Orion Five EngineeringResources
Most integration decisions are made before anyone contacts a vendor. First, someone needs to know whether data can be read from a machine on site at all. We built these tools to answer that question. They are free to use, and you do not need to give us your email address.
Answer questions about your situation and get a clear recommendation you can act on.
01Score a proposed integration on the five dimensions that decide whether it will work in a running plant, and find the one that limits it most.
02Calculate the hours you could recover, the likely build cost and the payback period for a process you plan to automate. The result can also tell you not to automate it.
03Describe your equipment, sites and compliance requirements. The estimator returns a complexity band, the main cost drivers in order and a range for engineering time.
04Find out how to get data from an older machine. Select its age, controller and available ports to see the routes that work, including retrofit sensors for machines with no digital interface.
05Map your plant or terminal onto the Purdue model and see every network boundary that needs a security control before an integration project connects across it.
06Assess your AI management system against each clause of ISO/IEC 42001. The check lists your gaps in the order an auditor would raise them.
07Check whether condition monitoring can detect a specific failure on a specific asset, before you buy any sensors.
Quick-reference tables to keep open during a specification meeting.
08See what each industrial protocol carries, what it cannot do, and what it takes to connect any one protocol to another.
09Select the environment (quayside, washdown, engine room, plant floor) to get the IP and NEMA ratings it requires, and the common specification mistakes for each.
10Plain definitions of the operational technology (OT) and AI terms vendors use in a first meeting, written for the person who pays for the project.
Written methods that you are free to print, copy and use on any project, including ours.
11The full method behind the readiness assessment. For each of the five dimensions, it explains what it measures, how it fails and what it costs to fix before a build.
12The sections an integration brief needs before you send it to vendors, so that every quote you receive describes the same job.
13The checks a working pilot must pass before it runs live operations, and the ones where most automation projects at small and mid-sized firms fail.
14A weighted scorecard for comparing integration vendors on the factors that decide project outcomes. It includes the questions we recommend you ask us.
You should be able to find out whether your project is viable before you hire an integrator. These tools apply the same engineering judgement we use in a scoping call. You can use them whether or not you ever contact us.
Some people will get their answer and do the work themselves. Others will find a problem they prefer not to solve alone. When those clients call us, they already know what is holding their project back, and our first conversation is more useful.
