Automation integration projects: 7 tips for success, plus 1 more, often forgotten
Communication is key when working with an automation system integrator, according to a recent Control Engineering survey of system integrators. Eight key tips follow.
By Control Engineering Staff -- Control Engineering, 4/2/2009
|
Communication is key when working with a system integrator, according to a recent Control Engineering survey of system integrators. Eight key tips follow, explaining the need to ensure all project details are discussed with every stakeholder; disseminate all decisions to everyone responsible for designing, implementing or using the system; and make sure everyone understands what needs to be done, along with why and how.
Control Engineering April North American edition gives results of an open-ended survey, in which the 1,800+ system integrators listed in Control Engineering’s Automation Integrator Guide were asked to share their top tips for ensuring the success of an automation project. Hundreds responded, commenting on how to pick an integrator, design the automation system, manage the project, test the finished product and otherwise get the desired results for the end user.
Above all else, respondents advised their clients to communicate effectively. While the article includes more details, 8 key tips follow.
1. Communicate early and often, even before the first screw is turned.
The client needs to give a prospective integrator full access to all plant personnel directly involved with the proposed project, as early in the buying cycle as possible.
2. Define the stakeholders on both teams and determine who needs what information.
3. End users need to read all documents their integrators give them; clarify where needed; 80% of problems with projects are a lack of the proper communications between the client and the integrator.
4. Communicate with all involved throughout the process: managers, operations, so everyone becomes champions rather than opponents.
5. Designate someone in-house to “own” the project.
6. Use communication tools such weekly production meetings to manage action lists. End users should have project meetings with their integrators at least monthly, obtaining commitments, assigning dates and a person responsible for each, and follow up.
7. End users should modify system requirements and designs as capabilities, interactions, and implications emerge since these things are rarely known or anticipated at the beginning, communicating with the integrator, with a methodology to handle changes.
The eighth point is often forgotten through commissioning and startup.
8. Continue communications beyond operations, ensuring appropriate training is in place, defining deliverables, such as manuals, maintenance, and decommissioning, if needed.
More help with system integration, communication, projects
-
Get more details in the April 2009, Control Engineering article, “Effective Communications Help Integration Projects Succeed,” by Vance VanDoren.
-
Connect with system integrators using a multi-parameter online search tool at www.controleng.com/integrators.
-
Also read, from Control Engineering, Job skills: 5 Ways to Improve Engineering Communications.
– Edited by Mark T. Hoske, editor in chief
Control Engineering System Integration eNewsletter
Register here and scroll down to select your choice of eNewsletters free.
View All Control Engineering Webcasts from CTL
