Siemens launches an IT‍-‍style engineering tool for automation projects

Siemens has launched an IT-like engineering application, SIMATIC AX WinCC Unified Elements, for the SIMATIC WinCC Unified system. It is designed to allow automation engineers to build, perform version control, and deploy visualisation engineering projects with the same workflows used by IT software developers; however, the application is currently only available in the United States. A free trial available in Europe suggests it will be released to other markets in the near future.

The manufacturing industry faces a widening gap between the pace of digital transformation and the availability of skilled automation talent. As product development and change cycles shrink while the need for efficiency grows, a new generation of IT-minded engineers expects modern software development tools that move beyond traditional engineering ecosystems. SIMATIC AX WinCC Unified Elements aims to address this gap with an open, code-based engineering environment for visualisation that runs alongside traditional graphical, drag-and-drop editor-based workflows.

Native Git integration provides full project history, branching, and merge-request workflows for visualisation project development to support co-working in real time among distributed teams. The extension-based IDE — built on the Open VSX marketplace — provides customisation capabilities so engineers can tailor the development environment to their needs and receive new features as background updates, with no forced upgrades or added licensing cost.

“We’re witnessing a fundamental shift in industrial automation, where the speed of innovation is no longer limited by engineering tools but enabled by them,” said Adrien Amar, Global Business Development Manager, Software Defined Automation and SIMATIC AX WinCC Unified Elements at Siemens Digital Industries. “For decades, we’ve helped manufacturers automate their production lines; now we’re automating the automation itself. With SIMATIC AX WinCC Unified Elements, engineers can generate, validate and deploy automation projects at software speed — using AI generation, CI/CD pipelines, and the version control that IT teams have relied on for years.”

SIMATIC AX WinCC Unified Elements extends the SIMATIC AX family — which previously focused solely on PLC programming — into visualisation, providing engineers with a single, IT-aligned environment to develop both control logic and its interfaces.

Image credit: iStock.com/Supatman