Today’s automation systems collectively impact plant safety, economic throughput, environmental compliance and equipment protection. Each system contains a unique and complex collection of tags, programs, databases, and user interfaces that are analogous to the information encoded in the DNA of natural organisms. However, unlike natural organisms, automation genomes evolve daily and the DNA of one automation system often propagates to others through integration.
The term Automation Genome™ describes the collective configurations within and among all automation systems in a plant. For a plant to operate at an optimum level, configurations across automation systems must be easily reconcilable, accessible, and searchable, as well as presented in context and automatically documented. Integrity™ software by PAS aids plants in managing these disparate automation systems by mapping this Automation Genome and aggregating and contextualizing the configuration databases, programs, and user interfaces of automation systems. It also simplifies the visualization of related information within context and exposes new possibilities for transforming the way industrial plants manage automation systems and production knowledge. Features of the system include:
- Common operating environments, which are uniform configurations of hardware and software that enable security, reliability, and facilitate troubleshooting.
- Management of significant daily configuration changes.
- Software and hardware upgrade planning through the identification of existing components and verifying prerequisites.
- Application licensing identification and compliance.
- Verification that components meet vendor compliance by identifying unauthorized software, hardware and configurations.
- Active directories (security), which are employed to protect and maintain the integrity of critical production networks.
- Problem diagnosis and notification.
