Six Decisions You Must Get Right before Upgrading Your Automation System

Automation upgrades have seen often failures as buyers fail to make a few critical decisions early in the upgrade process. Below document identifies the critical decisions one must make early and correctly in order to make up gradation cost effective yet achieve your goals thus reducing the risk of incorrect startup and operation. 1. Clear purchasing and evaluation plan:

The early plan should include identification of the upgrade needs, documentation of those needs and identifying the best vendors to approach for proposals and/or bids. The plan should be time bound and include major tasks: 1) Requirements development, 2) Procurement process, 3) Bidder selection process, 4) Bidder evaluation process, 5) Vendor award process, 6) Configuration, 7) Factory acceptance test, 8) Start-up. The plan should also have percentage of work carried out in-house and at vendor location.

2. Creation of Project management team

Formulating a project team right at start sets the project in the right path. The project team for factory or plant automation should include all major stake holders including field engineers, technicians, analysts, operations personnel, IT people, and management. Each one from the project team has their responsibilities and systems identified and should ensure that the system meets both the company’s technical and business goals.

3. Setting Goals and Scope for the automation up gradation project

It is must to identify the goals and quantify them that form a most significant criterion in selecting a replacement system. Also the scope of the project needs to be defined that helps in better vendor evaluation.

4. Objectives to achieve your upgrade goals

Vendors needs to know what has compelled you to go for this up gradation, that you want to improve usability, maximize flexibility, and provide a platform for future expansion. The vendor proposals should capture up gradation objectives and propose accordingly that will best meet organizations business goals.

5. Setting Vendor Deliverables & selecting right vendor

It’s necessary to know what exactly the vendor needs to provide, that forms an important part of a long term vendor relationship. Customer references can help you understand whether the vendor has a project execution plan? Does the vendor actually follow the plan, or is it just to impress prospects, do they provide written reports on a regular schedule?, Are key vendor contacts available when needed?, Can you talk to them and get straight answers?, How is the after-project support? Etc.

6. Criteria to judge the vendor and system

Evaluation system can be a tool to judge the vendor. The evaluation system helps organizations to align project expectations with the vendor deliverables and evaluate vendors on that basis.