Industrial Automation

manufacturers and process operators inherit industrial automation in layers: a Siemens line installed in 2008, an Allen-Bradley utilities controller from a 2014 expansion, a Mitsubishi machine purchased with a piece of OEM kit in 2019, plus ABB drives and a Schneider main switchboard. Most integrators tell you to standardise on one platform. We don't — because forced standardisation usually means a seven-figure rip-and-replace that the business case cannot justify.

Instead, our engineers are trained on every major platform, and we bridge between them at the integration layer using OPC UA, Modbus TCP and EtherNet/IP. The result is a coherent automation estate that reports cleanly to a single SCADA / MES — without throwing away the hardware that's still working.

Every project starts with a Functional Design Specification (FDS) — process narrative, I/O list, alarm list, modes of operation, safety functions and reporting requirements — signed off by the client before a line of code is written. Software is then developed against our in-house IEC 61131-3 coding standard, peer code-reviewed and committed to a Git-backed repository (TIA Portal Multiuser, Studio 5000 Logix Designer + FactoryTalk AssetCentre, or external Git for cross-platform projects).

Panels are built in-house to BS EN 61439, dry-tested to a documented FAT script with the client present, then mobilised to site on a planned shutdown window. Loop checks, point-to-point commissioning and a witnessed Site Acceptance Test against the original FDS close out the engineering scope, with operator training and a complete O&M pack delivered at handover.

Modern industrial automation is as much about data as it is about control. Our SCADA layer — typically Ignition, AVEVA / Wonderware, FactoryTalk View or Siemens WinCC — surfaces real-time mimics, alarms, trends and historical reporting, with role-based access for operators, supervisors and engineering. Standard reports out of the box include OEE, downtime by reason code, energy consumption per unit produced, batch genealogy and shift handover.

Where the client already runs an MES (SAP DMC, GE Proficy, Aveva MES, Rockwell FactoryTalk ProductionCentre), we hand off cleanly via OPC UA or REST. Where they don't, we host the historian (Ignition, Canary, AVEVA Historian) on-prem or in a private cloud — the choice is the client's, not ours.

Safety functions are designed and validated to BS EN ISO 13849 or IEC 62061 as appropriate, with safety PLCs (Siemens F-CPU, Rockwell GuardLogix, Pilz PNOZmulti, Sick Flexi Soft) and a signed safety validation report on completion. Cyber-resilience is baked in — segmented OT/IT VLANs, managed industrial firewalls (Stratix, Scalance, Hirschmann), least-privilege accounts and audited remote access via secure VPN with MFA.

All work is delivered against the relevant and international standards: BS EN 61439 (panels), BS EN 61131-3 (PLC programming), IEC 62443 (industrial cyber-security), ATEX / DSEAR where hazardous areas apply, and PUWER for machinery safety.