Jarie Bolander: Hello everyone. Welcome back to the OT crowd. My name is Jarie. That's David. Unfortunately, our colleague Andrew couldn't make it today because I can't figure out how to schedule things because he's in Germany and we're here in the United States. thankfully I've I think I've fixed that, so that's great. we should. David DeBari: We should go visit him. Jarie Bolander: Well, you know, we're recording this kind of around Oktoberfest, which would be kind of cool. But yeah, we we'll we'll do that at some point. But for those of you who've been listening, this is part five of our five-part series on what is OPA. this part, we're gonna talk a little bit about you know what's what's going on with it. Has it actually been proven in the field? What can you do today? What can you do tomorrow? And then we'll talk a little bit about some of the questions that you should ask if you actually want to do. OPA because you know, again, like this is new. You're gonna need to figure out if it's right for you. We're not saying it's right for everyone, although we personally think it is, obviously, because we've drink in the Kool-Aid. But David DeBari: We're the believers. Jarie Bolander: we're the believers for sure, reason why we're doing the show in in in some small part. But yeah, so David, why don't you talk a little bit about how OPA has been proven in the field? David DeBari: Okay. So obviously the OPA forum has been working since twenty sixteen. I myself have been working on R and D since that same time period, and we basically have gotten to the point where this is not a a win or an if, it's not vaporware, it's not slideware. it is real. so the first example of reality was we did a lighthouse project and I previously had worked with ExxonMobil and I did OPA R and D. I was actually the technical team leader and we built we built you know proof of concepts and pilots and all that stuff the testing. But then in the end you have to build a real system commercial ready and we did the lighthouse and the lighthouse was a conversion of a current DCS system. And it was a thousand IO and it was three I/O rooms spread across the plant, you know, two reactor trains, all the raw materials and finished product handling, waste treatment, add a flare, all the all the fun stuff, safety systems and and all of that. full tilt cybersecurity capabilities. And so the lighthouse was completed. we actually started up the automation project early, which is a a real surprise in the project world these days with These systems. automation always comes last. and even when you do an automation or migration, they're very tough. and then we, as ExxonMobil declared it as a commercial fact, it is now a choice for projects if you want to do it. And interestingly, quickly after that, they actually did a project. It's called Anchorage Chemical Terminal in Baton Rouge. it was a addition of automation and we call it the ACT project, but the ACT project, and you'll you'll see some material out on the on the web related to that and people giving presentations about it. But it was a commercial bid to the marketplace. six vendors and then a a group called COPA won the bid and it it was standard RFP was all about doing it OPA style. in addition to the ACT project, actually there is a small modular reactor research activity at Texas AM University, which has used the COPA system as well because they wanted an open architecture, interoperable, interchangeable modular type of system to do their RD for what they're trying to solve in the area of the small modular reactor world using actually their. using some AI assistance to the operator. but really interesting. So it is live and real. The products and the software is available and they are compliant with the OPA standard. And this is really, really important. It's not imaginary. It is in production. It has to make a company money. and there have been two instances of it that have been built. One was a DCS and the other was a PLC scale. Just to prove that you can do the small and the large. So here we are today where you can use the system. You can put in control, you can put in HMI, you can put in your Historian, alarming, you can build the a full SCADA system if you want to. It is capable of replacing a PLC and replacing a DCS system. It uses standards-based capabilities, so it's very interoperable, very interchangeable. And the whole goal for that is to provide that infrastructure level where you can start bringing other things into the system that have traditionally been held outside the system. everybody knows that at some point when you're doing optimization or advanced control, they say, Great, put it outside the firewall, outside the s the the router in another part. I view that as putting it next door. and an OPA, Jarie Bolander: Yeah, bolting on, yeah. It's like crazy. David DeBari: you can bring it into the house, you put it in the kitchen. Put it in the living room, stick it in somebody's bedroom, put it in the basement, wherever you want, but it's inside the house. it complies with the standards of cybersecurity and capability, and all that open standard integration makes it so easy. and in an OPA-based system, there will never be a point where somebody says, you can't add that into my control system, or I'll void your warranty. that's not how it works. The interoperability is built, cybersecurity allows you to segment. It's a great world to live in. So that's where we at. For the future, we're gonna start bringing things in. you know, the the optimization, the advanced control, data analysis capability, you know, all this fancy stuff. And I it yeah. Jarie Bolander: Dare we say dare we say AI? David DeBari: And and definitely there are tools that'll help people and advise people and point out things they might not have seen. you know, I am definitely right now in that camp that says, how about we not close the loop and let the AI control the valves and the motors? That's okay. But hey, operator, this Jarie Bolander: Nope. Nope. I don't think we're gonna tr I don't think we trust it yet. David DeBari: valve isn't working very well. You ought to have maintenance look at it. Or you maybe change the set point and you'll get better cooling or whatever. You know, that capability is there. And I think that that's a a a good place, you know, digital twins and other things that that might use AI versus traditional methods. but but the reality is why isn't the advanced control inside the system? Why isn't the data analysis capable inside the system? why aren't we do tuning really inside the system? and that that's where we're headed. which leads us to the intelligent end user. who is open minded and thinking, I want some of this. I want a more Jarie Bolander: Right. Right, right, right. David DeBari: secure system because cybersecurity scares me. and if a system that is built on cybersecurity Jarie Bolander: It should. It definitely should. David DeBari: as a as a foundational capability and quantity, and proven, that's better than the the glued on, banded on stuff. the idea of interoperability and getting box A to talk to box B, then they don't speak the same languages. Those days need to be over. you Jarie Bolander: yeah. David DeBari: know, the adoption of open standards-based protocols and data models and and information, you know, the problem has always been how do you get the data to the people that need it? And from devices that aren't always the same. The standards are your key there. So and that's the architecture Jarie Bolander: Right. No, absolutely. I mean David DeBari: that OPA brings. Jarie Bolander: right. David DeBari: It allows you to do all those things you want to do in today's world. We need the technology inserted. I want to do something different. I want to add a feature. My business is asking me to bring some additional capability. And most of us got really tired of saying, That's a great idea, boss, but that kit won't do this. with Jarie Bolander: Well yeah, that won't fit into the puzzle piece, right? David DeBari: an OPA standard based system, the answer is always okay. I might need another computer or more memory or, you know, a more network connection or whatever the the infrastructure pieces, but the answer's never no. And that's pretty awesome. Jarie Bolander: Yeah, yeah, and I think I think that's sort of the thing that of course we're all excited about. You know, we've obviously been doing this for a long time, you know, as part of C Plane, as well as part of Copa. you know We again drink the Kool-Aid and love this sort of stuff. So what what's interesting is like if you are someone that's trying to figure out if this is for you, and again, we're not saying it's for everyone. Look, everyone's got their different issues, they got their sort their stuff out. I do think if you do, you know, want to do OPA, there are a couple of questions that you should really ask your system integrator and your team about, right? And I think the first one is, are you able to choose the components you want to use in a standards-based System that's compliant, you can pick what you want. That's the power, the components, right? David DeBari: Right. And components, hardware and software. Jarie Bolander: Hardware and software, correct. So you'll be able to pick your own components. I think that's important. I think the second part is do you own the system itself? Which means can your team support it? We all know, we've all been involved with, yeah, we can you know insert the team, or I'm sorry, put the system in, but you have to have all these contracts, which is fine. David DeBari: Specialized skills. Jarie Bolander: specialized skills is a hard thing nowadays, right? Do you and David DeBari: Right. Everyone's gotta go to training class somewhere for a month to learn how to use it. Jarie Bolander: and that's fine, but as time go that right, but as time goes David DeBari: That's not OPA. Yeah. Jarie Bolander: on and those skills, you know, you wanna it would be better to have a common set of skills like the cybersecurity, like you know, the the programming standard, so that you don't have to like train all of your folks on all sorts David DeBari: Right. Jarie Bolander: of different things. And more importantly, in some cases, if something's obsolete, something goes away, you want to be able to swap it. So David DeBari: And not have to wait for a vendor to invent the product because you've complained loud enough and Jarie Bolander: Correct. David DeBari: you find out it's two years down the road on their roadmap and you get to wait. an OPA says that Jarie Bolander: Correct. Correct. Right. David DeBari: is not you can pick another brand, another make, another model. Jarie Bolander: Right. David DeBari: it just gotta be adequate to your tasks. Jarie Bolander: Correct. And th which is what we've done on which we've had that luxury, both David DeBari: Yes. Jarie Bolander: in the technology IT space as as well as other industries, right? So David DeBari: Right. We all know there's the business PC, the engineering PC, the special Jarie Bolander: Right. Right. David DeBari: purpose. And then you get to the servers and yeah, most vendors it's you have small and large if you're lucky. Sometimes it's this is our product. yeah. Right. Jarie Bolander: Yeah. All based. This is it, right? You don't get to choose, right? And then I think this the third question to ask is as you're doing this is can can you grow its capability without ripping and replacing it? Is there a way to add things on? Of course, David DeBari: Right. Jarie Bolander: in a thoughtful way and in a way that's going to be safe and all the caveat emptur. Correct. Yeah. David DeBari: But we know technology's gonna change. A system has to be extensible. It has to grow with and you have to be able to do that technology insertion. Jarie Bolander: Correct. David DeBari: otherwise you you put a system in and you wait 30 years to get that next step. and it's Jarie Bolander: Right. Right. David DeBari: it's kind of insane. I mean you think about it, in this day and age, with Moore's law, waiting twenty, thirty years, thirty years is a million times better. in Moore's law stand in terms. a million times is not a step change. It is another planet. And that's what Jarie Bolander: It it's orders a magnitude, yeah. It whe yeah, it goes like that. David DeBari: happens. People replace their systems and all of a sudden everybody goes through this giant it's like s going from a you know a dial up foam to a tablet with video call in one step and you just go, Jarie Bolander: Yeah. It's crazy. Yeah. I know. David DeBari: I didn't even learn how to use texts and it it's Jarie Bolander: Ha ha ha. David DeBari: no it it the the idea that you can continuously evolve Is the promise of an OPA based system. You need Jarie Bolander: Right. David DeBari: more compute, you do it, you change it. You need more IO, you add it. you want to add somebody Jarie Bolander: Yeah. David DeBari: else's software as long as it's using standard based, you know, protocols and and data information models, it's standard based, plug and play. Yeah. Jarie Bolander: Yep. Yeah, and I think I think, you know, that's an important piece of the of the puzzle as well. And again, we're not saying this is for everyone, although o obviously we think that's the case. But you David DeBari: Yeah. Jarie Bolander: know, th those are the three questions we think you should ask. you know, what we're gonna do is we're gonna pull all this all together so that if you wanna send it to your boss or anyone else that may be interested in this, you know, this is obviously just an overview, a pretty good comprehensive overview from people that have actually lived the standard, built the products, obviously CPLane, we build OPA standardized products. We're also part of COPA. COPA is a coalition for open process automation. There are lots of companies that are building this ecosystem. So you can rest assured that, you know, look, we understand it's a it's a risk. You've been doing it the one way, now you gotta do it a new way. David DeBari: Right. Jarie Bolander: It's a little bit tricky. So we're all part of that. Yes, yes, absolutely. David DeBari: Yeah. Gonna trade in the flip phone for the smartphone. Yeah. Yeah. Jarie Bolander: And so, so yeah, this is the last part of the series of the five-part series of what is OPA. thanks again for listening. if you have any questions about it, feel free to reach out on the website. again, if you enjoy what we're doing, please leave a rating and review. We really appreciate it. And yes. David DeBari: Yeah. So Jory, what are we gonna do next? Jarie Bolander: What are we gonna do next? We're actually gonna have guests. We're gonna have some guests on. So, yeah. David DeBari: All right. Some people from industry, maybe. Some people, some people from the field who've been doing things. All right. Jarie Bolander: So we may even talk to some some people, right? Yes. Yeah. So we're the next the next part of this, yes, as you know, we're starting the podcast, trying to figure it all out. We will be having more guests. The other thing we're gonna be doing is we will, we feel, right, and I feel obviously since I'm the marketing guy that We're in the phase of the OPA standardization where we're have to build a business case. So we will talk about technology, we will talk about what's going on, but we'll also, I'm going to start talking about how we're going to build the business case, how you can build the business case, what that, why that matters, and why that's important. Someone's got to be like, You sure you want to do this, right? David DeBari: Right. Every practitioner's gotta sell it to management and get funding. Right, right. And this is what it'll bring, boss. I pr yeah, this is my benefit list. Yeah. Yeah. Jarie Bolander: I promise, quote unquote. but yeah, that's what that's what's in store. please, you know, follow us. We really appreciate If you have any feedback, you know, go to the website, theotcrowd.com. You can leave us a note. And yeah, if you want to be on the show, you can also put in to be there too. So David DeBari: Right. Jarie Bolander: until next time, thanks again for listening. And yeah, just stay safe out there. David DeBari: Thank you.