WorkSync Services · SCADA Modernization

Fewer platforms, live data in any browser, and a team that has run the systems it migrates

WorkSync plans and delivers SCADA platform decisions and migrations for midstream, upstream and processing plants: moves to Ignition, AVEVA and CygNet upgrades, MQTT conversions and advanced process control. Operators who build technology, not a vendor’s services arm.
Start with a 2 to 4 week assessmentSee how a migration runs 

For VP Operations, Control Room Manager, VP OT, Measurement

An example compressor station screen in a browser: a process diagram kept gray until something is abnormal, one high alarm standing out, key values against their normal ranges, 24-hour trends and a measurement panel
Example screen, WorkSync render

The situation

Why operators are looking at this now

Across the industry the pattern is the same. Acquisitions arrive on a different SCADA platform than the one in the office. Older HMI releases and the Windows servers under them leave support. Vendors move from perpetual licenses to per-user subscriptions. Operators pay outside integrators to keep two or three systems alive, while the field still waits on a poll that runs every 15 to 60 minutes on a typical older system and on-call staff cannot see a station from a phone.

The decision is rarely “which platform is best.” It is which path gets the business to fewer platforms at the lowest cost and risk, without touching measurement or the field.

  • Three platforms after a deal.

    Every acquisition brings its own SCADA. Convergence has to be planned, or it never happens.

  • Support that leaves on a date.

    Older releases and server operating systems end support on published dates. Staying is also a project.

  • Screens stuck on the desktop.

    Operators want alarms on a phone and live data, without a second seat license for every person who needs a screen.

A fenced compressor station on gravel: a two-bay metal building with reciprocating units inside, a bank of aerial coolers, two vertical scrubbers, a small control building and yellow-painted gas piping
A compressor station, the kind of site a migration moves one wave at a time

What we do

What WorkSync does

Five services, delivered as one engagement or separately.
  1. 01

    Platform decision and budgetary plan

    Typical size: Two to four weeks

    A short, honest comparison of the paths the business is weighing, scored against operations’ needs: license cost as the business grows, usability, browser and mobile, live data, engineering upkeep, hosting, measurement and the number of platforms left standing. A budgetary plan by phase, a ten-year cost model against doing nothing, and a page that lists every assumption for discovery to confirm. Delivered in weeks, presentable by the client to its own leadership.

  2. 02

    Ignition migrations

    Typical size: One operating year for a regional midstream system

    Moving midstream, plant and CCS applications from earlier HMI and SCADA platforms to Ignition Perspective, hosted in the client’s cloud or on site. Templates and a screen library first, then site-by-site cutover in waves, each site running old and new side by side until its operators sign off. Measurement and field communications are left where they are.

  3. 03

    AVEVA and CygNet upgrades

    Typical size: Weeks to a few months

    Version upgrades, lifecycle moves and web-client work on the platforms the client already owns, including stepped upgrades on older releases, historian migration and licensing clean-up. The same team that migrates off a platform knows how to keep it healthy where it should stay.

  4. 04

    MQTT and live-data conversions

    Typical size: Weeks per system

    From polling to report by exception: Sparkplug publishing at the edge or the server, broker design, store-and-forward across radio drops, and the subscriber side in the SCADA layer. Delivered with the measurement path untouched, so the flow computers and the measurement system of record carry on as before.

  5. 05

    Control system design and advanced process control

    Typical size: Scoped per plant

    Control system design for midstream, upstream and processing plants, from P&ID-level screens to alarm philosophy, and advanced process control where a plant or pipeline gains from it.

How it runs

How a migration runs

WorkSync runs a migration the way a software team runs a release.
  1. 01

    Discover and design

    Inventory, architecture, screen standards shown in two styles, and the cutover plan, agreed before any site moves.
  2. 02

    Automated migration tooling

    Software converts and tests the repeatable work. Engineers spend their time on screens and judgment. Each site goes faster and comes out consistent.
  3. 03

    Two-week sprints with operations

    Operators see working screens every two weeks, change them, and sign off before a site moves.
  4. 04

    Cutover in waves

    Each site runs old and new side by side until its operators sign off. Every cutover has a rehearsed rollback, in a window operations picks. No site goes dark.
  5. 05

    Hand over

    Templates, standards and code belong to the client, with its engineers trained alongside. Configuration under version control, development, test and production environments, and scripted deployment, so the client can keep changing the system safely after WorkSync leaves.

Step 02, spelled out

What the tooling converts and tests, and what stays with an engineer

Converted and tested by software
Repeatable workWhat happens to it
Tags
Converted from the source platform and tested against it.
Alarms
Converted with the tags and tested against the source.
History references
Re-pointed, so trends survive the move.
Device templates
Built once per device type, then used at every site.
Kept with an engineer
The judgment workWhy
Screens
Designed by engineers and reviewed by the operators who will use them.
Judgment
What a site needs, what it does not, and what changes before it moves.

What the client keeps regardless of WorkSync

  • Licenses in its own name
  • Every screen and template in its own repository
  • A standard platform any certified firm can support
  • Payment at milestones, never ahead of delivered work

What users notice

What the people who run the system notice

Operators and on-call

  • The same screens on a phone, tablet, panel PC or laptop, with one sign-in
  • The right on-call person is texted, called or emailed, and it escalates if nobody acknowledges
  • Screens that stay gray until something is abnormal, so the alarm stands out
  • One map: routes, sites, live alarms, radar and lightning layers
  • Trend any point and export it in seconds

Technicians and measurement

  • Station status before the drive: comm state, last report, battery, on one page
  • A tabular meter page with drill-down trends and export
  • Scheduled reports that arrive by email
  • An audit page: who wrote which setpoint, when, from where

Engineers and supervisors

  • A new site from a template in hours; the next acquisition joins the same way
  • Unlimited users and sessions; everyone who needs a screen gets one
  • History open to the business intelligence tools the client already uses
  • Development, test and production under version control, with one-step rollback

Capabilities of the Ignition platform as the vendor documents them (Ignition 8.3), delivered in the client’s own configuration. Not a WorkSync measurement.

Experience

The team has done each piece of this before

  • A full field onto Ignition.

    At Maverick Natural Resources: a CO2 recovery plant, a gas pipeline network, liquids pipelines and injection wells were moved onto Ignition, replacing an earlier-generation DCS and HMI, with Ignition layered over CygNet upstream.

  • Live data, field to screen.

    At a major US refined products pipeline: field drivers, Autosol, an MQTT broker and Ignition moved the SCADA layer from polling to report by exception.

  • AVEVA from the inside.

    An AVEVA Enterprise SCADA upgrade for a pipeline operator: the vendor’s licensing, support and data access, first hand.

  • One layer over many systems.

    Enterprise Ignition over several CygNet versions and other SCADA systems, feeding a cloud analytics platform: one low-cost view, stored history and an analytics pipeline.

Projects led by WorkSync’s team, at WorkSync and in prior operator roles. References on request.

Platforms

Platforms the team works on

The measurement record stays in the client’s measurement system in every engagement. WorkSync changes the screens and the SCADA layer, not the custody chain.

Named factually, as the platforms we migrate to and upgrade

  • Ignition (Perspective, Edge, MQTT Engine)
  • AVEVA (InTouch, System Platform, Historian, Enterprise SCADA)
  • CygNet
  • Autosol ACM and eACM
  • MQTT Sparkplug B
  • FlowCal and ProCount interfaces
  • AWS and on-site hosting

Where the WorkSync platform fits

Where the WorkSync platform fits

A modern SCADA layer is where the data becomes live. WellOPS turns that data into a prioritized daily plan for operators, and FlowSync keeps hydraulic models of the gathering system current from it. Clients can take the migration alone, or use it as the foundation both products build on.

See WellOPS See FlowSync 

How it starts

Start with the platform review

Two to four weeks, a recommendation the client can present to its own leadership, a budgetary plan by phase, and every assumption listed for discovery to confirm. If the answer is to stay where you are, the review says so.

Start with a 2 to 4 week assessmentBook a platform review

The rest of the practice

Questions

Five questions operators ask first

Does a migration change measurement or custody records?
No. Flow computers create the records, the field communications layer collects them, and the measurement system of record validates and closes them. A migration changes the screens and the SCADA layer only.
What happens to field communications?
They stay. Ignition reads from, and writes supervisory control through, the existing communications layer. Live publishing over MQTT is a switch the client turns on when ready.
How small can the engagement be?
A platform review on its own, in two to four weeks. Many clients start there before any migration is funded.
Who supports the system afterwards?
The client’s own engineers, trained alongside the team, on a standard platform with a large integrator base. Post-go-live support and an on-call plan are scoped in the proposal.
Do you work on platforms you are not migrating to?
Yes. Upgrades and lifecycle work on AVEVA and CygNet are part of the service, and the review will recommend staying where that is the right answer.

The claim record

Every statement on this page, and where it comes from.

Founder experience means work led by a WorkSync founder inside an operator, in an operator role. Platform capabilities are the vendor's, as documented, not WorkSync measurements.
Claim record
9 claims
ClaimBasis
The Maverick Natural Resources projectCleared
Founder experience, in an operator role. Named in the past tense under the Services-section exception
The refined products pipeline MQTT projectCleared, unnamed
Founder experience. The operator is not named
The AVEVA Enterprise SCADA upgradeCleared, unnamed
Founder experience, in an operator role. The operator is not named
Enterprise Ignition over CygNet and other systems, feeding a cloud analytics platformCleared, unnamed
Founder experience. Platform names kept generic on the web
Two-week sprints, cutover in waves with side-by-side running, rehearsed rollback, handover in the client’s nameHouse method
The WorkSync delivery method, as the engagement proposal sets it out
What users notice: any device, alarm notification with escalation, gray-until-abnormal, map layers, trends, audit, templates, unlimited users, version controlSourced
Ignition 8.3 vendor documentation. Platform capability, not a WorkSync measurement
The 15 to 60 minute pollIndustry pattern
Typical polling intervals on older installations, stated as a range, not a client figure
“Operators who build technology”House line
WorkSync positioning
No cost savings, payback or NPV figuresn/a
Client-specific; kept off the public page by design