Free to move from hardware to software
It’s not about pretty pictures. It’s about action. So don’t get distracted.
Leaping off clipboards, paper chart recorders and other manual sources a few decades ago, most process automation and control data has been coming to users through their human machine interface/supervisory control and data acquisition (HMI/SCADA) screens and software for at least 25 years. It’s just part of the scenery on the long and winding hardware-turning-into-software highway.
In that time, most interfaces and their software stayed useful by delivering more data from more widespread sources, usually via Ethernet and wireless networking. However, they’ve also integrated more sophisticated functions, including advanced process control (APC), increasingly dynamic simulations and models, physical parameters and forces, augmented and virtual reality (AR/VR), and other software tools—most now claiming that artificial intelligence (AI) is giving them a boost. In general, they transitioned from basic data acquisition (DAQ) and archiving in historian modules, shortened reporting turnarounds, and continue to edge steadily closer to real-time monitoring and analysis, and better informed decision-making and predictive/proactive maintenance.
Most recently, software’s protean and portable nature on servers, in the cloud or elsewhere is allowing developers to build containerized, low-code/no-code and AI-aided versions, which promise to let process-industry users move beyond monitoring, analysis and prediction, and finally turn the corner on gaining genuine, software-based control and actuation. So, if users are willing accept some short-term unfamiliarity, discomfort and readjustments, it’s likely they can achieve some huge, long-term improvements in speed, efficiency, adjustability, customization, optimization, productivity, scaleup and profitability.
- Don’t hesitate to jump into virtualization: System integrator Hargrove shows how to approach virtualized tools—and prepare for AI.
