Everything was better in the old days – or was it?!

This special ability, which frequently helps us cope with disagreeable experiences, has no place in a process plant – and especially not in

revisions and change management
revisions and change management

Memories fade fast

We all like to sit sometimes and reminisce about the good old days. When everything (especially the weather) was better than it is now. I often think back to a vacation I spent in my childhood. We stayed in a small bungalow and whiled away the time playing card games and ludo. It was great!

We only did it because it was raining nonstop outside. We returned home two days early because of the bad weather. Yet I forgot about the rain and the vacation being cut short a long time ago. Any decent psychologist will tell you why: our subconscious always attempts to close the gap between imagination and reality. As a result of this, we repress unpleasant events or remember them as less painful than they actually were. We end up with a rose-tinted reality that we recall fondly – and what a good job that is! After all, we humans don’t want our life stories to be documented by a comprehensive system of revision and change management.

What we experience today is what we’ll be yearning for five years from now

Revisions and change management

This special ability, which frequently helps us cope with disagreeable experiences, has no place in a process plant – and especially not in an automation system.

The same situation applies, however: our memory regularly plays tricks on us. A system update or a disruption of some kind often leads us to believe that certain things worked better in the past. And that now someone has come along and changed something.

Seamless documentation of all the changes in a plant’s lifecycle is never a bad idea. In regulated environments like those typically found in the pharmaceutical industry, it’s absolutely indispensable. In many industries, revision and change management is meanwhile embedded in quality assurance.

AD Suite never forgets!

Thanks to the revision history integrated in the [ot-link url=”https://www.yokogawa.com/pdf/provide/E/GW/GS/0000029092/0/GS33J10D10-01EN.pdf”]Automation Design Suite[/ot-link] (PDF) for [ot-link url=”https://www.yokogawa.com/solutions/products-platforms/control-system/distributed-control-systems-dcs/centum-vp/”]CENTUM VP[/ot-link], such things are now history themselves. Every change to the application is stored and remains traceable. For instance, three clicks are all it takes to compare a particular module’s current configuration with any previous status. In conjunction with the change management functionalities which are also integrated, AD Suite thus conforms to the change process requirements laid down in the GAMP guidelines in every respect.

[ot-caption title=”Just three clicks to compare different revision levels” url=”https://www.yokogawa.com/eu/blog/chemical-pharma/app/uploads/2017/08/BILD1-Revision_Historie_001_en.jpg”]
 
Click here for more articles on [ot-link url=”https://www.yokogawa.com/eu/blog/chemical-pharma/en?s=centum”]Yokogawa’s CENTUM[/ot-link].

 

There’s a reason for every change

The reason for a change – unfortunately – tends to be poorly or inadequately documented. Comment fields provided for this purpose are not infrequently left empty or simply filled with generalized statements. AD Suite lets you link every change to an ID which is assigned by the integrated change management package. For example, you can display information on each revision at the press of a button – automatically without any external tools or documents.

[ot-caption title=”The change request in AD Suite” url=”https://www.yokogawa.com/eu/blog/chemical-pharma/app/uploads/2017/07/Modpackdefinition_001.jpg”]

[ot-caption title=”Every change can be linked to the corresponding request (ModPack)” url=”https://www.yokogawa.com/eu/blog/chemical-pharma/app/uploads/2017/07/Modpackassociate_001.jpg”]

[ot-caption title=”The ModPack can then be called up via the revision history (click to enlarge)” url=”https://www.yokogawa.com/eu/blog/chemical-pharma/app/uploads/2017/07/Revision_Historie_002.jpg”]

AD Suite becomes a lifecycle tool

The built-in revision and change management functionalities turn AD Suite into a powerful lifecycle tool. Their integration in AD Suite not only saves time.  It also enables higher quality and seamless documentation by ensuring data integrity. You can track the status of current changes quickly and completely at any time.

Watch the video to find out what other functionalities AD Suite has to offer and learn how you can upgrade your existing system!

 

Believe it or not: not everything was better in the old days. There’s a lot to look forward to in the future too!

If you have any questions on this topic in general or on AD Suite in particular, just write us a comment. We’d be delighted to hear from you.

 

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