This week I've had the pleasure to meet (virtually) Tom, an electrical engineer specialized in SCADA.

Tom developed an interesting software called "SCADA miner".

Basically, the software automatically dig the available data from various sensors and cross check the information to spot actual or potential problems that might go unnoticed, "lost in the sea of other alarms and event codes" to use his words.

When something goes wrong the software automatically send an email to the people included in a distribution mail list, alerting them.

One of the advantage of the system is that no new, dedicated hardware is needed: the calculations are made by remote servers.

In his blog you can find several real word examples, such as high main bearing temperature, met mast failure, wind vane misalignment and several others.