Driving The Automation Train: How Industrial Companies Are Addressing Today’s Challenges

Today’s marketplace demands productivity, sustainability and business flexibility. Over the past two decades, business software, control products and solutions have enabled companies to do more than ever before.

But companies are now simplifying architecture, doing away with separate controllers and systems, providing greater access to information, lowering maintenance costs and optimizing productivity.

These challenges are new, unique and sometimes expensive. But creative solutions can often help companies address today’s challenges at a cost they can afford.

System Flexibility, Real Time Infomation & Compliance

For hospitals, it’s financial issues and productivity while maintaining patient safety, meeting regulatory standards and energy mandates, hospital security and patient satisfaction.

For the mining industry it’s dealing with an aging workforce and attracting skilled workers. Mining companies also deal with precious resources such as water, which is currently a stressed commodity. And the mining industry has its share of regulations such as footprint monitoring, contamination control, and mine closure strategies.

And the American Water Works Association (AWWA) regularly conducts an industry survey to gain insight into critical data and concerns in the water and wastewater industries. Operators recently cited an aging infrastructure, regulatory reporting challenges, the growing demand for water due to growing populations, the depletion of supplies and the likelihood of long-term water shortages.

Taken together, these three examples show organizations being pulled in many directions and in need of more centralized management and operations.

Looking At The Lifecycle Of Automation

The use of SCADA systems, Programmable Logic Controllers (PLCs) and cheap HMI software over the past two decades has helped make many companies more resilient and efficient but today they are being challenged due to the need for increased operational monitoring and business integration.

Wholesale Replacement Versus Incremental Modernization

One alternative is the wholesale replacement of aging equipment, but this can be very expensive. New software can often be installed to operate and monitor aging PLCs and HMI products so as to maximize past investment while modernizing operations and management systems.

The availability of advanced visualization, remote monitoring, comprehensive reporting as well as detection and avoidance systems is worth the effort as these can significantly impact profitability.

Tags: automation, the automation train

This entry was posted on May 23rd, 2014 and is filed under Automation. Both comments and pings are currently closed.