The design and deployment of a data system for a pilot plant is a project all unto itself. It may be part of the overall pilot plant project, but it should be treated as a separate project all together.
This article provides a multi-step approach to develop a data system for a typical pilot plant. The first step is to identify every stakeholder who could potentially require access to the pilot plant data system. This is important because each stakeholder has unique information needs; each stakeholder will have very different requirements concerning how the data stored in the system is transformed into actionable information. The remaining six steps involve identifying key performance indicators (KPIs) to track and the instruments, equipment, communication infrastructure, hardware, and software needed to track these KPIs.