Our Top 5 Problems with Process Historians

Our Top 5 Problems with Process Historians points out a number of product limitations and common implementation issues. The news is not all bad but the Top 5 does illustrate common problems. Like all technologies, getting it to do something more than it was intended to do may be cool, but there will be strings…

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Ticking Time bomb

Queensland Rail Functional Consultant Partnership

Queensland Rail operates and maintains 6,600 km of track in South East Queensland and Regional areas. It operates over 8,000 services each week and relies on Electric Power to operate Electric Trains (Rolling Stock). The Traction Power SCADA System is used by Operators to manage the grid safely and in turn, indirectly maintain the safety…

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Well dress Consultants work together to optimise customer outcomes.

Aurelia Metals OMCS Consultants champion ICS Uplift

Aurelia Metal’s Peak Mine has several polymetallic underground mines plus an 800ktpa gold and base metals processing plant. It is located in the Cobar Basin in New South Wales Australia. Like all mines and processing plants, Peak Mine has Industrial Control System technologies to monitor and manage processing and moving materials. These technologies also provide…

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Next Gen Enterprise Historians

We are at a crossroad as technology advancement in information systems is challenging our fundamentals, and so it should. But what are we at risk of losing as we progress

cross roads

Next Generation SCADA Systems

During the last three decades a lot has happened in the tech space, although comparatively much less has changed in SCADA due to the industrial automation industry as a whole being very conservative.

Ticking Time bomb

Software Lifecycle Management ensures data integrity

In 2007 the Australian Government introduced the National Greenhouse and Energy Reporting Scheme (NGERS), providing the first mandated national reporting guidelines for Australian companies. The instrument for compliance is the National Greenhouse and Energy Reporting Act 2007. Digitisation is a positive step forward, but only the start Data often offers more than a singular benefit…

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Glencore people grass

OT Managed Services for maximum flex

Parasyn have been providing engineering, management and lifecycle technology related services to Anglo for over 10 years.  Though some of these activities have related to IT Infrastructure, networks, security and design, the overall umbrella for the work is an OT Managed Services arrangement.   During this time, Parasyn has programmed and successfully delivered more than…

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Anglo underground mechanics

The IOT tug of war for SCADA systems

Rhetoric IoT, or IIoT for the purists living in the industrial automation space, is seen by many to be a rebadge or a new shiny coat of paint for things we have been doing for years. That is true in part, particularly for those who have been “smart” about managing devices. We now call these…

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SCADA IIOT

Managing Industrial Automation Software

There is nothing simple about managing industrial automation software systems.   Why do we need to update our SCADA or Industrial Automation software? How often do we need to upgrade our Industrial Automation software? Why are staging environments important? How many staging environments do I need? What is configuration management and why is it important?…

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Code and Debug

Operational Historian vs. Enterprise Historian

Historian systems have seen a rapid increase in use throughout various industries in the past decade or so. Data Historians improve how manufacturers, continuous process plant and utilities operate and manage their assets efficiently. Data Historian systems were built with the specific purpose of acquiring instrumentation data used in operational control, aiding in supervisory capacities,…

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The Network Boundary has changed

Ten years ago, “Operational Technology” (OT) vendors had only just really started to embrace Ethernet and TCP/IP as enterprise wide and global networking technology. The devices were generally designed “assuming” they would be on isolated “Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition” (SCADA) network segments and “something else” was going to take care of any security issues.…

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The great wall of China illustrates how important network boundaries are to cyber security.

Production Performance – Implementing OEE

Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE) is a standard method for measuring the improvement opportunity of a production process. It provides a single number that benchmarks a work cell’s performance. A work cell could be a single machine, a group of machines, a line or an entire production facility.  

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Overall Equipment Effectiveness

Systems Design Critical for Industrial Automation

Industrial Automation, officially explained and defined here, is generally accepted to be of a quality one level higher than the quality expected for consumer grade or domestic applications. Well-designed industrial automation systems increase business productivity and efficiency because they have been built for a purpose for a specific outcome and performance.