Industrial Automation Blog

As you make your move to mobile human-machine interfaces, ThinManager is a good way to ease the integration and operation of your thin client.

All buzzwords aside, it’s time to start planning for the future if you’re not already doing so. Three important areas that manufacturers need to focus on are security, physical infrastructure and the logical topology.

Supervisory control and data acquisition systems have some evolving to do to keep up with adoption in an IIoT era. But they still have a big market ahead.

The idea of tablet-controlled processes might bring skepticism, but there are a few reasons—consumer-based expectations, relevance and lifecycle management—why they're already here.

Avoid incurring an unintended higher cost of ownership by putting standards in place. Detailed here are three cases where things didn't go as hoped.

The SCADA system at Engie Brasil Energia's operations center monitors 32 plants, six of which are remotely operated.

Modernizing physical interfaces to a server-client architecture brings a whole host of benefits to your operation.

An information model used to define the interface between control functions and other enterprise functions, ISA-95 does not become dated over time the way technology would. It provides a smarter way to push ahead.

Too many factories are still operating with automation silos, leaving numerous manual steps scattered throughout their operations which create inefficiencies and greater potential for error. Given the current automation intelligence revolution in manufacturing, the time to eliminate those silos is now.

An unhealthy virtual infrastructure leads to headaches, pain points and, ultimately, unplanned downtime—and all the costs that follow. But with some diligence and preplanning, you can return your virtual infrastructure to good health and protect it from future disasters.

Overspecifying or underspecifying device points needlessly drives up SCADA implementation costs

Understanding that change is inevitable and anticipating potential changes are essential in managing frequent project revisions.

5 Quick Ways to Optimize SCADA Alarming

SCADA has a lot of moving parts and add-ons, which is why the implementation cost varies greatly from project to project. But no matter what industry or environment, everyone is always looking to cut unnecessary costs.

There are several factors that influence cost: the number of tags or points in your SCADA system, the number of clients that want to simultaneously view the system, amount of resiliency needed, amount of labor it takes to design and integrate, and ultimately which SCADA software you choose.

By understanding the biggest SCADA cost drivers, you should be able to get a better grasp on why SCADA costs what it does, and maybe even make some money-saving decisions up front.

Cost driver #1: Materials and selection of SCADA software

There are a variety of SCADA solution providers out there. Trihedral's VTScada, Schneider-Electric's Wonderware, GE's Cimplicity, and Tatsoft's FactoryStudio to name a few. Some SCADA solutions are geared toward large enterprise ...

DVR – digital video recording – is so common, it’s become a verb. Read how manufacturers are DVRing events to substitute the eyes and ears of experienced workers.

A control system integrator talks with several technology savvy clients and comes away with a mixed forecast on the hottest new technology trends.