Industrial Automation
PLC and SCADA engineering for machines and complete production lines.
- Typical uptime gain
- Fewer unplanned stops
- Approach
- Retrofit over rip-out
Scope
What the work involves
This is our core discipline, and everything else we do is built on it. We design, program, and commission PLC control systems for machines and complete production lines — deterministic logic, safety interlocks, motion control, and the electrical panels and field wiring behind them. We retrofit legacy lines without ripping them out, migrate obsolete controllers to current platforms, and document everything to the standard your auditors expect. From the first I/O list through FAT, SAT, and go-live, one engineering team owns the result: a line that runs, and keeps running.
In detail
How we approach it
What the engagement actually looks like on your site, start to finish.
Where we usually start
Most projects begin with a machine that still does its job but has become difficult to keep running. Spares for the controller are scarce, the person who wrote the original logic has moved on, and nobody wants to touch the program in case it stops working. The line is fine until the day it is not.
We start by reading what is actually there — the existing program, the electrical drawings if they exist, and the machine itself running a real cycle. That produces an I/O list and a written description of the control sequence, which is often the first accurate documentation the plant has had in years.
How the logic is written
Control code outlives the person who writes it, so we write it to be read. Routines are named for what they do on the machine rather than for their address, sequences are commented in plain language, and the structure follows the physical process so an engineer can trace a fault by walking the line.
Safety is designed in as its own layer rather than bolted onto the sequence — interlocks, guards, and emergency stops are engineered to the risk assessment for that machine, and tested as their own commissioning step.
Retrofit before replacement
A capable machine held back by an obsolete controller rarely needs replacing. Retrofitting the control layer typically costs a fraction of new equipment, keeps the mechanical asset you have already paid for, and unlocks production data the original equipment never exposed.
Where a full replacement genuinely is the right answer, we will say so — and show the reasoning rather than the conclusion.
Commissioning without stopping production
Cutover is the part clients worry about most, and rightly. We stage it: the new system is built and tested off-line, proven at a factory acceptance test before it ships, then installed in planned windows — usually a shutdown, a weekend, or a shift changeover agreed with your production team.
Site acceptance testing runs against the same written sequence we produced at the start, so 'finished' means something both sides can check rather than a matter of opinion.
Capabilities
What is included
The line items that make up a typical engagement — scoped up or down to the site.
PLC programming & migration
Safety interlocks & risk assessment
Motion and drive control
Control panel design & build
Field wiring & I/O commissioning
FAT, SAT & handover documentation
What you receive
- Commented PLC program and source files, owned by you
- As-built electrical drawings and terminal schedule
- I/O list and written control sequence
- Risk assessment and safety validation records
- FAT and SAT sign-off documentation
- Maintenance handover and operator training
When this is the right call
- A line running on controllers that are past end-of-life or hard to source spares for
- A machine whose original programmer is no longer available and whose logic is undocumented
- A plant that needs production data from equipment that was never built to report it
- A new line that needs control engineering from the I/O list through to go-live
Common questions
- Do we have to stop production?
- Rarely for more than a planned window. The system is built and proven off-line first, so the on-site work is installation and testing rather than development. We agree the cutover window with your production team before anything is committed.
- Do we own the PLC program afterwards?
- Yes. You receive the source files, commented, along with the drawings and documentation. We do not lock clients into needing us to make a change.
- Which PLC platforms do you work with?
- Siemens, Allen-Bradley, Mitsubishi, and Delta most often. If your site is standardised on a platform, we work in that platform rather than pushing you toward one we prefer.
- Can you take over a system somebody else built?
- Yes, and it is a common request. We start by documenting what exists, because taking responsibility for logic nobody has read is how avoidable faults get introduced.
Elsewhere in the stack
Other services
Each discipline stands on its own, and they compound when combined.