Not
all investments in automation technology can be put into strict
financial terms. Sometimes, money has to be spent to bring the plant
into compliance with government regulation. The pharmaceutical industry
is revamping its production technology to meet U.S. Food and Drug
Administration (FDA) rules on tracking production methods and
genealogy. The same is true of the food and beverage industry, which
also has to add track-and-trace capability to its automation systems.
Other non-financial justifications for new technology include safety
and security in plant operations.
Investing
for compliance has become a leading justification for new automation
now that the government is putting regulatory pressure on plant
operations. “Compliance is a justification for technology,” says Peter
Martin, vice president of strategic ventures at Invensys Process
Systems Inc., an automation supplier in Foxboro, Mass. “You won’t be
compliant with Sarbanes Oxley (a public company financial
accountability law) unless you look at automation.”
Other
factors such as standardization also justify automation investment.
“Not every project has to be justified financially,” says Yves Dufort,
director of strategic programming at automation software vendor
Wonderware, in Lake Forest, Calif. “If your technology is reaching
obsolescence, the justification may be business continuity. Or there
may be a merger, and the justification is standardization.”
Ultimately,
even the non-financial justification for automation investment can be
boiled down to business interests, since there are costs involved in
not meeting the demands of safety, security, standardization or
compliance. “Even issues such as safety, security and compliance are economic issues,” says Invensys’ Martin.
To see the main story this sidebar was taken from - "Justify Your Automation" - please visit www.automationworld.com/view-2757
