There is nothing simple about managing industrial automation software systems.
What is the best reporting system for my process historian or my SCADA system How important is “dimensioning” data? How expensive are Business Reports?
How will we survive without Industrial Automation Process Historians?
SCADA Systems are perfect… right?
There are two primary concepts of redundancy when considering process and automation systems.
There’s an old saying about data… “put rubbish in, get rubbish out”
Is a single source of truth possible for an enterprise information management system?
DetailsA systems integrator is a unique animal that finds pleasure in connecting unlike systems to produce a system or solution of superior functionality.
DetailsHistorian 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,…
DetailsIf the lights go out, or the water is contaminated, who do we blame? Can we blame…
DetailsTen 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. In some cases, there was no security at all. If you had the right configuration software, then you could configure the OT device to do as you pleased. This was accepted as “sort of” okay while these devices were connected to isolated networks. The network boundary was probably a single secured building, possibly located on a secured property. Physical and network isolation did a “good enough” job of protecting the asset from malicious interference.
DetailsOverall 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.
DetailsSince the year 2000 we have been implementing Enterprise Data Historian to Australian Industry (primarily Infrastructure/Utilities) for the past 16 years and we noticed a few things about most organisations; They do not trust their data or use it effectively Managing data accurately and the impact of data on the organisation is not part of…
DetailsIndustrial Automation is set to become commoditised, but why aren’t we there yet?
DetailsIndustrial 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. When the system design…
DetailsWe all rely upon many machines and equipment to deliver community infrastructure, transportation and the production of the essentials of life. If any of this essential equipment fails, then not only does that imply maintenance costs, but operators face operational downtime, which hurts the bottom line for their organisations. To ensure risk mitigation of any…
DetailsSCADA (Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition) systems are essential to most industrial, critical infrastructure and manufacturing organisation across a variety of industries. However, SCADA, PLC and RTU solutions are complex in nature and often for large-scale projects include a variety of equipment and even locations. In almost all scenarios, the discipline of IT (Information Technology)…
DetailsWhen you have many assets to manage, including equipment and machines, you want to be able to monitor your assets to ensure that they function well and undergo routine and necessary maintenance on time. But what if you could predict with confidence before a failure occurs. Would that change how often you pulled down a machine for routine maintenance? Knowing that over 30% of failures occur after routine maintenance, many asset owners are looking for strategies to improve the decision criteria so that routine maintenance can be delayed to “off peak” production periods to optimise business profits by reducing operating costs.
DetailsEffectively monitoring water infrastructure can lead to identifying and ultimately minimising operational losses. The investment in management and control of water infrastructure is of less value if the cost to operate complex technology does not drive better overall business performance. Water SCADA solutions may include SCADA Software, SCADA Historians (process data historian), PLCs, and RTUs…
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