Navigating the Drive Nemesis
Uncertainty and procrastination can often hinder progress and stifle innovation in various endeavours. Despite their different characteristics, these two opp...
Achilles Certification
It wouldn’t be right for us to recommend our clients validate their control and automation systems and keep them up to date while not ‘practicing what we pre...
TECH NOTE
Batch Systems
Automation systems used to control batch processes typically feature a ‘Batch Engine’. This software is commonly seen in industries like fine chemicals and p...
WHITE PAPER
Control System Validation Explained
As companies continue adopting technology to increase efficiency and automate complex operational processes, external factors exert pressure on capital and o...
Towards absolute reliability
Whatever the sector, the industry, the process, the machine, the component, things will go wrong. Component failures cause machine downtime, processes get in...
TECH NOTE
Front-End Engineering Design (FEED)
An early but crucial stage of project development. The FEED is a comprehensive analysis and planning process which helps define the scope, requirements, and ...
Hit that 'Save' button
We all fall short of this in some manner. I would love to take you down memory lane to bring your thought closer to the adverse effect of not saving your wor...
The benefits of automation in workplace safety
In today’s workplace, automation technology is becoming more prevalent. Workplace accidents can have a significant negative impact on a business, ranging fro...
TECH NOTE
SCADA
SCADA systems are used to collect process data, display plant status information, and provide users with control over automated processes. SCADA systems are ...
TECH NOTE
Unified Namespace
A unified namespace is intended to be the ‘single source of truth’ for an organisation’s production data and is a key component of network architectures whic...
Will it work?
I went to visit Sally down at Sale the other day, we had a good conversation over a “cuppa tea”. Just as I was about to set up and leave Sally informed me sh...
Is Computer System Validation worth the paper it’s written on?
Please forgive the pun but it’s a fair question. What is the value of validating your control system or process historian? Many industries don’t bother and l...
What's the diagnosis?
We have four cars in our household and three of them are more than 10 years old. They all have engine management lights showing. The trouble is, the engine m...
Give your manufacturing business an MOT
It’s a statutory requirement that once your car is over 3 years old it be MOT’d every year. This ensures it is both safe and not hurling huge levels of emiss...
Can you compete with your local coffee shop?
There’s a good chance your local independent coffee shop employs technology far more advanced than that running your factory.
How much process data should you collect?
“Do we really need to collect so much data?”
Who owns your automation software?
The ‘rent or buy’ concept is not a new one. It’s the difference between buying software on a perpetual or subscription basis:
TECH NOTE
Process Historians
Process historians have been used for decades in automated industries to keep a historical record of process conditions.They collect, organise and store time...
TECH NOTE
How to reduce energy consumption
The cost of energy has increased rapidly. Manufacturing businesses can be particularly affected, especially those put off by the capital intensive nature of ...
Improving Your Automation System
The below quote, often attributed to Einstein, suggests whatever got us to where we are now can’t take us to where we want to be. This can definitely be said...
TECH NOTE
Programmable Logic Controllers
Programmable Logic Controllers are widely used to automate, control and monitor all manner of equipment and proceses. PLCs are available for installation in ...
TECH NOTE
Using Variable Speed Drives to increase quality and reduce energy costs
Many industrial applications can benefit from the use of Variable Speed Drives (also known as Variable Frequency or Inverter Drives). The increased motor con...
Avoid being disappointed by your control system upgrade
For many of us looking to upgrade our long loved (or hated) incumbent control systems fills us with both excitement and concern. Excitement because we always...
Disaster Recovery Planning in Theory and Practice
The scenario: a server collecting historical data from a distributed control system running an industrial process. The server is 15 years old and creaking, w...
How to enjoy Christmas
While I’m sure some reading this will be working during the holiday period almost everyone will enjoy at least a few days off during the next week.
Computer System Validation - a process
It’s quite a while now since I was first involved with Computer System Validation (CSV). It was around 1994 if I recall correctly and it was during a large p...
Is your DMZ a no man's land?
Organisations continue to digitise. Whether intentionally via planned projects with dedicated budgets and resources, or unintentionally as suppliers embed re...
What my new smart watch taught me
I recently bought a new watch/fitness tracker.
The Greenshirts of the Boiler Police are coming!
The government’s Domestic Renewable Heat Incentive is intended to reduce our reliance on using fossil fuels and to replace them with systems which use renewa...
WHITE PAPER
Should you replace your DCS with PLC-SCADA?
For decades owners of large, complex, continuous and batch processes have relied on Distributed Control Systems (DCS) to control their plants. This technolog...
Should you accept automation vendors' vision of the future?
Automation vendors develop great products and services. They excel at leveraging the latest technological developments to solve the problems facing industrie...
Avoid getting locked into a single automation vendor
If you represent a large multi-national company, and are looking to standardise on one automation vendor who will become a strategic partner, this article is...
Waking up your data
We live in an ever more competitive age where increasing the capability of our assets is becoming more and more important. However, we rarely think in terms ...
Quantum Leap Technologies
Even if you can’t recall exactly where you were when you heard the news of the Gulf of Mexico Deepwater Horizon disaster, it’s likely that you will remember ...
Much ado about heating
There is much debate on the efficacy of heat pumps for domestic heating, but heat pumps alone are not the answer. There are a number of technologies in the h...
Get to know Richard Banyard
Richard Banyard took a typical route into engineering, studying control and automation at Sheffield before enrolling onto ABB’s graduate scheme. During his 1...
Maximise your ROI from technology projects
There are several pitfalls I see affecting technology projects time and time again. To help clients avoid them I’ve written a lot about the common problems I...
Tennants Fine Chemicals
Tennants Fine Chemicals Ltd supplies a global customer base with around 24,000 tonnes of chemicals a year from Leek, Staffordshire, plus seven other sites ac...
Don't know where to start? Try the basics
Often in life, getting the simple things right is key to success. For example, when we're feeling overworked, overcommitted and overwhelmed it can be hard to...
Support available for ABB System 800xA
800xA is the world's leading* distributed control system (DCS). However its power and flexibility come with a cost. It's not known as the easiest system to w...
Using data to inform maintenance
How you use data analysis to inform maintenance activity can have a huge impact on the efficiency of your operations. It may never be possible to eliminate t...
Do you invest in training people?
When you purchase new equipment or technology how much do you invest in training people?
Are you a grandmaster or a centaur?
May 1997 was a turning point in the world of chess. Garry Kasparov, chess grandmaster and world-champion at the time, was beaten by IBM’s Deep Blue 2.5 - 3.5...
Are you choosing to drive blind?
It sounds like madness, but I believe many manufacturers are doing just this. Imagine you've bought a new car but the dashboard was an optional extra, you sp...
Transferring is the worst
You’ll know the scenario. I’m in France at the moment, but had a similar experience before Christmas in Ireland. It happens when I need to travel between unf...
ATT&CK!
The MITRE ATT&CK® knowledge base for ICS is now publicly available. If you've not got time to check it out now, at least click on this link and bookm...
Windows 7 end of life announcement
In case you've missed it, Microsoft support for Windows 7 and Server 2008 ends on 14th Jan 2020. Here's the links to Microsoft's statements on the matter: ht...
Have you got what it takes to make decisions?
Tough decisions are never easy, even with the right information. So asking yourself or someone else to make a serious decision, with information that is pres...
New interfaces for old machines
30 years of battering by operators takes its toll on any system, even one as robust as Emerson’s RS3. When the trackball for a legacy control console no long...
Support available for Emerson RS3
The Rosemount System 3 (RS3) DCS can still be found controlling a variety of industrial processes today, after first being installed in 1984. If you're still...
A humble PLC saves the day
We recently had a request for some legacy control boards needed to run a refrigeration system's compressors. They were critical components in the motor-start...
Benefits of virtualisation
Virtualisation (or virtualization to the rest of the world) is widespread within IT and quickly being adopted for OT systems. The technology has proven relia...
It's a wide spectrum
Manufacturing in all sectors is carried out on a diversity of machines that all have one thing in common; at some time, some critical component will need to ...
ISO 9001 certification transferred to BSI
We've transferred our quality management system's ISO 9001 certification to BSI, who will be auditing us in the future. So have a new certification badge: O...
Tempting isn't it?
Everything's running well, it has been for some time. In fact your control systems have worked for years. Why risk loading an update? It carries some risk an...
Open technology
At Op-tec we've always been passionate about using open technology. We believe basing your control architecture on open technology gives numerous benefits, a...
Save your energy. Sit down.
Let us bring the information to you.
If it ain't broke don't fix it?
Recently, a PLC controlled heating system failed, causing the product to go over temperature resulting in substantial consequential losses.
Management of legacy controls and automation
Process automation and control represents a major capital expense and exerts great influence over the even greater expense of the production process its-self...
IIoT and Industry 4.0 Explained
Recently, I spoke to the Food and Drink Engineering & Processing Summit about IIoT and Industry 4.0. I wanted to explain the meaning of these terms, and ...
Op-tec's main office has moved to Stockport
We've moved! Things were getting a little tight where we were, and with customers throughout the UK locating ourselves more centrally makes sense as we conti...
Different control system types
We often get asked the difference between DCS and PLC/SCADA-based systems, and where PACs come in to it. So here's an attempt to clear things up. History DCS...
Op-tec achieves ISO 9001
After many years of operating with a compliant Quality Management System, we have now committed to regular external audits against the latest standard. This ...
Time to upgrade?
We all have a favourite t-shirt, sweater, pair of jeans or trainers that have stood the test of time - in our own eyes at least. Comfortable, dependable and ...