Method and system for operating a machine from the field of automation engineering

A system for operating a machine through controlling drives in the field of automation engineering, said system comprising:

• an operating unit having a display screen;
• an external computing device running communication server software, wherein the external computing device is not part of the machine and is located remote from the machine;
• and
• a control device associated with the machine and configured to transmit operating inputs entered at the operating unit and an identification code via a data network to the communication server software running on the external computing device, said control device being connected to the controlling drives and allowing operations of the machine using an embedded MMI (Machine-Machine-Interface) core software and/or external software including a communication server software and an MMI application software,
• wherein the communication server software is configured to
• determine whether an MMI (Machine-Machine-Interface) arranged in a control device of the machine needs to be supplemented based on a given operation,
• wherein, in an event that the MMI core software needs to be supplemented, the communication server software is configured to
• transmit operating inputs and an identification code entered at an operating unit, and a computing unit of the control device for controlling drives of the machine via a data network to communication server software running on an external computing software, said operating unit having a screen;
• determine, based on the identification code which includes an internationally unique allocated serial number of a control device of the machine and a code specifying an MMI (Machine-Machine-Interface) for which the operating inputs and data are intended and cannot be set up or manipulated by the operator, with the communication server software, software MMI application software associated with the machine and with the operating inputs;
• adapt the MMI core software and a client software by modifying parameters;
• transmit an alert that the MMI application software is now available for a desired operation;
• transmit, with the communication server software, the operating inputs to the determined MMI application software running on the external computing device or on an additional external computing device;
• determine, with the MMI application software, visualization data on the basis of the operating inputs;
• specify, with the visualization data, a graphical output image to be represented on the screen and a manner in which the graphical output image is presented to an operator of the machine, such that the operating functionalities of the machine can be extended as desired without increasing a demand for computing time and/or storage space required by the computing unit to perform the operating functionalities of the machine;
• transmit the visualization data to the machine via the communication server software and the data network;
• and
• represent the graphical output image on the screen based on the visualization data.