EDITOR’S CHOICE THE CONTROL ROOM


For the operators looking at industrial screens, the ability to see across the


entire network – and react in a way that is informed and nimble – represents the future of resilience in uncertain times


FROM RUNNING A PLANT, TO RUNNING THE WORLD


When supply chains rupture, the winners are those who can see everything, writes David Bleackley, Vice President Strategy - Advanced Applications, AVEVA


A


s I write this, the global economy remains on tenterhooks. The Strait of Hormuz – a chokepoint through which roughly a fifth of the world’s oil passes daily – has been persistently


disrupted by geopolitical standstill. And it’s not just energy; it’s the artery for vital chemical inputs for plastics, fertilizers and industrial manufacturing. These shocks ripple through supply chains, tightening margins from chemicals producers to construction, agriculture and consumer goods. Meanwhile, erratic sanctions, tariffs or even announcements can take a refinery or plant offline at a moment’s notice.


But, as critical as the situation is, it is no longer an isolated occurrence. We are living in an age of volatility. Since the pandemic, energy market swings, trade frictions and tighter financial conditions are part of the global economic fabric – underpinning a more complex


and unpredictable global system. Operational architectures in this environment must assume continuous disruption. Networks need to be capable of reconfiguring themselves – not if disruption hits, but when. One moment, a refinery is producing, and the next it isn’t. And somewhere in a control room on the other side of the world, an operator is staring at a screen trying to answer a question that efficiency models were never designed to answer: now what? Today, success depends on more than efficiency. Manufacturing performance relies on how fast and flexibly capacity can be moved or absorbed. If the supply chain dries up, how fast can the plant pivot to another supplier? What does the forecast look like? Where can production be offloaded from one factory to another? It’s about understanding real-time supply and demand, forecasting dynamically, and translating that insight all the way through to the manufacturing floor – to the people turning the wrenches and assembling the product. That shift – from local control to network-wide


responsiveness – is redesigning what optimal industrial operations look like. And sitting at the centre of it is HMI and SCADA. For most of their history, these systems had one purpose: they let operators see and control what was happening inside a facility. HMI is the interface operators use to monitor and control processes. SCADA aggregates and distributes real-time data from physical assets. For decades, both were confined to single sites. That began to change as industrial infrastructure started to converge with the kind of cloud-based architecture that had already transformed every other sector. Sensors became cheaper, and networks became faster. The


36 PROCESS & CONTROL ENGINEERING | SEPTEMBER 2026


gap between operational technology (OT) and information technology (IT) began to close. What has materialised is something quite


different. The screen now shows many facilities. It can also show historical patterns, live forecasts, and engineering data sitting alongside the operational picture. As well as monitoring the situation, the system provides the context to understand what it means – and what to do next. Decisions can happen in minutes rather than days. Take the global top 20 dairy business, Agropur. The 29-plant company, with $9 billion in annual revenues, now visualises overall equipment effectiveness (OEE) trends through geographically connected visualisation capabilities. Previously, all its plants operated independently without shared visibility, which limited operational efficiency and problem-solving. Today, through digitising its legacy industrial model, it has standardised and integrated operational data across sites and centralised it into a single view. The result is better reporting and the ability to plan production in real-time across the network. HMI and SCADA are becoming the layer that connects data and software across industrial operations – not just the interface. They provide the as-it-happens operational layer to maintain output when individual plants fail. For decades, industrial companies optimised


for efficiency and just-in-time supply. That world is gone. Agility is the primary survival requirement of the business world – and it starts with connected data and systems.


AVEVA www.aveva.com/en/


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