When considering replacing your existing control system with a new control system it is important to plan the project up front. At Emerson on a typical Greenfield project, we would write a Project Execution Strategy. This is pretty standard because the implementation method of Greenfield projects is well understood and reasonably consistent between projects.
For a Brownfield project, this is generally not the case. The Project Execution Strategy (or Migration strategy when it is a migration) for a Brownfield project is often very specific to the associated plant or platform.
A key decision with Brownfield projects, which requires factoring into the plan, is how to cut over operations from the old control system to the new one. For example, you may wish to shut down production for a period of time long enough to perform a full cut over. That may not be a luxury you can afford so you may need to cut over one unit at a time whilst production is reduced—or a multitude of other options.
As you can appreciate from the above point alone, planning the replacement of your existing control system is a complex activity, which should only be completed through collaboration with experienced engineers and consultants who specialise in this type of a project. A robust Brownfield Project Execution strategy is highly dependent on the quality of information available to the author.
I would therefore like to make some suggestions on what information you, as a customer, should make available to your engineer or consultant when he or she is planning to write the strategy. These are my suggestions:
I imagine that there are many further inputs, which a customer could provide that I have not listed here. If you have any suggested information please feel free to inform the readers by adding it as a comment. Remember the better the quality of input information the more concise and accurate the execution strategy will be and the easier it will be for you, the customer, to make an informed decision on how to proceed.
Please feel free to let me know your thoughts in the comments section below.
From Jim: You can connect and interact with other project experts in the Plan & Design and Implement & Build groups in the Emerson Exchange 365 community.
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