+971 55 954 5801

Case studies

Work we have delivered, written up

Fibre optic cable being laid along a route in Abu Dhabi

Communications

Why SCADA Runs on Fibre, and What 17 Kilometres of It Involves

Fibre costs more on day one than radio or cellular. What it buys is the removal of an entire category of future argument about why the data stopped arriving. What that decision looks like over 17 kilometres of pipeline.

Read the article →
Irrigation VFD and PLC control panel with flow meters, Abu Dhabi

SCADA integration

Integrating SCADA With Controllers Somebody Else Installed

A pump station does not care that its controller was installed twenty years ago. It still has to start on command. How to bring old controllers into a modern SCADA layer, and when integration stops being the cheaper answer.

Read case study →

SCADA and telemetry

The RTU Kept Disconnecting. The RTU Was Fine.

A session that connects, holds, and drops, over and over, with nothing wrong in the device. The fault was where it was plugged in, and the checklist that finds it fast.

Read case study →
Process mimic panel showing a distribution network in Abu Dhabi

Control rooms

What Belongs in a Substation Control Room, and What Does Not

A control room is judged at three in the morning by somebody who did not build it. What goes in one, why the operator and engineering positions are separate, and why the alarm list matters more than the screens.

Read case study →
Substation control and relay cubicles at a TRANSCO grid station in Abu Dhabi

Substation automation

What a Bay Control Unit Does, and Why One Station Needed Ninety

A grid station is not one system. It is dozens of bays, each with its own switchgear, its own interlocks and its own reasons to refuse a command. The bay control unit is what makes that a system instead of a room full of panels.

Read the article →
Vertical pump motors with variable frequency drives at a water pumping station in the UAE

Obsolescence and upgrades

When Should a PLC or Drive Be Replaced? A 6.6 kV Pump Station Made the Case

Obsolete equipment rarely announces itself. It keeps running. Four tests that settle whether a legacy PLC or drive should be replaced, drawn from a TRANSCO pump station where the drive, the motor, the switchgear and the supply transformer all had to move together.

Read the article →

Guides

Answers to the questions buyers actually ask

Written for whoever is specifying or tendering the work, including where a different kind of supplier is the better answer than us.

Vertical pump motors on variable speed drives at a water pumping station in the UAE

Platform

Altivar drives

The drive family inside most of our pump panels, and what the panel around an ATV320 has to get right.

Read the guide →
Flanged gate valve and pressure gauge on a pumping station pipeline manifold

By location

Automation companies in Dubai

Dubai runs different approvals from Abu Dhabi. What changes, what does not, and how an Abu Dhabi contractor works on a Dubai job.

Read the guide →
Communications cabinet with managed ethernet switches and orange fibre patch leads

Guide

The SCADA, PLC and Substation Platforms We Work On

Most contractors will tell you they are platform independent. That is easy to say and hard to check. This page names what we have actually installed, down to the module, so you can check it against your own specification.

Read the guide →
GIS switchgear hall on a live transmission substation automation project in Abu Dhabi

Guide

Best automation companies in the UAE

Seven verifiable tests that separate the best industrial automation companies from the rest, and the evidence to demand for each.

Read the guide →
GIS switchgear hall at an Abu Dhabi grid station during substation automation works

Platform

C264 and PACiS

Bay control units, the PACiS system around them, and what replacing them on a live grid station actually involves.

Read the guide →
Pump room with inlet and outlet flow meters, sump pump control panel and the motor control centre with its HMI

Plain answer

How to automate a water pump

From a float switch to a controlled station you can see from an office. What each step buys you.

Read the guide →
Actuated control valves with electric actuators on a pumping station manifold

Plain answer

How to control irrigation remotely

Parks and landscaping spread over kilometres, and a team that cannot be at every valve. What it takes to run it from one place.

Read the guide →
Pump hall manifold with field instrumentation wired back to the PLC and RTU panel, Abu Dhabi

Guide

Instrumentation companies in the UAE

What the discipline covers, why the instrument list decides whether a control system tells the truth, and what to check before appointing a contractor.

Read the guide →
Motor control centre with PLC section for a pump station reporting to SCADA, Abu Dhabi

Platform

Modicon M340

The controller running most of Abu Dhabi's municipal pump stations, the modules we build it from, and what to know when you inherit or upgrade one.

Read the guide →
Communications cabinet with managed Ethernet switches and fibre patching on a control system project, Abu Dhabi

Platform

Modicon M580

Schneider's ePAC for the applications an M340 should not carry: redundancy, scale, and the migration path off legacy Quantum systems.

Read the guide →
Control panel with a 10 inch touch screen HMI built by Almafor for a variable frequency drive pump application

Guide

VFD control panels

What a variable frequency drive panel is, what belongs inside one, and the decisions that matter before you order: rating, duty, enclosure, harmonics and testing.

Read the guide →
Reinforced concrete reservoir under construction, the civil work that surrounds an automation contract

Plain answer

What does an automation project cost?

Nobody will give you a number without a scope. Here is what actually drives the price, so you can build the scope yourself.

Read the guide →
Controls panel interior for building and energy management at Al Bahr Towers, Abu Dhabi

Guide

What is a BMS?

The full form, what a building management system actually controls, how it differs from an energy management system, and real examples from Abu Dhabi buildings.

Read the guide →
Switchgear hall at a TRANSCO grid station in Abu Dhabi where Almafor delivered the control and monitoring system

Guide

What is SCADA?

The full form, what each part of the system does, and what SCADA looks like on real assets: grid stations, a 17 km water pipeline and municipal irrigation networks.

Read the guide →

We want to hear from you

Tell us about the system you need built, upgraded or kept running.

Contact us

Call an engineer · +971 55 954 5801