With all the hype today about open systems and intelligent devices SA Instrumentation & Control decided to question local systems integrators on what they perceive as their role in the future and whether technology advances have increased or decreased the pressures on them and their work load or indeed has this worked the other way and made their services less relevant. This article is based on the perceptions of a cross section of the local SI community as acknowledged at the end of the article.
The typical business of a systems integrator (SI) is a complex one and in the process of bringing on-line new plant or upgrading older systems they are usually involved right from the start with a requirement analysis and then move on to the planning and designing of custom application systems and information infrastructures. They would then integrate the software and hardware components, enable the often-complex computer networking, integrate with the enterprise application, train the operating staff, supply documentation and provide ongoing support services. Before acquisition of hardware and installation of the system they probably would make use of computer simulation software packages to confirm that the solution will meet the requirements of a customer. Finally being competitive today means getting the highest levels of efficiency from the plant and the systems integrator would over time be advising on the implementation of new hardware or software to upgrade the facility to higher levels of productivity.
Despite the advances in open protocol, more intelligent devices and more flexible interfaces this has created more problems for the process industry as they no longer have the skills available in-house to address these issues. Gone are the days where the plant engineer could walk around with an AVO meter and successfully locate problems - today he needs to be proficient in the use of computer skills and requires extensive knowledge of networking. Today, even the technician must be Windows proficient while system integration itself has become more complex as more and more realtime data is required by more and more managers and staff. The difficult issue of security must also be addressed as managers are required to source their realtime data often from remote locations and companies with multiple plant sites want to see what is happening at each one, shifting production load where necessary. Not only is more and more information required in realtime there is also the issue of archiving of relevant data. Finally, the SI today in practice works not just with the factory floor team but must integrate closely with the company's IT staff. The systems integration industry has in fact become highly competitive and the SI has to provide a service or product that strongly differentiates them from their competition.
The other point that must be remembered is that every process or manufacturing plant is unique and is seldom, if ever, a copy of an existing plant. As an example, the Hillside aluminium smelter was not just a larger version of the older Bayside facility - it incorporates new process technology and state-of-the-art control systems. Knowledge gained from the operation of this plant was obviously used in the design of the Mozal smelter, which again has a different layout and control systems. The more recent Mozal 1 and 2 is in fact a very good example of the complex role played today by the SI. A major part of the contract was awarded to Keops Altech who had previously undertaken successful upgrade projects at Bayside. At Mozal they had to deliver a realtime system (RTS)/scada solution as well as the manufacturing execution system (MES). This involved a significant amount of integration between the control systems, MES and ERP, SAP R/3. Part of the project was particularly challenging as it required the installation of new hardware and software in a 'live' production environment, and the whole project required close collaboration with the Keops technology partners, namely HP, Oracle and Wonderware.
In terms of the skills required by the SI's staff, some companies indicated no change while others stressed that the wider range of open devices and their increased complexity required staff to have a much broader knowledge than before. Only through intimately knowing the different products and systems will local SIs be able to effectively engineer world-class manufacturing solutions and then effectively implement a fully integrated system across the factory floor. While in the era of less open technology the SIs only had to be familiar with the devices of their own technology partners (such as Allen Bradley, Citect, Siemens etc), today their expertise must cover a much wider range of software and hardware. Staff skills now tend to be focussed on the specific industries in which the SI is active (eg, automotive, chemical, pulp and paper etc).
Some SIs prefer to stay in their key turnkey project environment and are not interested in becoming involved with maintenance. Having said that, the complexity of installed systems has resulted in many companies outsourcing this function either because of a lack of in-house expertise or the fact that their staff see their function as operating rather than maintaining the system. This challenge has been taken up by some SI companies as it provides good cash flow in the absence of other major projects. These SIs have added maintenance staff to their personnel complement, as the disciplines of project engineering and preventative maintenance are very different.
Another source of confusion particularly for the more inexperienced user is the belief that devices today can be sourced out of a box and simply plugged in. The response of the SI community is that despite the so-called improved compatibility of devices from different manufacturers, interfacing of these devices into an integrated system (with multiple reporting levels and archiving) is far from trivial. The point was also made that while the brochures from the OEM may emphasis openness and compatibility this is often not as transparent at integration level. The other point to note is that devices are only used to record individual parameters (temperature, pressure, flow etc) while for the plant to operate effectively the network configuration has to be 100%, and this latter task still lies in the hands of the SI. In summary and plagiarising the title of a recent article in the Technews publication e-Strategy, "There is no such thing as out-of-the-box integration." This article was referring to the integration of supply chains in the manufacturing industry. At the very best one SI indicated that in less complex installations, 'customised' out-of-the-box solutions were possible, with the emphasis being on the word 'customised'.
The value of the rand over the last few years and its instability has affected SIs in that there have been fewer large local projects. Some SIs then took the opportunity of taking on contracts outside of South Africa as despite the current strength of the currency our engineering skills are still very cheap compared to other economies. This could have an influence on future major contracts in this country (such as Coega) as some of these large commissioning contracts run over several years and a pick-up in the local economy could see a shortage of SI skills.
There are some people who believe that with the increased automatic adaptation of equipment that system commissioning will become a mere computer controlled exercise. In contrast to this, none of the SIs see their demise as being on the horizon. One comment received was that "they are still the glue that makes systems interface with each other". Another view was that as systems become more powerful the users become more educated and demand additional requirements. This places an additional burden on the SI to engineer methods to find solutions for their customers' requirements. With widely varying plant processes and improved (but more complex) control systems there will be a need to increase the skills of the SI engineers, making their services even more in demand by industry. There will also probably be more specialisation in the skills of these engineers and a tendency for SIs to focus more on specific industrial sectors where they can remain up to date in terms of their specific requirements.
The author would like to acknowledge the following people for their inputs and contributions to this article: Matthew Lingenfelder (CraigCor Engineering), Danie Badenhorst (Citect), Henny Keyzer (AMR Automation) and Cedric Brown (Directech).
Dr Maurice McDowell, has many years' experience as a technical journalist, editor, business manager and research scientist. His third party analyses of world-class companies and processes, as well as his insight into industry and technology trends are well respected.
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