The combination of the S88 modeling methodology and the already existing operational data collection would be even more robust if both could be accomplished as part of the plant control system. Since the plant control systems are actually controlling the operational phase transitions that would be modeled using S88, and since control systems are a source of the operational data as well, implementing a control system that monitored and collected the operational state transition data based upon the S88 model would provide operations management clearer picture of what is happening in the operations at any given time. In fact, this approach would also potentially provide information concerning the operations as soon as it happened since the operational state changes are made by the control system. Since S88 provides for transaction based data collection, this approach also provides for a more direct feed of operational data into an ERP system as the transactions occur.

One of the biggest barriers to implementing this robust type of data collection capability is the risk of disrupting plant operations due to the changes that many vendors require to the current plant process control systems. While plants have varying levels of satisfaction with the current functionality of their control systems, most would be hesitant to risk the possibility of plant shutdown or substantial decrease in productivity during the implementation period of the robust data collection and correlation capabilities described above. A large benefit of the methodology described in this paper is the minimal risk of disrupting current control system functionality while gaining all of the benefits associated with correlating operational events and accurate process data in a transactional data format.