Andrew Ashton, contributing editor, SA Instrumentation and Control
S A Instrumentation and Control (SAI&C) has been running and refining the scope and format of its popular annual Scada Review since 2000; in that time the feature has grown to the point where it now offers up to three print pages of content per reviewed scada system.
With responses to 22 questions answered by each of the associated end users, SIs and vendors, the reviews contain a wealth of valuable information for Control and Automation professionals. Vendors go to great lengths to co-ordinate and clarify responses before submitting to SAI&C and following Scada Review 2012 some vendors questioned whether the Scada Reviews were of value to readers or influenced reader system selection.
Survey questions
To find the answers we composed a short questionnaire and asked SAI&C readers to respond to the following questions:
1. Did you read the introduction and/or one or more of the Scada Reviews published in the June 2012 issue of SA Instrumentation and Control?
2. What is your job title?
3. Which sections were most useful?
3.1. End-user responses.
3.2. SI responses.
3.3. Vendor responses.
4. Which sections were least useful?
4.1. End-user responses.
4.2. SI responses.
4.3. Vendor responses.
5. Did the review(s) that you read influence you to contact a supplier different to your usual scada vendor to get more information?
Survey results
We all know how much engineers dislike answering surveys, but after some cajoling we received answers from 139 respondents with the results shown in the accompanying pie charts.
If you would like to influence the selection of questions asked in the SAI&C Scada Review, please contact our editor, Steven Meyer. And remember to watch out for a bumper fourteenth Scada Review in 2013: readers are discovering real gems of knowledge in the articles of this feature.
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