Process control software actively governs industrial processes — closing PID control loops that maintain temperature, pressure, flow and level at setpoint; executing batch recipes that sequence process operations in the correct order with verified parameters; managing DCS-level regulatory control across continuous process plant; and enforcing the procedural compliance logic that keeps pharmaceutical, chemical and food processes within validated operating boundaries. Where SCADA monitoring software gives operators visibility of what is happening, process control software gives the automation system the instructions to make the process happen correctly — and provides the control engineers and process technologists with the tools to define, tune and validate those instructions.
DAS Company is an authorised AVEVA System Platform and Batch Management implementation partner — supplying and implementing process control software for continuous process, batch and hybrid DCS applications in chemical manufacturing, pharmaceutical and life sciences, water and wastewater treatment, food and beverage, and energy generation industries across Europe.
The distinction between process control software and plant monitoring software is fundamental to specifying the right platform for a process automation project. Monitoring software (SCADA, HMI) presents process data to human operators and enables manual intervention — the operator sees a high temperature alarm and chooses to reduce heat input. Process control software manages the closed-loop response automatically: the PID controller reads the temperature transmitter, compares it to setpoint, calculates the required output and adjusts the control valve without operator involvement, within milliseconds. A batch control system executes the entire recipe sequence — charge vessel, heat to temperature, hold for reaction time, cool, discharge — enforcing each step's completion criteria before the next step begins, without relying on operator memory or procedure compliance.
In practice, modern process control architectures combine both functions: AVEVA System Platform provides the Hybrid DCS capability that brings DCS-level regulatory control discipline to a SCADA-based architecture — combining real-time PLC/RTU-layer control with System Platform's supervisory coordination, recipe management, historian integration and operator interface in a unified platform that eliminates the cost and complexity of proprietary DCS hardware while matching the reliability and control discipline that continuous process industries require.
AVEVA System Platform (formerly Wonderware System Platform / ArchestrA) is the process control foundation for supervisory SCADA, DCS-level regulatory control coordination and IIoT data integration in continuous and semi-continuous process plants. For chemical manufacturers, water utilities and energy producers operating multi-loop continuous processes, System Platform provides the supervisory control layer above field-level PLCs and RTUs — coordinating setpoint management across multiple control loops, enforcing process interlocks at the supervisory level, managing alarm rationalisation and providing the historian and reporting layer required for process performance analysis and regulatory compliance.
System Platform's model-driven object architecture (Galaxy Repository, ArchestrA objects and templates) is particularly valuable for process control applications with large numbers of identical equipment items — reactors, heat exchangers, pumps, columns, filters. A single equipment template encapsulates the control logic, alarm limits, historian tags and operator display for that equipment type; every instance of the equipment type in the plant inherits the template definition automatically. When a process engineer tightens the high-temperature alarm limit for that equipment class, the change propagates to every instance across the plant in a single operation — maintaining the process control discipline consistency that is critical for process safety and product quality across a complex chemical or pharmaceutical plant. The built-in native OPC UA server (AVEVA System Platform 2023 R2) connects the process control layer to higher-level systems — MES, ERP, cloud analytics, digital twin platforms — without separate OPC server middleware, simplifying the data integration architecture for Industry 4.0 process manufacturing programmes.
AVEVA Batch Management is the ISA-88 compliant batch control platform for life sciences, fine chemical, specialty chemical and food and beverage manufacturers operating flexible multi-product batch processes. Batch manufacturing — where a product is manufactured by executing a defined sequence of operations (charge, heat, react, cool, filter, dry, blend) on a defined quantity of raw material — requires control software that is fundamentally different from continuous process control: the process state changes through discrete phases with defined entry and exit criteria, multiple products share the same equipment with different recipes, and regulatory traceability requires complete documentation of every parameter deviation from the recipe specification.
AVEVA Batch Management provides ISA-88 compliant recipe management at three recipe levels: the General Recipe (product formula and process instructions independent of specific equipment), the Master Recipe (production instructions adapted for a specific plant and equipment configuration) and the Control Recipe (the specific batch execution instance, with actual parameters, operator actions and deviations documented in real time). This three-level structure allows the same product to be manufactured on different equipment configurations in different facilities while maintaining recipe traceability and ensuring that equipment-specific control logic is separate from product formulation — the regulatory traceability model required by FDA, EMA and ICH process validation guidelines. The control-system-neutral architecture means AVEVA Batch Management coordinates batch execution across PLCs from different manufacturers — Siemens, Rockwell, Omron, Schneider — without requiring a DCS hardware replacement, protecting existing field control investment while adding the batch coordination layer that PLCs alone cannot provide.
The Electronic Batch Record (EBR) is the pharmaceutical and regulated industry requirement that process control software must generate a complete, unalterable record of every action, measurement and parameter deviation that occurred during a production batch — the digital equivalent of the paper batch manufacturing record that FDA and EMA require as evidence that the batch was produced according to its validated process. AVEVA Batch Management generates EBR data automatically from the batch execution — recording operator actions with timestamp and user ID, actual parameter values compared to recipe specifications, phase start and end times, equipment assignment and in-process test results — in a SQL database with electronic signatures and audit trail compliant with 21 CFR Part 11 (US FDA) and EU GMP Annex 11 (European Medicines Agency).
The EBR generated by AVEVA Batch Management is directly accessible for batch review by QA personnel through the Batch Viewer interface — without the paper handling, manual data transcription and storage volume that paper batch records require. Integration with AVEVA Historian provides the time-stamped process trend data for every critical process parameter during the batch — temperature, pH, dissolved oxygen, agitator speed — as supporting evidence for process performance against validated design space parameters. For pharmaceutical manufacturers implementing paperless batch records, AVEVA Batch Management and System Platform provide the validated software platform that regulators accept as equivalent to paper records — with the demonstrated audit trail, access controls and data integrity controls that 21 CFR Part 11 requires.
Water and wastewater treatment plants are the highest-volume application for SCADA-based process control software in Eastern Europe — where EU Water Framework Directive compliance obligations are driving significant investment in treatment plant automation and remote monitoring. Process control in water treatment covers dosing control (chlorine, coagulant, pH correction dosing — PID control with process variable feedback from inline analysers), filtration cycle control (automated backwash sequencing based on differential pressure or time cycle), pumping station control (duty/standby pump sequencing, pressure and flow maintenance, energy-efficient variable speed pump control) and sludge management (thickener level control, centrifuge feed rate management, digestion process temperature control).
AVEVA System Platform's multi-site SCADA architecture is specifically suited to water utility process control — connecting geographically distributed treatment works, pumping stations, reservoirs and booster stations into a unified process control and monitoring system, with each remote site controlled by local PLCs (Siemens, Allen-Bradley or LS Electric from DAS Company's hardware portfolio) and coordinated from the central SCADA. Teltonika cellular routers (also supplied by DAS Company) provide the WAN communication infrastructure connecting remote unmanned pumping stations to the SCADA centre — the complete hardware and software process control infrastructure from a single supplier.
Chemical manufacturing presents the most demanding process control requirements: continuous processes with tight quality specifications, hazardous materials requiring SIL-rated safety interlocks alongside regulatory control, and energy costs that make process optimisation a direct production cost lever. AVEVA's Hybrid DCS approach — System Platform supervisory control coordinating PLC-layer regulatory control — allows chemical manufacturers to achieve DCS-level process control discipline and reliability without proprietary DCS hardware lock-in, using open industrial Ethernet (EtherNet/IP, PROFINET) to communicate between the supervisory SCADA and distributed field controllers. For chemical plants requiring Advanced Process Control (APC) beyond basic PID — model predictive control that anticipates process dynamics and optimises multiple variables simultaneously to improve yield, reduce energy consumption and tighten quality specifications — AVEVA's APC platform integrates with System Platform's data infrastructure and historian to provide the closed-loop optimisation layer above regulatory control.
AVEVA System Platform is licensed on a node-based model (per application server and historian server node) for standalone and small distributed configurations, or on a tag-based model for large installations scaled by the number of I/O points connected to the process control application. AVEVA Batch Management is licensed by batch unit (the number of concurrent batch units executing simultaneously). DAS Company provides licence sizing assistance for process control projects — calculating the required System Platform node and tag configuration based on the process I/O count, historian sampling rate and batch unit concurrency that the specific plant requires. AVEVA Flex subscription covers System Platform and Batch Management under an annual subscription that includes continuous version updates — eliminating the periodic major upgrade projects that previously required significant engineering investment every 3-5 years on perpetual licence installations.
Chemical manufacturing — continuous process control with Hybrid DCS, APC and multi-product batch management for specialty chemical, agrochemical and polymer production. Pharmaceutical and life sciences — ISA-88 batch control with 21 CFR Part 11 EBR, process validation support and GMP compliance documentation for drug substance and drug product manufacturing. Water and wastewater — multi-site SCADA-based process control for treatment works, pumping stations and distribution network management. Food and beverage — AVEVA Batch Management for recipe-controlled production with HACCP CCP monitoring and allergen management. Energy generation — boiler control, turbine sequencing, heat network management and renewable energy plant process control. Biotech and fermentation — dissolved oxygen, pH and temperature PID control with batch recipe execution for fermentation, upstream and downstream bioprocessing.
DAS Company's role as process control software partner extends beyond licence supply — our engineering team provides process control application engineering for AVEVA System Platform and Batch Management: Galaxy design and ArchestrA object template creation for equipment-type-based control applications, PID loop configuration and tuning support, ISA-88 recipe structure design and Batch Management implementation for pharmaceutical and chemical clients, AVEVA Communication Driver configuration for PLC-layer connectivity, and historian tag configuration for process performance and regulatory compliance data retention. For water utility and municipal clients implementing SCADA-based process control across distributed treatment and pumping infrastructure, DAS Company provides the complete hardware and software package — Teltonika cellular routers, Siemens or LS Electric PLCs, and AVEVA System Platform — from a single regional supplier with on-site engineering capability in Eastern Europe.
Contact DAS Company's engineering team for AVEVA System Platform and Batch Management licence sizing, process control application architecture design, ISA-88 batch recipe implementation and 21 CFR Part 11 compliant EBR project quotations for process manufacturing across Europe.
