Industrial control systems have long been a key component of industrial automation because they enable process manufacturers to gather, analyze, and take action on data from the factory floor. These systems are currently undergoing change. Two process control systems, the Distributed Control System (DCS) and the Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) system, have new responsibilities owing to ongoing technical and industrial improvements.
The function of DCS and SCADA in digital transformation (DX) is examined in this article. Before going into the growing roles of DCS and SCADA among industry revolutions and anticipated future advancements, it gives a quick review of these industrial control systems as well as Programmable Logic Controllers (PLCs).
What is the role of PLC and SCADA in industrial automation?
Development of DCS and SCADA
DCS and SCADA technologies are frequently used by process manufacturers to monitor and manage facility operations. Individual, analogue, and pneumatic loop controllers were awkward when used for such massive operations as refineries, therefore the DCS was created to replace them. SCADA was initially developed as a solution for operations that cover large geographic regions, such as utilities and pipelines. Later, a variation for factory automation applications that combines PLCs with a human-machine interface (HMI) appeared.
DCS and SCADA systems, however, are now capable of much more than just monitoring and regulating. At all levels of industrial automation architecture, they are combining with extra intelligence to provide predictive asset life-cycle management and value chain optimisation while enhancing stakeholder experience and enhancing security and safety. The greater revolution of industrial automation systems has just recently started, despite the fact that this particular industrial control system shift is already under progress.
What are the roles of DCS?
Distributed Control System (DCS)
A DCS is fundamentally a platform for automated control and management of a manufacturing process or facility. For process control, a DCS connects sensors, actuators, controllers, and operator terminals through local area networks (LANs). In process operations, this kind of system has replaced analogue and pneumatic controllers with digital technology. It was first used to regulate big continuous processes, such petrochemicals and refining, but was later expanded to batch operations as well.
What is the role of SCADA in industry?
Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA)
Although the original purpose of SCADA systems was to support applications that required extensive geographic coverage, the idea evolved in the 1980s with the introduction of PC-based HMIs, which took the place of more expensive minicomputers. For communication between the HMI and PLCs, a typical in-plant SCADA system employs Ethernet rather than a wide area network that connects to remote terminal units (RTUs) at places like pump stations. The DCS architecture and the SCADA system architecture fall under the latter category. A SCADA system can link corporate operations with several factories, each of which employs a DCS, in the first category. These enterprise-wide platforms allow for data transfers without geographical limitations for process makers.
Basically, both DCSs and SCADA systems are crucial to plant automation.