Making equipment from different vendors agree.
SCADA, historians, building management, access control, VMS, and the hand-off into ERP or MES. Most of it is protocol translation and stubborn testing rather than anything clever, and the value is in the testing. The point list is the contract, and we test every point on it.
Why it matters
Integration goes wrong quietly: a point that reads but does not write, a tag that scales by a factor of ten, a value that is right at commissioning and wrong after a failover. The clever part is small; the careful part is proving every point does what the point list says.
What it covers
- The hand-offs
- SCADA, historian, building management, access control and VMS talking to each other and to ERP or MES, with point lists and tag naming that stay consistent across the boundary.
- Protocol translation
- Modbus to OPC UA to MQTT, DNP3 to IEC 60870-5-104, BACnet, and the gateways that carry the translation.
- Prove it works
- FAT and SAT, and an I/O check-out that walks every point rather than sampling a few and assuming the rest.
How it runs
Agree the point list
The point list is the contract: names, scaling, direction and alarm limits, agreed before anything is wired to anything.
Build the translation
The bridges and gateways, configured and version-controlled, with the mapping written down.
Test every point
FAT on the bench, SAT on site, and an I/O check-out that proves each point on the list, because the one you skip is the one that is wrong.
What you are left holding
- Agreed point list with tag naming.
- Protocol mapping documentation.
- FAT and SAT test sheets.
- I/O check-out record.
For pre-commissioning, the OT Asset Simulator stands in for the field devices: virtual Modbus TCP and DNP3 assets behind a real SCADA configuration, so the point list is proven before the plant is involved. BACnet is in development and not yet usable for this.
OT Asset SimulatorQuestions we are asked first
How do you avoid a bad point going live?
The point list is the contract, and the I/O check-out walks every point on it rather than sampling. A point that does not match the list does not pass, whether it reads, writes, scales or alarms wrong.
Can you rehearse an integration before touching our SCADA?
For Modbus TCP and DNP3, yes: our OT Asset Simulator gives us virtual devices to prove the mapping against first. BACnet is not ready there yet, and we say so plainly.
Related work
Tell us what is bothering you.
An email is enough to start with. A scoping call is free and there is nothing to commit to, and where we are not the right people we will say so and point you at someone who is.
A first call about one site. No charge, and nothing to commit to.
Our named next step: we come to one site and hand you an assessment you can act on.