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. 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.

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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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Process Historians – It’s just infrastructure?

Since 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…

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Why is Systems Design Critical for Industrial Automation Solutions?

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. When the system design…

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SCADA, PLC and RTU Solutions

SCADA (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)…

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Water SCADA Solutions that include Information Systems, RTU, HMI and PLC

Effectively 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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Getting SCADA data into your Asset Management System

Organising data for Asset Managment The “Internet of Things” or “Internet of Everything” is grabbing the attention of many. Asset managers want a more cost effective way of managing their “things”, unfortunately acquiring the information from existing internet devices can be challenging and overwhelming. Yes, the data may be there and available using a legacy…

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