- 26:20 min
Concera Becomes Africa’s First Ignition Premier Integrator
Sibanye-Stillwater’s Rustenburg platinum operations required a modern SCADA platform that could improve usability, strengthen cybersecurity, and standardize operations across multiple sites. To achieve this, Concera developed a high-performance Abnormal Situation Management (ASM)-style SCADA system built on Ignition by Inductive Automation, replacing the legacy platforms previously in use.
The new system spans three vertical shafts, 10 air compressors, and multiple utility areas. It enables efficient operational monitoring while allowing personnel across the business to remotely view system data and visualizations from multiple locations.
Challenges with the Legacy System
The existing SCADA environment had become increasingly difficult to operate and maintain. The interface was cumbersome, lacked critical functionality, and differed across sites, making it challenging for operators and technicians to work consistently between facilities.
Over time, the complexity of the infrastructure and aging software created additional challenges. The legacy systems were difficult to maintain, increasingly vulnerable from a cybersecurity perspective, and unable to support broader business access without impacting control room operations.
At the same time, the new system needed to meet several demanding requirements:
Deliver a simplified interface that quickly highlights production issues while still enabling detailed troubleshooting.
Maintain consistent visualization standards across sites with different PLC structures.
Provide secure access for business users without affecting operators’ critical control views.
Be deployed quickly and cost-effectively.
The timeline added further pressure. All user-defined types (UDTs), faceplates, icon standards, and pages had to be developed within three months to meet financial year-end constraints.
Additional technical challenges included implementing a specialized surge curve graph used in monitoring air compressor performance and enabling company-wide visibility into operations without providing direct access to operational networks.
A Standardized, Scalable Ignition Architecture
Concera addressed these challenges by developing a standardised project template for each operational area. The template automatically generates a full alarm tree based on the tag provider structure and UDT layout. Operators can navigate directly through the alarm tree or via icons on the interface, with faceplates dynamically updating with the relevant information without requiring view changes. This approach significantly reduced development time while improving usability.
To ensure consistency across the environment, Concera also created standardized icons and embedded views that could be reused across the system while maintaining a unified look and feel for operators.
For the specialized surge curve visualization, the team leveraged built-in components within Ignition combined with Python scripting. This approach replicated the required functionality without the need for external software.
The platform was built using a hub-and-spoke architecture. Six distributed edge gateways collect data at geographically dispersed locations and feed it to a central services gateway. Additional site gateways at each shaft provide data collection and operator visualization locally.
A central hub gateway enables secure offsite access while ensuring that operational systems continue functioning even if network connectivity is disrupted. Historical data is stored locally at each gateway using PostgreSQL for short-term troubleshooting, while long-term production data is stored in a central Canary Historian server using MQTT.
This architecture allows standardized engineering projects to be maintained centrally while still enabling each site to retain ownership of its control room visualizations. Access control and cybersecurity are managed through the company’s IT domain controller.
Results and Future Expansion
The new SCADA platform provides Sibanye-Stillwater with a high-performance ASM system that is significantly easier to maintain and requires fewer computing resources than the legacy environment.
At the same time, the browser-based visualization capabilities of Ignition allow a broader range of personnel to securely view operational data without the need for additional client installations or licensing. The platform’s unlimited licensing model also reduced annual costs, including lower support expenses compared to the previous systems.
With legacy operating system requirements removed, modern IT policies can now be applied to the environment, strengthening cybersecurity across the operation.
Beyond visualization, the flexibility of Ignition has also opened the door for future expansion. Sibanye-Stillwater is now exploring additional functionality within the platform that would traditionally be delivered through MES or MIS systems.
Project Overview
Start Date: October 2024
Deployment: February 2025
Tags: 500,000
Screens: 160
Clients: 35
Alarms: 14,000
Devices: 50 Allen-Bradley PLCs
Architecture: Hub & Spoke
Databases: 12 PostgreSQL (Historian, Audit, Alarm) and 1 Canary
Historical Data Logged: 7,052 tags
Project Team: 4 engineers
Project Team
Concera was founded in 2022 by Craig Marsden and Roelf Boshoff, with Jacques Venter joining in 2023 and Stefan Buitendag in 2024.
The team brings decades of combined experience across industrial automation platforms, including extensive work with legacy SCADA systems and modern architectures built on Ignition.