Consulting and technical support

Automation expertise is needed intermittently. When an investment is being evaluated, when a technical specification is being written, when a new machine is being commissioned: decisive moments, concentrated in time, that rarely justify a full-time role — yet improvising through them is expensive.

This service makes that expertise available only when it is needed, with the continuity of someone who already knows your plant.

What the service covers

• Machine fleet assessment: state of the existing automation, controller obsolescence, spare part availability, downtime risk and intervention priorities
• Control architecture: defining the standard to adopt on new projects — platforms, fieldbuses, safety criteria, data management — so that machines bought over the years speak the same language
• New concept development: feasibility studies and evaluation of technical alternatives before the budget is committed
• Support in writing technical specifications: translating a production requirement into verifiable technical requirements, with written acceptance criteria
• Support during commissioning and SAT: independent technical presence during the acceptance testing of third-party supplies
• Training and knowledge transfer to in-house staff

Why it makes sense for an SME

In our region most manufacturing companies have excellent product and process know-how, but do not have — and often have no reason to have — a dedicated automation engineer. The result is that the most demanding technical decisions are taken under pressure, relying on whichever supplier is at the table.

This is not a criticism of suppliers: it is simply a situation where nobody is looking at the machine fleet as a whole and over the long term. Seven machines bought from six different builders over ten years, each with its own logic, its own interface and its own spare parts, are the natural consequence of decisions taken one at a time, each reasonable in itself.

Having automation expertise available by the day, from someone who knows the history of your plant and does not start from scratch every time, changes the way those decisions are made.

The third-party role during acceptance testing

During the commissioning and SAT of a supply, our presence is not there to hunt for mistakes: it is there to make the builder of the machine and the people who will run it for the next fifteen years speak the same language.

In practice that means verifying that what has been delivered matches what the specification says, that acceptance tests are run under realistic conditions, that documentation and software access are complete, and that safety functions are validated rather than merely declared.

It is a role that protects both sides. The client gets an independent technical reading of what they are accepting; the builder gets a competent counterpart with whom open points can be settled straight away, instead of surfacing as a dispute months later. In our experience, acceptance testing handled this way closes sooner, not later.

A note on independence. When we support a client as a third party, we are not also the supplier of the plant under review: we keep the two roles separate, because the value of this service lies precisely in having no interest on the other side of the table.

How we work

It starts with half a day on site to understand the situation and define the scope together. From there the relationship can take different forms: a defined assignment on a single project, a package of days to be used across the year, or an agreed periodic presence.

No exclusivity, and no obligation to award us the implementation afterwards: if the consulting work shows that another supplier is the better route, we will say so.