169 Patie Street, Sudbury, ON P3A 1N3
169 Patie Street, Sudbury, ON P3A 1N3
Northern Ontario’s only Cisco Select Certified Partner.
Corning 25 year manufacturer’s warranty on fibre installations.
ECM Automation Networks has been actively designing, deploying, and maintaining process control networks for over a decade. Our skill and experience transitioning from Modbus/DataHighway and other legacy serial connections to modern IP based networks is extensive, work we continue today.
While networks based on Cisco or Hirschmann, and servers based on Windows continue to expand into Process Control systems, special care is needed to ensure these ‘off the shelf’ solutions truly meet the stability and reliability needs expected on control networks.
As processing plants & mines continue to expand and renovate, the legacy protocols are continuing to be replaced with IP based networks. While each vendor has their own branding (EthernetIP, ModBus TCP) the new backbone is the same technologies which run e-mail and the Internet, and that backbone is here to stay.
ECM’s experience adapting these ‘Business’ technologies to the rugged realities of industrial plants over the past decade is extensive, and we’re always excited to join with new clients as they begin or continue these new deployments.
ECM has partnered with Cisco and Hirschmann, both of which enjoy wide popularity with plant technologists across many industrial sectors, and our experience with these vendor’s products is extensive.
As an infrastructure company, ECM has specialized in deployments of Windows based servers and clients within industrial control networks. Loved or hated, nearly all modern control systems and specialty software packages now run on Windows, and ECM has the experience to ensure these servers continue to run with the stability needed.
ECM has chosen to remain vendor agnostic with respect to control systems. While we have extensive experience integrating and maintaining Windows servers with Rockwell, Kepware, and various other vendor’s software suites, we are at our core an infrastructure company. As such, we often take responsibility for the Windows software and its integration with the control system, while the configuration of that control system software itself remains the responsibility of our client’s instrumentation and maintenance departments.
As a Microsoft partner, ECM has access to the latest development software allowing us to test any of the software suites our clients use against Microsoft’s latest software to help ensure compatibility and to test/demonstrate new features.
There can be no doubt that wireless needs of industrial networks are vastly different from those of a hotel or office building.
From providing access to a crane overhead, to allowing the control room operator to roam freely about the plant keeping watch on a tablet, wireless systems are beginning to make significant inroads into the industrial environment.
From surface processing plants full of steel beams and large equipment to underground mines with long cramped tunnels, industrial sites provide some of the most challenging environments for wireless – especially when that wireless is critical to the proper functioning of a facility.
ECM’s experience with industrial wireless, along with extensive wireless deployment training created by Cisco allow us to help ensure your wireless networks provide the reliability and redundancy you need.
ECM provides monthly and yearly maintenance services to many mines & processing plants, and our breadth of experience helps us perform this work in a timely and efficient manner.
From testing and installing Windows updates, to keeping antivirus & firewall signatures current our monthly and annual maintenance services help ensure your process isn’t offline due to a virus from 2 years ago, or a bug that was fixed 6 months ago.
No two plants approach maintenance the same, and at ECM we understand that our offering must be customized for each environment.