You have some of this software and some of that hardware for industrial control applications. There’s an expansion planned. Do you stay with existing vendor(s) or consider something new? What criteria are you applying and for whom? Are internal or external standards being applied? Are there “they” and “us” considerations involved in selection? Do you need help or just need to finish, and, if you just need to finish, is your successor going to curse you by name daily?

 

Learning objectives

• Assess what controllers and programming software are in use.
• Determine present and future controller hardware and software needs.
• Examine criteria in place for vendor selection, and if they are meeting your needs.
• Consider the post-programming future? Will the architecture allow updates?
• Learn from examples showing a more supportable hardware-software controller future.