More answers now: Know how SCADA can integrate disparate platforms

System integrator provides more answers from audience questions after the Control Engineering webcast, “SCADA: Know how SCADA can integrate disparate platforms for smarter decisions.”

 

Learning Objectives

    • Learn about how SCADA platforms promote tighter integration of disparate software systems across an enterprise, including factory automation and process controls.
    • Understand that the following webcast is online for a year after Oct. 9: SCADA: Know how SCADA can integrate disparate platforms for smarter decisions.
    • Explore additional answers from one of the webcast instructors beyond the question-and-answer session during live webcast.

More tips and advice about integration of supervisory control and data acquisition systems (SCADA) follows from an instructor for the Control Engineering webcast, “SCADA: Know how SCADA can integrate disparate platforms for smarter decisions.”

Supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) platforms are being applied as the glue to integrate and help disparate platforms work more effectively across an enterprise, including factory automation and process control systems. Software vendors have expanded SCADA beyond traditional applications. SCADA platforms can be applied more widely, for many automation applications, and advantages are many for smarter decisions.

Webcast instructors:

  • Joseph Mazzola, general manager, McEnery Automation
  • Braden Hadwiger, mechanical engineer, Huffman Engineering Inc.

Webcast instructors answered audience questions during the end of the PLC programming webcast. Hadwiger provided some additional answers below for questions that were not answered during the webcast.

Question: How can SCADA help operators avoid driving to multiple sites?

Answer: With SCADA allowing data collection and analysis located in a central place, the workforce can provide attention to only the sites that need attention and add efficiency by avoiding visits to remote sites just to check the system and verify that everything is operating properly. This also allows the workforce to prioritize work. For example, if two remote sites have alarms, but one has a more critical alarm, the workforce can focus on the more critical one first. 

 

Q: Is it easier to use one modern SCADA platform to connect to existing multi-vendor systems at multiple sites, or set a schedule to migrate everything to one platform as software expires?

A: This can depend on your organization. A SCADA system can be the one software platform used and migrated to over time, or it can be implemented all at once. SCADA systems are a great tool to integrate multiple vendor platforms to one solution. 

 

Q: What features can be used for mitigating waste and improving quality control?

A: SCADA platforms can be used for waste and quality control purposes in several ways. You can setup data collection for failed batches or bad product, create alerts or alarms based on bad product being detected and/or create reports based on data collected that is related to quality of product, such as a report of total waste for a batch or the frequency of bad product created. One customer’s application example: When 10 bad images are taken, the bad product images are logged to a server, and an alarm is generated at the local station. 

Figure 1: Instructors for the Control Engineering webcast, “SCADA: Know how SCADA can integrate disparate platforms for smarter decisions,” were Joseph Mazzola (left), general manager, McEnery Automation, and Braden Hadwiger (middle), mechanical engineer, Huffman Engineering Inc. Hadwiger answered additional questions from the audience afterward. Mark Hoske, editor-in-chief, Control Engineering, was the webcast moderator. Courtesy: Control Engineering webcasts
Figure 1: Instructors for the Control Engineering webcast, “SCADA: Know how SCADA can integrate disparate platforms for smarter decisions,” were Joseph Mazzola (left), general manager, McEnery Automation, and Braden Hadwiger (middle), mechanical engineer, Huffman Engineering Inc. Hadwiger answered additional questions from the audience afterward. Mark Hoske, editor-in-chief, Control Engineering, was the webcast moderator. Courtesy: Control Engineering webcasts

Q: Please provide a cost/benefit analysis of cost of integration/operation/training versus throwing two obsolete PLCs into trash and installing brand-new single PLC system?

A: The system mentioned in the webinar was a PLC-based control system implemented to replace a damaged system based on a level transmitter. The PLCs in this case were not obsolete, and the analysis for adding the site to the SCADA system was based on existing radio infrastructure being available and the costs were a few additional pieces of hardware, namely the radio, and the labor for creating new SCADA screens and adding it to the existing SCADA project. 

 

Q: Using radios in a plant environment is tricky and requires performing a survey to avoid interference, obstructions, etc. Why not use fiber-optics?

A: The site mentioned was located several miles away from the main SCADA server. There was already existing radio infrastructure in place to leverage. In a plant setting, fiber-optic cabling is generally the best way to connect different portions of the plant.

 

Q: What is the main method, protocol or technique in which a SCADA software can collect a high volume of data points every minute or seconds?

A: Typically, modern SCADA systems use Ethernet-based protocols that can collect large amounts of data. For example, one customer has a SCADA system that collects 15,000 points of data multiple times a second for display and historizes that data every 10 seconds. Generally, the data collection speed is limited by the network infrastructure the SCADA server is connected to. 

Figure 2: Island of automation in a water/wastewater application linked existing automation (6 sensors, 2 PLCs, 3 gates, and 1 transmitter) to a SCADA system, as Braden Hadwiger, mechanical engineer, Huffman Engineering Inc. Courtesy: Control Engineering webcasts, Huffman Engineering Inc.
Figure 2: Island of automation in a water/wastewater application linked existing automation (6 sensors, 2 PLCs, 3 gates, and 1 transmitter) to a SCADA system, as Braden Hadwiger, mechanical engineer, Huffman Engineering Inc. Courtesy: Control Engineering webcasts, Huffman Engineering Inc.

Q: Is it possible to connect the SCADA system with an enterprise resource planning (ERP) system to send real time data from the SCADA?

A: Yes, it is generally possible to connect a SCADA system to an ERP system. This can depend on the specific type of SCADA and ERP systems, but is a common use case. A SCADA system makes it much easier to collect the type of data mentioned and can benefit an organization. One caveat to this is that care must be taken to implement proper security and data access procedures. 

 

Q: Do any SCADA applications work on oil and gas sites?

A: Most SCADA systems would work for oil and gas sites. The example in the webcast would be very similar to the type of implementation used for remote sites, such as for oil and gas applications.

 

Edited by Mark T. Hoske, editor-in-chief, Control Engineering, WTWH Media, [email protected] and webcast moderator.

 

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Written by

Mark T. Hoske

Mark Hoske has been Control Engineering editor/content manager since 1994 and in a leadership role since 1999, covering all major areas: control systems, networking and information systems, control equipment and energy, and system integration, everything that comprises or facilitates the control loop. He has been writing about technology since 1987, writing professionally since 1982, and has a Bachelor of Science in Journalism degree from UW-Madison.