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An introduction to SCADA from your own perspective.
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Reserve Your Seat TodayIf you've been assigned to work on a SCADA project or specify SCADA gear, you need an introduction to SCADA to make the right decisions. You need to know the SCADA definition, how SCADA gear works and what the industry best practices are for choosing the right SCADA devices.
But you can't trust just any information. You need a guide written by someone with loads of experience from previous SCADA network projects.
That's exactly why author Bob Berry wrote his SCADA Tutorial White Paper. Bob Berry is the founder and CEO of DPS Telecom, a leading developer of integrated alarm monitoring and process control solutions. Bob's engineering skill and dedication to solving his clients' real-world problems has grown DPS from a small consulting firm to an Inc. 500 company.
Here's a preview of what you'll learn in this 12-page free downloadable PDF white paper on SCADA:
You need to know both what SCADA is and how it can improve your operation and overall effectiveness/output. This guide will teach you important SCADA basics, like the two elements present in all SCADA applications and the accepted definition of the term "SCADA" (what does SCADA stand for?). You'll also learn about the business advantages to be gained from a proper SCADA install. This guide talks about the cost reductions and revenue protections that can boost your bottom-line profits.
When you think of SCADA, you probably related it to industrial automation. But, you'll likely be surprised by just how many different kinds of businesses can use SCADA systems to process data.
In this white paper, you'll get a list of six of the most common industrial processes that use SCADA gear, such as oil and gas industry and communication infrastructures. Even these examples won't show you how deep and complex SCADA data can actually be. They will, however, give you a good introduction of SCADA systems and the types of places where they are used.
Do your systems use a constant supply of electrical power and do they have demanding temp and humidity tolerances? Do you need real-time statuses of many pieces of gear in a large system? These and the other questions included in this white paper will help you to evaluate just what SCADA can actually do to make improvements in your company.
Supervisory control and data acquisition allow you to access quantitative measurements of important processes, detect problems as soon as they start, measure trends over time, and get many other important results. This SCADA white paper takes you through an in-depth look at all of these efficiency boosters and profit maximizers.
Do you know the four key functions that SCADA system performs? From initial logic data acquisition all the way through to control system, Bob Berry's SCADA white paper will walk you through each of the steps individually. You'll also learn about the four different kinds of SCADA components and functions, including sensors and the overarching data communications network.
When learning a new topic, it's useful to look at the absolute most basic system that still meets the definition for that topic. That's why this free PDF guide will give you an example of what the world's simplest possible SCADA app system would look like. Although clearly far less complex than any real-world SCADA operating system, the example still includes the basics of remote monitoring and control functions.
You need to do your homework before purchasing any SCADA system. This will be a major B2B purchase that your company will have to live with for a decade or more (or spend perhaps millions of dollars cleaning up the mess you've made if you make the wrong choice).
Just as powerful a SCADA can be to improve your operations, it also has a dark side in the form of pitfalls. Some of these pitfalls include spending a fortune on unnecessary cost overruns, or ending up with a system that doesn't really meet all your needs. You may even purchase an inflexible system that only meets your needs today and can't expand as your needs grow.
Depending on your industry, you might have a Remote Telemetry Unit/Remote Terminal Unit (RTU) on the front lines of your SCADA system, instead of a PLC SCADA (Programmable Logic Controller).
However, you need to know exactly how an RTU works and how to choose the right vendor. Key elements to look for are sufficient capacity, rugged construction, the right RTU communication transport, web browser capability in a computer system, and intelligent control. The SCADA white paper also includes five extra elements that you should definitely take into consideration before making any RTU purchase.
Just as you must know the SCADA RTU's on the front line of your SCADA system, so too must you know how a SCADA master or HMI (human-machine interface) should work and how to pick the right one. From flexible responses to sensor inputs to expansion capability to support for a lot of protocols and gear types, you absolutely need to know how to select the right SCADA master for your environment.
We also free SCADA training to our clients. This 5-day course will prepare you to use your RTUs and master station in your real-world scenario. Enroll here.
All DPS Telecom products include comprehensive technical support. If you've purchased one of our products and are encountering any kind of issue, contact DPS Tech Support today at 559-454-1600.
At DPS Telecom, the representative who answers your call isn't an intern reading from a script. DPS Tech Support representatives are engineers who contribute to product development. And, if your problem requires additional expertise, the DPS Engineering Department that designed your product is right down the hall.
Help us connect you to the right engineer by filling out this quick questionnaire. Simply leave your contact information to get started, and we'll call you back. Most preliminary discussions are about 15 minutes, and afterward, we'll send you a custom application diagram of a recommended solution that'll make it easier to justify your project to management.
