Crossing the Atlantic Ocean to Aluar in Argentina.
As industrial facilities grow, so does the number of controllers, programs, and people involved in maintaining them. Without a consistent version management process, documentation becomes fragmented and teams can lose track of the latest approved program state.
Aluar uses an AMDT software solution to back up automation programs, compare versions, and document changes centrally. This gives maintenance and automation teams a reliable overview of their production data and enables them to respond more quickly to unexpected deviations.
The challenge: More controllers, users, and software versions.
Aluar produces primary aluminum for customers in industries including construction and automotive. As the company expanded and modernized its production facilities, the number of controllers and automation programs increased significantly.
During the modernization period between 2005 and 2010, Aluar operated around 300 controllers, primarily Siemens S7-300 and S7-400 devices. More than 100 employees worked with the associated automation systems.
This made consistent documentation increasingly difficult. Software versions were not always recorded completely, and conventional version control systems designed for text-based files did not meet the requirements of proprietary automation data.
Aluar therefore needed a specialized solution that could support different control systems, structure its project data, and reduce the administrative effort involved in version management.
The solution: A central repository for automation programs.
Aluar evaluated the AMDT solution in its production environment during a 60-day trial. The company then implemented the software in the casting process, alumina reduction facilities, and supporting areas such as flue gas treatment and material flow.
The solution provides a central repository for automation programs and their different versions. Teams can organize projects consistently, compare program states, and lock components while they are being edited. This helps prevent conflicting versions when several employees work with the same production data.
The system also records the date, responsible person, and reason for each documented change. Maintenance and automation teams can therefore trace how a program developed and review modifications more efficiently.
In my opinion, the greatest benefit that working with the version control system from AMDT brings is that it gives us the chance to take our best practices to the next level, allowing us to keep our repository structure in order, review changes quickly and efficiently, lock components to avoid conflicting versions, all this while reducing considerably the management effort.
Federico Ares, Automation Project Engineer at Aluar
Automated backups reveal unexpected deviations.
The AMDT solution backs up connected equipment and programs automatically every week. It compares the retrieved data with the version stored in the central repository.
If the system detects a deviation, it alerts the maintenance team. Employees can then examine the comparison, identify what changed, and determine whether the modification was expected.
This process replaces manual checks and reduces the risk that program changes remain unnoticed. At the same time, the archived versions provide a reliable data source when teams need to investigate a problem or retrieve an earlier program state.
Independent implementation with remote support
Aluar installed and configured the solution largely independently. When questions arose, the company contacted AMDT’s support team.
Despite the geographical distance, Aluar received assistance with technical questions and specific requirements. This enabled the internal team to adapt the solution to its processes and continue operating it without a permanent on-site presence from AMDT.
The result: Greater control with less administrative effort.
Centralized version management gives Aluar a structured and traceable record of its automation programs. Teams can identify changes, review different program states, and coordinate their work through a shared repository.
Aluar benefits from:
- weekly automated backups of automation programs,
- alerts when the system detects deviations,
- transparent and traceable change histories,
- direct comparison of different program versions,
- a structured central project repository,
- component locking to prevent version conflicts,
- less administrative effort for automation teams,
- reliable access to current and previous program states.
