If your facility has a supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) system, you know how important it is for monitoring your facility’s equipment. But is your SCADA system as optimized as it could be? Here are several ways you can upgrade your SCADA system and why the improvements are worth it.
The Benefits of Using a Scada System
SCADA systems monitor large areas of equipment and can provide you with real-time data reading, reporting, and analysis. These capabilities mean that SCADA gives you insights into how well your equipment is performing. Once you know how well it’s performing, you can decide whether or not you can or should make improvement to your facility’s workflow processes.
How do SCADA remote monitoring systems gather data? These systems consist of an interconnected platform of software and hardware elements that allow industrial companies to examine disparate aspects of their workflows. By bringing the different parts of your workflows into a single platform, they allow you to examine all of these parts and find ways to make them work together as efficiently as possible.
Upgrading Your SCADA Software
Like so many other software platforms, you’ll find that you may have to upgrade your SCADA system’s supervisor software. Why? Upgrading your SCADA software is a good idea because you want a system that can adapt to our ever-evolving digital landscape. Current SCADA upgrades can offer your system the ability to integrate with complementary applications and technologies that improve your staff’s access to the system. This type of upgrade also enables you to use current infrastructure when many industrial companies are struggling with aging infrastructure.
Additionally, a SCADA upgrade will increase your system’s adaptability and compatibility with new technologies such as Human Machine Interface (HMI) software, which will increase your system’s business intelligence (BI). Increased and improved business intelligence will improve your company’s workflow efficiency and productivity. That will in turn help your system meet industry standards and become more adaptable in the long run.
Benefits of a SCADA Upgrade
One major benefits of a SCADA upgrade is that it can take advantage of cloud software solutions. Cloud solutions can connect your SCADA system to business intelligence tools, and SCADA will eventually be offered as a service, similar to software as a service (SaaS), infrastructure as a service (IaaS), and everything as a service (XaaS). This means that you’ll spend less money on software and hardware updates for your facility’s supervisory system.
An upgrade can also improve your system’s ability to run event processing, which is it’s ability to use a logic engine to allow the systems integrator or an end use to define rules. Those rules then trigger an event in the system whenever they are violated. Users can interact with these events by sending alert notifications, issuing work orders to the maintenance system, or generate a report about the variables used in the 24 hours before the event. Essentially, technological advances in event processing are developing quickly, so you should take advantage of this benefit now.
Current SCADA upgrades can offer your system the ability to integrate with complementary applications and technologies that improve your staff’s access to the system. This type of upgrade also enables you to use current infrastructure when many industrial companies are struggling with aging infrastructure.
Upgrading vs. Replacing Your SCADA System
When you consider a SCADA control system upgrade, you have two main options: you can upgrade your current system or replace it with a new one. Most systems become obsolete after 10 to 15 years, so research whether your system’s vendor still sells the family of systems that yours belongs to. If they no longer sell it, or you find that your system is approaching its end-of-life phase, you’re better off replacing it. If your system is younger than 10 years, has migration capabilities, and has local support to help troubleshoot problems, it may be better suited to an upgrade.
Improve Your Workflow Productivity with Our SCADA Services
At Hexa Engineers, we will provide you with a SCADA system that allows your team to stay on top of your processes and allow you to predict what’s coming. The systems we install give you unprecedented access to key areas of your facility’s operation so you’re always aware of how your equipment performs. Our systems come with customized software made to meet your company’s needs, so we can upgrade or replace your SCADA control system for you. We’ll give you a system that uses predictive data analytics to help you analyze your data and predict what might come next. Contact us today to find out more about our SCADA services and to see if they’re a right fit for your company and your facility.