The Ignition Project Lifecycle
Since we’ve been performing automated Legacy SCADA to Ignition Conversions and Vision to Perspective Conversions for a while, we’ve discovered that many companies using Ignition have a common project lifecycle.
This common lifecycle follows many of the same paths that our Corso Systems team members took on our own early Ignition journey. Luckily, Ignition keeps evolving and improving with every release. So, it is a journey we will be on for a long time!
As you work with Ignition, whether it is your first time installing it (or you’re into your second decade with the platform) there’s always more to learn. Let’s dive into the overall project lifecycle.
Ignition’s Unlimited Trial
The first thing most people get excited about with Ignition is the fact you can use it completely for free. This may not be as mind blowing now as it was in 2009 when we first started working with the platform, especially with tools like Ignition Maker Edition. That said, the fact you can reset the two hour trial unlimited times is unique in the automation industry.
Ignition’s unlimited trial is incredibly powerful because you can build out an entire Enterprise class system without having to pay a cent for licensing. Compared to many other options on the market, this also means you can spin up as many development instances as you want, and push code to the production servers. The two hour limitation is enough to test most anything, and you can even try out new modules without having to commit to the unknown!
A common story we’ve heard from many companies using Ignition is, “I heard about it, downloaded it, set it up for XYZ task to see how it worked and it just grew from there.”
Growing Beyond the Proof of Concept
Once people get their hands on Ignition—and understand what’s possible—their use cases for Ignition inevitably grow.
For Blommer Chocolate, this meant growing from a small project for monitoring tank levels to a full plant control system with deep business system integrations.
When we first met with AriensCo, they were using Ignition as a bridge between their PLC / HMI all-in-one units and a database so users could badge into workstations. We helped them grow from that humble beginning with Ignition into a full OEE tracking solution.
We’ve even worked with OEM companies who use Ignition for their internal processes and need to leverage its capabilities for their customers to manage and monitor their equipment. We’ve regularly helped companies expand more of their processes and equipment into Ignition once they have rolled it out to their facility.
Ignition can improve so many aspects of your operation because of it’s unlimited licensing model. You don’t need to pay to add more users to the system. It’s free to add more tags, and you can build tools in Ignition to accomplish any task you can imagine. You never need to ask IF you can build it in Ignition!
Planting the Enterprise Seed
After deploying Ignition in just one part of your facility or business, it is inevitable that people across the organization will find it useful. Typically, this phenomenon begins with dashboards that give everyone in the company real-time visibility into the process.
Moving beyond the plant floor opens the door to Manufacturing Execution Systems (MES). An MES integrates your business operations systems with your process data. This enables improved process scheduling, warehouse management systems, and integrations with customer-service-facing systems like inbound order processing and shipping & receiving.
While Ignition runs operations for some of the top manufacturing companies in the world, it can also help companies at any point along their automation journey accomplish their goals.
The Ignition Lifecycle is Unlimited
The unlimited nature of Ignition goes beyond licensing. Ignition is not just a SCADA system. It can connect any type of technology, enabling integrations and insights that are simply not possible with typical SCADA platforms.
Time and time again, we’ve seen situations where someone tries Ignition for the first time, and within a few months they’ve deployed it across their entire company. Ignition is the software version of a Swiss Army Knife or a Leatherman multi-tool. Right out of the box, Ignition can solve almost any problem. And as they become familiar with the platform, it opens the doors for solving any problem that can be overcome with software and integrating systems.
As Ignition spreads across a company, people quickly understand how to better leverage its capabilities and streamline performance.
In our experience, it’s easy to observe this progression by looking at the UDTs and Templates in a given company’s projects. Most projects will start with no UDTs or Templates, but are added as the system grows. Sometimes, a company will find the time to go back and refactor the system to use UDTs and Templates. In other situations, a company might not make use of UDTs and/or Templates until a large-scale project requires them to apply them across the entire enterprise.
Corso Systems can help companies at any point along their Ignition journey from converting a Legacy SCADA project to Ignition (by leveraging our automated tools) or upgrading to the latest version of Ignition including Perspective. We can even help with refining your system to optimize performance as you push the boundaries of what the Ignition community could imagine!
Please reach out and let us know where you are on your journey with Ignition, we’d love to be a part of it!
