Full control for production plants and industrial automation with octoplant

Name: Octoplant - Keep Production Running
Brand: Octoplant

versiondog PLC, SCADA Backup and Monitoring

Automation Cybersecurity, Monitoring, Backup and Recovery

Modern mining and manufacturing businesses are highly automated and rely on automation assets to keep the production processes running optimally. With increasing levels of automation and IoT assets, governance of these assets is a critical consideration to maximise and ensure production availability and increase OEE.

Octoplant from AUVESY-MDT is the next generation evolution of the versiondog software. Octoplant can be implemented rapidly to ensure that OT system are monitored and managed, capturing where, why and when changes are made and removing many risks associated operational technology (OT).

AcuSYS Software Solutions (Pty) Ltd has been installing and supporting octoplant (previously versiondog) in Southern Africa for more than 14 years. Over this period we have implemented octoplant with multiple Siemens PCS7, Siemens TIA portal, Schneider and even Rockwell OT installations. Our clients have included WinCC, AvevA System Platform and other software in their octoplant backup and recovery strategy.

Building on this experience across mining, automotive, food and beverage, utilities, pharmaceutical and other industries, we (and our partners) are in an outstanding position help you get the most from your octoplant subscription.

We and our supplier AUVESY-MDT are your partners for maximum reliability, minimum downtime, high quality, and safety standards in industrial automation. As the global market leader for manufacture-independent version control and change management software, we provide you with answers to the increasing complexity of the Industrial Internet of Things.

Contact us for further information and discuss the posability of a pilot instalaltion to determine how octoplant can reduce the risk of production losses.

Automation Risks

	This table highlights the automation scenarios that Octoplant addresses and how it is applied to reduce business risk and contribute to profitability.
Risk	Chance	Consequence	Octoplant function
A Contractor makes code changes for a new product. Later in the day, the machine will not run an existing product.	Medium	High	Octoplant allows you to roll back to previous versions and allows you to compare codes and see where changes have been made.
A Maintenance Engineer makes temporary control changes to complete the current batch, but the changes are not documented.	High	Low	With Octoplant any changes will be spotted during a scheduled backup and the appropriate person will be notified.
A motor drive fails, and a replacement is fitted but the default parameters do not work.	High	High	Octoplant scheduled backup takes a copy of the drive parameters and stores them in its central repository. This can be retrieved and downloaded to a new drive so the system can be running again with minimum downtime.
At a time of redundancies, an unhappy employee decides to make malevolent changes.	Low	High	Octoplant constantly monitors your system and will alert you if an unauthorised change has been made from the master version.
A PLC fails and each of the PLC programming devices on site has a slightly different version of the code on it.	High	Medium	Octoplant automatically performs scheduled backups from your device. The most up to date copy is always on the server.
A Maintenance Engineer makes a temporary change to get over a sensor fault in the middle of the night. The person then goes off shift but does not inform anyone of the change.	High	Medium	The next scheduled backup will alert you to changes in the code and the smart compare feature will highlight what the change is. If Octoplant had been used the change could have documented there and then as well as the system has a record of who made the change.
A regular contractor comes in to make makes changes to the system for a new piece of plant, then leaves the site without a backup or communicating what has been changed and where.	Medium	Medium / Risk	Scheduled backups will automatically spot changes in PLC code and keep the backed-up versions. The contractor could then be called back to check in the new code and document all changes made, from the automatic audit.
The latest version of the code in PLC but the only commented code on site does not match the PLC version.	High	Medium	The automatic backup from Octoplant has the latest version. This can then be merged with the comments from the earlier version to give an up to date commented copy – maintaining the value of the comments.
The Contractor has been working on code but meanwhile, a number of changes have been made to the site copy.	High	Medium / High	Before the Contractor downloads the modified version of the code, he creates a report in Octoplant which lists all the changes that had been made to the code since it was released to the contractor. These changes can then be made back into the new version to ensure it’s up to date.
SI receives a warranty claim from an end user that software they had created for the customer has a fault.	Medium	High	SI checks out the latest copy of the software to go to the site. On-site they then back up the software from the device and compare it to the checked out version. On finding a difference the SI can then point out where a change had been made and legitimately charge the customer for the visit.
SI Engineers commissioning on site are updating software and documentation.	Medium	Low / Medium	The Octoplant remote server they have on-site takes frequent backups of all the devices and periodically synchronises with the server back at the main office, automatically undertaking the administration.
A manufacturer starts producing a product which was last produced two years ago. Because of the changes made since the last time this product was made, production of the product is very slow resulting in low OEE and high downtime.	Low	Medium	Because a complete set of versions spanning many years are stored on the Octoplant server this can be checked out and rolled back to the code for the last time this product was made. The parameters in the code are set up for this product resulting in much-improved production performance, and comments can be added for subsequent use.
In the development of the PLC code, multiple engineers are involved – there is a risk of conflicting changes being made.	High	High	Octoplant avoids ad hoc sharing violations by properly administering the logging out and return of programs, streamlining the administration of the project.
The PLC code is highly developed and tested for various machine configurations – a little-used special variant machine is being manufactured – what was the code for that type, and where is it?	Medium	Medium	Octoplant, supported by program comments, will have that version in back-up and allow you to both easily find it and utilise it on that machine type.