Biogas Controls and SCADA Modernization and Support
Renewable Biogas Producer | Midwestern United States
A renewable biogas company operating five facilities across the Midwest was looking for a better way to manage its automation systems, plant data, and operational visibility. With only one dedicated controls person on staff providing 24/7 support across multiple facilities proved to be a major challenge.
As the organization grew, so did the complexity of maintaining multiple facilities. Each site had its own history, control strategies, programming conventions, automation implementations, and custom equipment. While the facilities performed similar functions, the systems supporting them were not always consistent.
The company partnered with a systems integration firm to establish greater consistency across its facilities while modernizing controls, improving SCADA, and creating better access to operational data.
The objective was straightforward:
Make five facilities easier to operate, maintain, troubleshoot, and improve.
Partnering with Corso Systems to leverage our expertise across multiple SCADA solutions, PLC vendors, and process requirements helped this Renewal Biogas company improve operational efficiency, reduce downtime, and operator frustration.
The Challenge
Operating one industrial facility is complicated. Operating five facilities with different automation implementations adds another layer of complexity.
Over time, each facility had developed its own collection of PLC programs, control logic, SCADA screens, naming conventions, and system integrations. That made it more difficult to apply lessons learned at one facility to another.
A problem that was familiar at one plant might require a completely different troubleshooting process at another.
The company identified several areas where standardization and modernization could make a meaningful difference and worked with Corso Systems to standardize their technology across the facilities.
Inconsistent Automation Code
Different approaches to PLC programming and control logic created additional maintenance overhead.
When similar equipment was programmed differently from facility to facility, sometimes using different PLC brands, engineers and technicians had to understand the specific implementation at each location instead of being able to rely on a common standard.
Standardizing code provided an opportunity to make control systems more predictable and easier to maintain.
Limited Plant Visibility
Operators and management needed better visibility into plant operations.
SCADA systems are most valuable when they turn raw process information into actionable information. Inconsistent visualization and information structures can make it difficult for operators to quickly determine equipment status, identify abnormal conditions, and understand what is happening within the process.
The company wanted to modernize its SCADA environment and improve the way information was presented.
Disconnected Data
Operational data existed across multiple systems.
Getting that information into a consistent structure for reporting and analysis was a challenge. Without a standardized approach to collecting and presenting plant data, comparing performance across facilities becomes significantly more difficult.
The company needed a stronger data foundation that could connect systems while preserving the operational context of the information being generated.
This included syncing process data with multiple process historians, including Ignition, OSI-PI, and Microsoft’s Azure cloud databases.
Reliability and Downtime
Ultimately, the technology improvements had a business purpose.
The company wanted to reduce downtime and operational issues.
That meant the project couldn't simply be about implementing new technology. The automation architecture, SCADA improvements, and data integrations all needed to support the people responsible for keeping the facilities operating, including answering operator questions about why equipment was down without having to pick up the phone and have someone dig into the PLC.
The Approach
The Corso Systems team took a multi-site approach rather than treating each facility as an isolated project.
The goal was to identify common patterns across the facilities, establish standards, and then apply those standards in a way that respected the operational requirements of each individual plant.
Establishing Automation Standards
A standardized programming approach created a common foundation across the facilities.
Instead of developing every control strategy independently, reusable structures and consistent programming practices could be applied to similar equipment and processes.
This provides several advantages:
Engineers spend less time learning site-specific programming conventions.
Troubleshooting becomes more predictable.
Changes can be implemented more consistently.
Future projects can reuse proven control strategies.
Knowledge becomes easier to transfer between facilities.
Standardization also creates a foundation for future expansion. Once a common architecture and programming methodology was established, adding new equipment or modifying existing processes became an easily repeatable engineering exercise.
Modernizing SCADA
The SCADA environment was modernized to provide operators with better access to plant information.
Rather than treating SCADA as simply a graphical representation of PLC data, the system was approached as an operational interface expanding on information displayed to the operators, cleaning up alarm flooding, and providing detailed checklists for the operators to understand why equipment went offline.
The focus was on presenting information in a way that helped operators answer practical questions:
What is running?
What isn't running?
Why isn't it running?
What requires attention?
What happened before the problem occurred?
Better visualization and consistent information structures made it easier for operators to identify problems and respond to them quickly and frustration free.
Connecting Operational Data
The project also addressed the movement of data between systems.
Industrial facilities generate significant amounts of information from PLCs, instrumentation, SCADA, and other operational systems. The challenge isn't simply collecting more data. It is making that data accessible, consistent, and useful.
By improving system connectivity and establishing more consistent data structures, the company gained a stronger foundation for reporting and future data initiatives.
This also created opportunities to build additional applications on top of the operational data without having to repeatedly develop custom integrations for every facility. These included pushing data up to the Microsoft Azure platform directly from Ignition to take advantage of purpose built process analysis tools.
Designing for Five Facilities
One of the most important aspects of the project was thinking beyond a single plant.
A solution that works well at one facility may not necessarily scale to five or more.
Our integration approach focused on creating standards that could be applied across the organization's facilities while still allowing individual plants to accommodate their specific process requirements.
This balance, standardization without forcing every facility into an identical implementation, is critical for multi-site companies.
Technology
The project involved multiple layers of the industrial automation stack, including:
PLC and Control Systems
Standardized programming practices and control strategies were used to create greater consistency across plant automation systems.
This included PLC hardware from Allen Bradley, Siemens, Schneider Electric, and a handful of custom OEM equipment using microcontrollers and other proprietary control solutions.
SCADA
Modernized SCADA provided operators with improved visibility into equipment, processes, alarms, and plant conditions.
Industrial Data
Plant data was connected across systems to create more consistent access to operational information and improve reporting capabilities.
System Integration
The integration architecture connected previously disparate systems and provided a more consistent method for moving operational information between them.
Multi-Site Standards
Perhaps most importantly, the project established standards that could be applied across all five facilities.
The technology itself was only part of the solution.
The larger objective was creating a repeatable automation and data architecture that the organization could continue to use as its operations evolved.
Results
The modernization effort provided the renewable biogas company with a more consistent automation foundation across its five facilities.
More Consistent Automation
Standardized programming and control approaches made it easier for engineering and maintenance personnel to understand and support systems across multiple facilities.
Better Plant Visibility
Modernized SCADA provides operators with improved access to the information they needed to monitor processes and respond to problems.
Improved Data Connectivity
Connecting operational systems provided a stronger foundation for reporting, analysis, and future digital initiatives.
Easier Troubleshooting
Consistency across facilities reduced the amount of site-specific knowledge required to diagnose problems and make system changes.
A Foundation for Reliability
By improving controls, SCADA, data connectivity, and standardization together, the project addressed the underlying systems that contribute to operational issues and downtime.
The result isn't simply a newer automation system.
It's a more maintainable and scalable automation environment across five facilities.
Why Standardization Matters
For multi-site manufacturers and industrial operators, every facility doesn't need to be identical.
But the underlying automation philosophy should be consistent.
When five facilities use five different approaches to programming, visualization, naming, data collection, and system integration, every improvement becomes more difficult to replicate.
Standardization changes that equation.
A successful solution at one facility can become a standard for the next. Engineers can reuse proven code and architectures. Operators can move between facilities without having to relearn completely different interfaces. Management can begin comparing operational information using common definitions.
Over time, the value of standardization compounds.
The organization isn't just solving today's automation problems.
It's making the next automation project easier.
What's Next?
Modernization is not a single project with a finish line.
Once a company has standardized its automation systems and established better access to plant data, it can begin asking bigger questions.
Can we identify recurring causes of downtime?
Can we compare performance across facilities?
Can we improve preventive maintenance?
Can we automate reporting?
Can we make production and process data available to other business systems?
Can we create a common operational architecture across every facility?
Those opportunities become much easier to pursue when the underlying automation and data infrastructure is consistent.
For this renewable biogas producer, standardizing five facilities created that foundation.
Is Your Automation Infrastructure Holding Your Facilities Back?
If you're operating multiple manufacturing or industrial facilities, inconsistent automation can quietly become one of your biggest operational costs.
Different PLC code.
Different SCADA screens.
Different naming conventions.
Different data structures.
Different ways of solving the same problem.
You don't necessarily need to rip everything out and start over.
A practical modernization strategy can identify what is working, standardize what isn't, and connect the systems you already have.
Corso Systems helps industrial companies modernize automation, SCADA, and plant data without losing sight of the operation they're trying to improve.
If you're dealing with inconsistent automation across multiple facilities, let's talk about what standardization could look like for your operation.
