With the start of the new year, many businesses will be looking to budget for essential system changes. A company that produces goods should always be monitoring the condition of its control system, including its age and state of operation. Is it effective? Does it produce unanticipated errors or productivity losses? Knowing when to allocate money for a control system upgrade might be challenging at times. The following seven reasons, while not always applicable, are solid signs that your system is getting older and needs maintenance before serious mistakes happen.

Neglected Technical Assistance

Finding technical help is difficult, which is a sign that your control system may be outdated and close to being retired. There are many distinct technicians with different disciplines who work with various vendors and systems. However, if it’s nearly impossible for you to locate a technician to repair your system, take it as a sign that it’s already out of date or is very close to becoming one.

Difficulty Locating Replacement Parts

If you observe that it gets harder over time to locate replacement parts, your system may need to be updated. Control System manufacturers only make a limited number of pieces before stopping production. Although there may be a store of spare parts in a warehouse, there is no guarantee that you will be able to locate the part you require to fix your system once the product has been discontinued and the supply has run out.

Support from Internal and Outside Sources is Challenging

Having trouble getting a specialist to service your system and this kind of go hand in hand. It is likely that your system is ageing if you are having trouble obtaining internal staff or even outside help to give support. Rarely do companies provide in-depth technical training to staff members or even outside parties on technologies that are essentially useless. As a result, it might be time for an update if your go-to support person quits and you are unable to find a suitable replacement from your own ranks or from a third party.

Reliability Issues

Nobody wants a control system that is unpredictable. You might need to make a modification if your system routinely breaks down or needs maintenance. Unfortunately, your system won’t magically stop having problems and start getting better on its own one day. By switching to a new system, you can solve the reliability problem and prevent unpredictable production time losses for your business.

Need for Improved Plant Performance

Perhaps your system is operating flawlessly—congrats! However, you must perform better. Your system can just be too slow, or perhaps your production requirements have evolved and your existing system is no longer able to deliver the outputs you require. Clearly, a change needs to be made if your current system is unable to live up to your expectations. Modern technology-based system upgrades guarantee speedier production times and expanded capacities.

Having Trouble Connecting to Third-Party Applications

Apps made by a business other than the one that developed the control system are referred to as third-party applications. Periodically, these programmes are upgraded, and those updates aren’t necessarily in line with the current control architecture. Version incompatibilities are brought on by hardware and firmware modifications. The third-party software might no longer be functional if an update is made to it but not the control system. The same is true when attempting to link a new third-party programme to an antiquated control system; they might just not work together due to incompatibilities between the hardware and software. Your control system needs to be updated if a particular third-party programme is crucial to the operation of your organisation but is no longer supported.

Plant Expansion that Current Control System Can’t Handle

It could be challenging to combine various parts from the old and new controls systems if your firm is planning a significant expansion. There is a chance that gaps with older control systems will arise when new hardware is a part of the expansion. This indicates that the connection between the old and new parts may be poor or nonexistent.

It’s crucial to assess the expense of not keeping your systems up to date, regardless of whether your business exhibits one or all of the warning flags. Being proactive is always preferable to reacting to problems as they appear. Contact us today to learn more.