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Industrial performance
Elevate Controls specialises in custom solutions to industrial automation challenges that push the limits of traditional PLC/SCADA systems. We target challenging industrial R&D or test applications, specialised sub-systems within a traditional DCS, and process control for niche or pilot-scale manufacturing.
We have supplied specialised systems and sub-systems to industries that include mining and materials handling, electrical power, transport, manufacturing, process industries, agribusiness, and engineering services.
We do not compete directly in the large-scale DCS or SCADA space.
Unique Operational Requirements
Automation systems for industrial R&D and Test, specialised process sub-systems, and pilot facilities, often have requirements that push the limits of traditional PLC/SCADA systems, including:
- Complex mixes of data types, including traditional analog & digital point data, comms-based data packets, non-standard sensors, and ad-hoc events.
- Mixed data rates, from less than 1 Sa/s to more than 1 MSa/s
- Very high accuracy and precision
- Compliance with demanding and evolving regulatory standards
- In-line real-time data analysis and data reduction
- Support for multiple network standards and communications protocols
- Implementation of custom control algorithms
- Connection to Enterprise-level data and configuration management systems.
In addition, industrial R&D and pilot-scale facilities must address two distinct and partially opposing sets of operational requirements:
- Their primary purpose is to measure performance both inside and outside normal operating ranges, and to experiment with new and innovative equipment and procedures. This demands that they be highly flexible and easily re-configured to meet changing R&D requirements. Operators need to access and change the system configuration and functionality as required.
- But flexibility and change can come at the expense of system stability. They are industrial facilities with equipment at a scale that can be dangerous if operated incorrectly. They must be industrially robust and meet all appropriate workplace standards and engineering certifications, with an emphasis on safe, reliable, and predictable operation.
This means that system stability is often prioritised over variation, and operators are traditionally isolated from changing, or even accessing, the low-level functionality of the system.
To be successful, systems must balance both requirements so that safe, predictable and reliable operation does not compromise their capacity to deliver on their primary R&D purpose, and vice versa.
Elevate Controls has the skills, toolset, and experience to ensure that both sets of operational requirements are addressed equally and effectively. So the system is safe, reliable, and industrially robust, without sacrificing the flexibility required of an R&D or pilot facility
How Does Elevate Controls Do It?
We use a Programmable Automation Controller (PAC) hardware platform that combines the ruggedness and industrial robustness of a PLC with the flexibility and programmability of a PC in the one unit. NI CompactRIO (cRIO) is arguably the most powerful PAC available on the market. It meets all requirements for IO functionality that is a step above that available with a traditional PLC/SCADA system.
Using the cRIO platform by itself does not guarantee that the dual requirements for flexible IO and industrial safety will be equally addressed.
Elevate Controls is Australia’s most experienced integrator of cRIO into the industrial space. Years of experience across many industries means that we fully understand both sets of requirements, and have the integration skills to ensure that they a addressed equally.
our projects
See our projects page for a comprehensive overview on how Elevate Controls can add value and expertise to your business.