay the user interactions on those other profiles.

A method for configuring hardware modules in an automation system includes the steps opening or creating a project in a project configuration software package, opening or generating, in the project, where a station has a number of slots, opening a hardware catalog that includes a plurality of hardware module master data records, inserting at least one hardware module master data record for a hardware module from the hardware catalog (into the station, wherein a customization step is performed for the at least one hardware module master data record, where at least one environmental parameter is specified which represents the ambient conditions at the deployment location of the at least one hardware module, and saving the station having the at least one hardware module master data record inserted into the station and with its at least one environmental parameter.

A modular automation support system for modular plants comprises an automation engineering support system comprising a feedback processing component configured to modify the operation of one or more other components of the automation engineering support system based on user feedback.

A system and method includes partitioning a network into first and second sub-networks connected by a network connection. A first component with first configuration data and a first local server are located in the first sub-network; a second component with second configuration data and a second local server are located in the second sub-network. The first configuration data is stored on the first and second local servers. The network connection is interrupted and the first configuration data is updated on the first local server. The network connection is re-connected, and if the first configuration data on the second local server is unchanged, the first configuration data on the second local server is overwritten.

A method for configuring a new field device in an industrial plant includes detecting the new device, obtaining driver information including configuration parameters of the new device; determining the previously used field device, determining whether the driver information for the new device matches that for the previously used device. In case of a match, provisioning the new device with the previously used configuration parameters, and in case of no match, provisioning the new device with new configuration parameters.