The explosive growth of automation and information technology (IT) on the shop floor has increased the complexity of commissioning of such systems, resulting in cost and time overruns. Errors in commissioning can lead to increased downtime and affect product quality and availability. On the human front, controls engineers and software programmers face enormous pressure and stress during commissioning, which is also aggravated by a shortage of skilled manpower.
Virtual commissioning is an approach that uses simulation to debug and validate the real world software and hardware in an offline environment, thus significantly reducing commissioning time.