Automation engineers must ensure long-term, multi-facetted systems stability

With so many automation technologies now regarded as commodities, barely distinguishable even in price, are there any real differentiators any more? Mitsubishi Electric’s John Browett argues that astute buyers need to consider a new factor: stability

Users of control and automation products have seen the equipment they buy evolve through a number of clearly defined and recognisable stages, each of which, in turn, delivers significant benefits. First, advancing technology makes performance the major selling point for equipment vendors, with manufacturers successively overtaking each other with a performance boost.

But the big steps forward can only go on for so long. Eventually the incremental advances become so small that it becomes very difficult for one vendor to differentiate its products from those of another vendor on performance grounds alone, on technical specification at least.

Of course, the specifications rarely tell the whole story, and it is quite likely that there are still significant performance differences between different manufacturers’ products once they are installed in real-world applications. But I doubt there are many of us who have the time, the budget, the resources or the inclination to perform comparison tests on several competing brands before we buy. Instead, the best we can do is take the data sheet at its word.