Replace, Repair, Upgrade, Other Pathways.

You have had "old reliable" for ten years and you are unsure about whether to replace, repair or upgrade. Usually issue comes down to cost benefit analysis. And are there other options which you have not even considered?

Even if one has decided to do something like Continuous Monitoring or Lifecycle Management of the unit (because one has a programme for all units), the choice is still hard.

One craves data to inform decision, but a study or upgrade may be needed to even get data. That costs too.

A. Get a study. Or hook directly to remote monitoring. Externals are involved and that can cost. For too many reasons to list herein... that often will not work.

B. Replace it with modern gear and start fresh. Hard to argue with that. And if it can be gotten through - golden. But one will never know what was thrown away... and it will be questioned.

C. Repair and Upgrade. This is a trick option. When one is in the process of doing repairs, it always makes sense to do an upgrade. But you are at the mercy of the contractors who do this work. However often it is the best value. 

D. Give it a born again experience - warts and all. This last one was once as expensive as all of the above, and at least as much trouble.

What if you could magically turn dumb old reliable into a smart new system with self diagnosis. Not saying that we fix old reliable yet, or even have it mend its ways. Just make it talk. Just make it self aware.

That was just not an option as little as five years ago. It was expensive. Only the manufacturer or installer of old reliable could do such magic and their incentive was always to replace and repair first and ask questions later. Upgrade to self awareness often gets value engineered out of the process.

But think about what

• - NEST does for your furnace and AC system.
• - RESA Power Systems does for old switchgear.
• - Any OBD-II monitor can do for your car (insurance).
• - Eaton PXG600E does for a Westinghouse metering system.
• - Roku, Chromecast (or similar) does for your home entertainment system.

The age arises where you buy a "rebirth" box for old reliable: Hook the box onto old reliable (with sensors and wires to what little smarts old reliable has). Hook the box onto your existing network (and we all have networks - even if we do not think about them). Analyze old reliable with Internet tools.

Past ages made such a rebirth box expensive because:

• A. The box hardware was expensive. A PLC is thousands.
• B. The setup of the box was expensive. System engineering is just plain expensive... again in the thousands.
• C. Maintaining the box was expensive. The ecosystem of data exchange and support required massive organizations.
• D. The box (because of hardware, setup and ecosystem costs) was made to do everything possible - but not one thing well.

The key is in the economics of chips, simple interfaces, auto-configuration, and supporting ecosystem that have come from  the explosion in mobile devices. And the mantra of doing what it should do well is finally coming.

I like the idea of reuse. It turns the installed base into an opportunity instead of a liability. And it is good for everyone. I like the idea of a smart device. David Rose - Enhchanted Objects. I like the idea of this being magic.

Programmable Logic Controllers, PLCs, Reliability.

PLCs are not about all the long list that gets hauled out about their speed and ease of programming and all the issues of "how they work". PLCs are about reliability. PLCs are expensive... for reasons that many are too late in understanding.

You can make your own PLC if you work out how to get the hardware and ecosystem up to or better than the standards for existing PLC reliability. Most will never understand what this requires until they fail. Nor will they have the self awareness to get past their own flaws and look outwards (and maybe even bypass failure?).

Am I challenging you? Yes. Am I challenging you to "self sufficiency" or "rugged individualism"? Look at how ecosystem plays to reliability and then ecosystems like the open source and maker movement and then decide.

Are PLC use cases what is driving the massive reduction of costs in underpinnings of their function?  Spoiler: It is the glass screen in your pocket, and the search bar everywhere.

"Come now, let us reason together". You want to build one? Yes you do! *grin* Let's see how.