SCADA, or supervisory control and data acquisition, is an industrial control system to seamlessly control industrial processes. It helps accumulate real-time data from different remote locations to equip management and make better decisions to increase productivity. SCADA industrial automation is today largely used across multiple industry verticals, including electricity generation and distribution, oil and gas refining operations, telecommunications infrastructure, and manufacturing.
Although SCADA is revolutionizing numerous industries, manufacturing is probably one sector that has benefitted from it the most. The pandemic and recent global events have threatened the global manufacturing sector by disrupting the supply chain. In such a scenario, industry 4.0 has emerged as the gold standard to automate many aspects of manufacturing and ensure preventive maintenance of critical machines. SCADA systems have become an essential part of industry 4.0 initiatives, making factory floors all the more efficient and connected. This has driven the rapid growth of the SCADA market. According to a report by MarketsandMarkets, the global SCADA market will be $13.2 billion by 2026 from $9.2 billion in 2021, at a CAGR of 7.6 percent.
There is no way to deny that SCADA systems are the need of the hour in the industrial environment for flawless and quick process analysis. These solutions, however, come with the same risk factors as other sensor-based systems—cyberattacks. Before implementing any SCADA system, organizations need to ensure that their security posture is strong enough to resist and eliminate any sort of vulnerability.
In this edition, our goal is to provide readers insights into the current SCADA space and its rapid evolution.
