Of all types of control systems, the most popular today are Automated process control systems, which are widely used in a wide variety of economic sectors in most countries of the world.
This fact is associated with the rapidly growing pace of informatization of production and the emerging needs for automation of processes critical to the influence of the human factor. The automated process control system solves the tasks of operational management and control of technical facilities in manufacturing, energy, and transport industries. Automated process control system is an integral factor of modern successful and highly profitable industrial production.
The implementation of the automated process control system allows:
- reduce production costs by up to 81%;
- to reduce the cost of products by up to 74%;
- up to 39% increase the efficiency and service life of equipment;
- up to 56% to improve product quality;
- reduce the loss of working time by up to 21%.
Despite all the advantages of implementing automated control systems, according to a survey of industrial enterprises in Russia conducted by the Technored Academy, only 15.8% of Russian industrial enterprises today have a high level of automation. At the same time, 47.4% have a low level of automation, and 36.8% estimate the level of automation at the enterprise as average.
Modern automated control systems consist of five modules:
- Technical block. This is a set of hardware used to collect information about the state of an object and its current processes as a whole and transmit it for analysis to management personnel and electronics.
- Software (SCADA systems) - is responsible for the visual representation of the received information and implements the interface for transmitting control commands from the operator to the actuators.
- Information support is a system for coding technical and economic information, as well as the necessary reference and operational data.
- Operational personnel - employees who ensure the functioning of the system in the normal mode.
- Organizational support. It is a list of measures and regulations in accordance with which operational personnel act.
Given this structure, the Russian automated process control system market can be conditionally divided into three large segments:
- Production and sale of technical hardware.
- Development and sale of software.
- Engineering services: design, installation, maintenance, training, development of job descriptions, etc.
For decades, industrial automation in Russia has been aimed at close cooperation with foreign companies. The situation was destabilized already in 2020, when as a result of the pandemic there was a shortage of components for electronics. The domestic market of automated process control systems with great difficulty experienced a multiple increase in the delivery time of microchips. These events have shown the importance of investing in the development of own microelectronic products. In 2022, the automated control system market faced a new challenge: in a short period of time, such major players as Siemens, Schneider Electric, and ABB left Russia.
Two serious obstacles have appeared in maintaining the operability of Western automated control systems. Firstly, the lack of components: along with the departure of vendors, the supply of spare parts stopped. Secondly, the refusal of supplier companies that have left the market from warranty and post-warranty obligations, up to remote shutdown of equipment.
As an emergency measure, parallel import of components was established in the automated process control system market. The search for more reliable solutions has led to a radical restructuring of the focus of attention from European equipment to Eastern and Russian.
In search of painless ways to adapt to the new reality, industrial enterprises and automated process control system integrators were divided into 3 groups:
- those who are satisfied with a parallel supply chain;
- those who are ready to consider both Russian suppliers and suppliers from so-called friendly countries (China, Taiwan, India);
- those who have decided to work exclusively on Russian vendors.
By the end of 2022, the Russian market of automated control systems in value terms reached 67.3 billion rubles.
Fig.1. Volume and growth rate of the market of automated process control systems in Russia in 2015-2022 in value terms, million rubles.
Source: data of the Federal Customs Service of the Russian Federation, FSGS of the Russian Federation, data of manufacturing companies
The largest consumers of automated process control systems are the oil and gas industry, energy and military industry.
Fig.2. The structure of the automated process control system market by consumer sectors in 2022.
Source: Ministry of Industry and Trade
In accordance with the Federal Law "On the Security of the Critical Information Infrastructure of the Russian Federation" No. 187-FZ dated 26.07.2017, the objects of the critical information infrastructure (CII) of the Russian Federation must be protected and have stable functioning when computer attacks are carried out against them.
In accordance with the Law, the automated control system must comply with the following principles: legality, continuity and complexity of security, as well as the priority of preventing computer attacks.
According to the Kaspersky Lab report, in the first half of 2023, malware were blocked on 32% of automated control system computers in Russia. Russia was among the regions where the largest share of automated control system computers with blocked malware scripts and phishing pages was recorded.
Fig.3. Malware scripts and phishing pages (JS and HTML)
Source: Kaspersky ICS CERT Report data
Malware scripts are used by attackers to perform various tasks, including collecting information about the victim, tracking, redirecting the browser to a malware web resource in order to download malware into the system or browser.
According to a new report, for the first 6 months of 2023, e-mail for the first time turned out to be a more significant source of threats to automated control system computers in Russia than removable media. The share of automated control system computers attacked through email clients has been growing since the second half of 2021. From January to June 2023, the share of automation system computers on which malicious documents and web miners were blocked increased in Russia. According to the report, 35.8% of the attacked companies are engaged in engineering and integration of automated control systems, 34.3% in building automation, 32.6% in energy. At the same time, an increase in the share of attacked computers is observed only in the manufacturing industry to 30.4% compared to 2022.
According to experts, the greatest impact of information security incidents at the beginning of 2023 was on the activities of organizations in the public sector and the fuel and energy industry.
The changed conditions of the automated process control system market in Russia, of course, have affected both vendors, customers, and integrators. For many market players, the ability to adapt quickly has become vital. In 2023, companies that are not just integrators, but also have their own developments remain on the automated process control system market, because the tasks of reengineering in the current conditions require huge competencies and flexibility not only in engineering, but also in IT. Also significant advantages are the experience of working with the equipment of the departed vendors and a deep understanding of the principles of operation of this equipment, as this is necessary for the integration of new solutions.
Currently, more and more companies are looking towards the most promising industries, where a void has formed after the departure of foreign companies. First of all, these are automated control systems, large projects that involve the participation of a large number of vendors, for example, for the automation of large enterprises, such as chemical complexes or machine–building plants. Only the key players of the fuel and energy sector market are planning import substitution programs for the automated process control system segment in the amount of more than 40 billion rubles. for the next 7 years.
According to the rating "Leaders of Information Technologies for Industry" for 2022, IT companies have been identified that are leaders in the manufacturing sector and have the competence to solve specific automation tasks for manufacturers.
On June 5, 2023, it became known that in Russia, with the support of the Ministry of Industry and Trade, a working group was formed to create a domestic automated process control system with open source code, which was announced at the CIPR-2023 conference. The instructions of the Chairman of the Government of the Russian Federation Mikhail Mishustin following the results of the CIPR-2023 conference are to create a new competence center for the development of domestic controllers and sensors for automated process control systems.
The Open Automated Control System Working Group consists of representatives of 20 largest industrial companies of the Russian Federation. The main tasks of the working group today are:
- Formulation of current and future functional and technical requirements, specifications and open standards, policy development and dissemination of best practices.
- Development of a model of reference architecture of open automated process control systems for various types of production: continuous, discrete, hybrid.
- Implementation of a certification system for compliance with the requirements of specifications and open standards.
- Contributing to the development of the system of training and retraining of personnel in the field of automated control systems.
It is assumed that the domestic platform will replace the products of foreign suppliers such as GE and Siemens. It is noted that in the case of creating an open automated process control system, many independent developers can participate in the project. Therefore, it is necessary to develop a specification defining how the software should function, that is, how the user will interact with the automated workplace, the software interface of the controller driver, the logical module of the enterprise, etc. Having common requirements will help coordinate the process of writing code.
The trends of 2023 show a steady movement towards Russian solutions. The industry has begun to seriously consider the supply of domestic components, there is a great interest in the transition of automated process control systems to domestic software. The position of the state also contributes to this trend. At the federal level, a number of measures were taken to stimulate cooperation with Russian vendors, as well as a decree banning the use of foreign PTCs on critical infrastructure. In all industries, there is a search for optimal ways of integration or a complete transition to new vendors.
To date, the most popular request is the reengineering of existing automated process control systems. This can be both the development of a new project in a comprehensive manner, and a painless transition to another automated process control system vendor without stopping production. In this case, two systems (the original and the new one) work in parallel until the end of commissioning (after the end of the work, the old system is dismantled). There are more and more such projects.
In general, the trends of 2023 in the automated control system market and in the Russian industry show a focus on the development of internal potential. Today, theses about the need to strive not just for import substitution, but for technological independence are relevant. Therefore, we can say that the difficult situation on the market has also become a motivation for consolidation in the direction of technological sovereignty, the development of domestic developments and the search for extraordinary solutions.
