In the introduction to last year’s scada reviews we commented that the industry mix of scada review projects was probably a reflection of the economic downturn that has retrospectively become known as the Great Recession.
At the time we wrote that it would be interesting to see this year’s industry mix. Sure enough the mix of projects in SA Instrumentation and Control’s 11th scada review is no longer dominated by the mining and minerals processing industries. This year we have projects in automotive, cement, electric cable, oil and gas and platinum.
Multiple perspectives
One of the changes that we introduced for this year was to get input from end-user, SI (systems integrator) and vendor, providing readers with multiple perspectives on the state of the scada industry and available products. We felt that it would be particularly valuable for readers to receive feedback from SIs since a significant part of the cost of a scada system may be in its engineering, configuration and maintenance rather than licence costs. This brings us on to total cost of ownership (TCO).
Total cost of ownership
From the responses we received it seems that in most cases the choice of scada is determined by existing installed base, or because a particular end-user organisation has standardised on a particular product or vendor. For many new projects this must be a consideration, but we question whether it should just be assumed that this line of reasoning results in lowest TCO. And if it does not then we are consigning our industries to a non-competitive future. We have also heard from some end-users that initial purchase price is the determining factor in procurement decisions.
We play in the global village and there is no justification for not formalising TCO as part of an investment justification. For a system that means that as a minimum, the initial cost, configuration costs and maintenance costs of IT infrastructure (including hardware and operating system licences) and scada need to be evaluated over the expected life of the system. In addition, factors like recruitment, retention, initial training and maintenance of skills (or outsourcing) of the necessary personnel to support the system need to be considered.
On the bright side
Responses to our questionnaire seem to indicate that users are paying more attention to backups and security matters. Users are also looking at improving the management of their software assets through systems like MAS and versiondog.
Technologies
Over the past few years there have been significant new technologies introduced in the world of Microsoft and these are gradually filtering into scada products. We are seeing more scada systems embody Web services, products leveraging Microsoft Communications Foundation and the adoption of more efficient browser-based technology like Ajax and Silverlight. At least one scada vendor is known to be exploring Microsoft Workflow Foundation to see how it can be leveraged to add value to users.
With its strong background in petrochem, oil and gas, Yokogawa has chosen a Java-based solution for its FastTools scada product. This offers the promise of complete platform independence at both client and server and, according to Yokogawa, the expectation of freedom from the hiccups that result from frequent operating system patches.
Thank you
On behalf of our readers we thank those end-users, SIs and vendors who so willingly responded to our questionnaire and follow-up questions, for sharing their experiences and contributing to building the knowledge base of the C&I industry in South and southern Africa.
Notes:
1. Some reviewer responses have been edited due to space considerations.
2. A 'No' or 'N/A' response to a question does not necessarily mean that the scada system lacks that feature; only that the feature was not implemented in the subject project.
3. Where a respondent has not answered a question or has answered off topic that response has been omitted.
© Technews Publishing (Pty) Ltd | All Rights Reserved
printer friendly version