New capabilities and more support for users of popular PLC vendors deliver improved management, streamlined development, and lower OT cybersecurity risks
NUREMBURG, Germany—At SPS 2024, Software Defined Automation announced new features and expanded vendor support for its Industrial DevOps offering.
Automation engineers can upload documents, orchestrate complex workflows, and comment on projects to improve management and development of their industrial automation systems, according to a release from the Boston=based company.
In addition, Software Defined Automation increased support for Mitsubishi Electric, Rockwell Automation, and Siemens programmable logic controllers (PLCs) and engineering software, the company said in the release.
“Across manufacturing, there is a very wide range of industrial controllers in use,” said. Josef Waltl, founder and CEO of Software Defined Automation Inc., in the release. “Some are state-of-the-art, but many older PLCs, robots, and drives are still employed in critical production systems. The released extensions of our end-to-end Industrial DevOps platform help the automation engineers tasked with keeping all of these devices running reliably. Support for more vendors and more of their engineering software versions means more customers can take advantage of Industrial DevOps, and the new features contribute to gains in efficiency, saved time and cost, and reduced risk.”
With Software Defined Automation, automation engineers can securely connect to their systems from anywhere, streamline development and enhance collaboration, quickly back up and recover code, and track PLC code changes across multiple vendors, the company said in the release.
Software Defined Automation now supports Mitsubishi Electric’s engineering software, GX Works3. Automated Backup, code Version Control, and Browser-based Engineering for GX Works3 are available. They enable automation engineers to make changes, save, deploy, and backup their PLCs from anywhere using a web browser.
In addition, Software Defined Automation has extended its support for Rockwell Automation Studio 5000 Logix Designer back to version 15 and to version 14 for Siemens TIA Portal, the release said.
According to Software Defined Automation, new features improve project management and collaboration, reduce time spent on low-value tasks, and decrease security risks. To improve management and storage, the new Document Uploads feature provides manufacturers with a central repository for all documentation associated with a project, machine, or work cell. This includes work instructions, maintenance guides, and electrical drawings. Any documents uploaded to the selected project are fully version managed, the company said.
Another feature, Pipelines, automates the orchestration of complex PLC backup, deployment, and disaster recovery workflows. Configuring backups and deployments on a per-device basis, especially across diverse, multi-vendor environments, is time-consuming and requires extensive manual effort. Now, automation engineers can create a unified workflow that backs up, deploys, and restores PLC code versions for hundreds of controllers at once. This is especially helpful to reduce mean time to recover (MTTR) in the event of a disaster, cyberattack, or other incident, according to Software Defined Automation.
As automation engineers collectively work on PLC programs, they can enhance collaboration and communication through the Project Commenting feature. Users can add comments to each block of PLC code, and then Project Commenting displays a notification to indicate comments are present and available to be addressed. Users can review the comments, make changes to the code based on the input, and respond back, all within the project.
Software Defined Automation said it envisions a future “where PLC management and development is simple, secure, and efficient, so that factories can increase uptime, reduce mean time to recover, and maximize the productivity of their assets.”