How to make this the last DCS migration you will ever need…

Recently, Juggler Michael Davis performing on late night television held up one of the axes he was about to juggle and joked: “This is the ax that George Washington used to chop the cherry tree. The handle’s been changed, the head’s been changed, but it occupies the same space!”

Wouldn’t it be great if you could just upgrade your control system like that – component by component, to keep it continuously up to date? Would that avoid the cost and pain of going through a full system migration? Trust me, we know it would. We’ve been doing it like that for nearly 20 years.

Which DCS is more cyber secure: the tired old workhorse or the new filly?

Some process manufacturers, attending one of our cyber security seminars, were convinced that their old systems were too old and too isolated from the Internet to get hacked. They had forgotten how much technology has been added to their systems over the years for additional usability, functionality and expansions. In fact, such enhancements now have these systems exchanging as much data with outward facing networks as any other system.

Will my code, control logic, and graphics survive a DCS migration?

What happens to critical data, control logic, and graphics after a DCS migration? Once users are confident that they can migrate to a new control system while preserving their legacy hardware infrastructure, their concerns switch quickly to their code, their control logic and the graphics. These are the crown jewels for most companies and they want to be sure all are still floating when the old DCS goes down.

Post Operative Care for a DCS Transplant: Who supports the legacy equipment left in place?

If I upgrade to a different vendor’s DCS without replacing everything (i.e. keeping field wiring, cabinets, terminations, etc., ) who supports the original infrastructure? We address that issue in our latest blog entry: Post Operative Care for a DCS Transplant

DCS Migration and Matters of the HART…

Several participants in the Q&A session of our recent My DCS Upgrade webinar series wondered how the HART protocol would play out in I/O replacement migration strategies — and with good reason.

What’s stopping you from upgrading your DCS?

During the recent “MY DCS Upgrade webinar series, we asked the attendees what was keeping them from migrating their DCSs: the two main obstacles mentioned were: 1. Risk of downtime, and 2. Budget justification to management. Sound familiar?

If it ain’t broke… 10 good reasons to consider upgrading your DCS anyway

If your DCS ain’t broke, don’t fix it …, or so the conventional wisdom might go. But that attitude could end up costing your company a lot of money or cause you to miss out on opportunities you never even knew you had. Here are 10 ways a DCS upgrade can make your life better.

Migration Options for Moore APACS to I/A Series

We recently received a technical question from a Moore APACS user and we thought other users might be interested in the answer.

ABB Bailey Migration questions: Warranty; Plug in card for CIS module; TU assembly …

Does your company make a plug-in card for the Bailey CIS module?

Risk mitigation on DCS upgrade projects

From what I’ve seen migration projects are often very high risk. What type of risk mitigation advice can you offer?