Whoever built your control system, we can take it over

Control panel design and manufacture

Panels designed, built, wired and tested in our own workshop — from a single motor starter to a multi-section MCC with distributed I/O.

A panel is the part of a control system nobody looks at until something is wrong with it. We build them so that the day somebody does open the door — at 2am, during a breakdown, possibly not us — the drawing matches what is inside and every core is labelled at both ends.

What you receive

• General arrangement and schematic drawings, issued for approval before any metal is cut
• Bill of materials with make, model and lead time against every line
• Thermal calculation and ventilation or cooling sizing
• Fully wired and ferruled panel, tested against a written FAT schedule

PLC and DCS programming

Control code across five controller platforms, written to IEC 61131-3 and structured so the next engineer can read it.

Most of the control code we are asked to work on was written by somebody else, under time pressure, and never documented. We write ours on the assumption that the same will happen to it.

What you receive

• Functional design specification agreed before code is written
• Structured, commented program with a consistent naming convention
• I/O list reconciled against the panel schedule and field devices
• Simulation or dry-run results before the program goes near the plant

SCADA and HMI development

Mimics, alarms, trends and reporting on FactoryTalk, WinCC, Wonderware and Citect — built for the operator on shift, not for the demo.

A SCADA screen is read by someone who is tired, at the end of a shift, deciding whether to stop a line. It should answer that question in about a second. Most of the systems we are asked to fix answer it in about a minute.

What you receive

• Screen hierarchy and navigation agreed before any graphic is drawn
• Mimic set built on a consistent template, with a documented colour and state convention
• Rationalised alarm list with priorities, causes and operator actions
• Trend and datalog configuration against a defined tag set

Machine retrofit and plant upgrade

Taking over somebody else's panel, PLC and SCADA and bringing it forward — planned around your shutdown window, with a rollback that works.

The plant already exists. It runs, it makes money, and the controller inside it went out of production nine years ago. This is the work we are built for.

What you receive

• Site survey and as-found documentation of what is actually installed
• Obsolescence and risk assessment with a recommended migration path
• Shutdown-window plan, hour by hour, agreed with your production team
• Point-to-point mapping from old I/O to new, checked before the shutdown starts

Plant commissioning, maintenance and AMC

Start-up, on-call breakdown support and annual maintenance contracts — including periodic program backups most plants discover they never had.

Commissioning is where a control system stops being a document and starts being a plant. Maintenance is what decides whether it is still working in five years.

What you receive

• Written commissioning schedule with loop check and functional test records
• Signed SAT record and defect list, with each item closed out or agreed as accepted
• Operator and maintenance handover session at the panel, not in a meeting room
• Under AMC: scheduled site visits with a written report each time

Building management and energy monitoring

HVAC, chiller, cleanroom and utility control with energy monitoring — the plant systems behind the building rather than the front-of-house automation.

In an industrial facility the BMS is not comfort control. It is the chillers, cooling towers, AHUs and extraction that the production process depends on, and when it drifts the process notices before the people do.

What you receive

• Plant and utility control strategy, written down and agreed
• Integration of existing chiller, AHU and package plant controllers over their native protocols
• Head-end graphics and alarms consistent with the rest of the site's SCADA
• Metering strategy — where meters go, what they prove, what gets reported