Published February 2, 2026 · by Tyler Wray
Most mid-size plants do not need a SCADA system in the strict sense. They need a historian, a small set of operator screens, and a way to get production data to the front office. Calling the whole thing 'SCADA' inflates expectations and inflates the bid.
Real SCADA
A real SCADA — Ignition, FactoryTalk View SE, WinCC OA, AVEVA System Platform — is appropriate when you have geographically distributed assets (a water utility, a pipeline), multi-site recipe management, or a control-room model with shift hand-offs and alarm-rationalization workflows.
What most plants actually need
- A historian (Canary, Ignition's tag historian, AVEVA Historian, or even a properly configured InfluxDB).
- Line-level HMIs that the operators already know how to use.
- A reporting layer for OEE, downtime, and yield.
- A clear path to push a subset of tags up to whatever ERP or MES the front office uses.
Why this matters for the bid
A historian-plus-HMI stack is typically a third the price of a true SCADA deployment, and a tenth of the ongoing license cost. If the integrator's quote does not distinguish between the two, ask why.