Tunning Ingeniería, a company specializing in automation and electric drives for large industrial projects, ensures the compatibility of its customers’ systems and promotes a safer environment for the systems.
Emanuel Zamorano, Head of Platform and Technology (P&T) at Tunning Ingeniería, is responsible for ensuring that all components of a project’s platform are compatible with each other. To do this, they are selected based on the technology, model, and brand of the solution to be implemented, with a focus on design engineering.
They then move on to a testing integration stage in the laboratory, “which we call IFA testing. This allows us to integrate the platform in a controlled environment with fewer components, emulating as closely as possible what will happen in the field,” says Zamorano. They have recently implemented this type of testing for Spence and Minera Escondida, part of the BHP company.
During the testing stages, manuals and procedures are generated, and all the knowledge acquired is recorded in documents that specialists can use for the subsequent implementation of the systems. “In any case, we often also provide on-site assistance to analyze situations that did not arise in the laboratory,” clarifies Emanuel.
Up to date with brand technologies
To meet these demands, Tunning’s professional teams are constantly specializing and studying brands, products, and functions. In addition, Tunning has access to exclusive training platforms thanks to its collaboration with its technology partners—Siemens, Rockwell, and Cisco—”which are like academies that allow us to access courses and specialization certificates. There, we learn about product features, how to configure them, and delve deeper into their functionalities, among other things.”
For specializations related to industrial cybersecurity or artificial intelligence, they take more specific courses or training.
One of these is the study of the IEC 62443 industrial cybersecurity standard, developed by the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC). This set of international guidelines establishes requirements and processes for the cybersecurity of industrial automation and control systems (IACS) and operational technology (OT) throughout a system’s life cycle.
Tunning specialists also keep up to date with the advances and particularities of artificial intelligence in order to respond to the rapid and constant technological advances that allow them to better support their customers.
Among the most widely used platforms for these specializations are Rockwell Automation University’s RAW and RAU, where they study and review everything from basic components such as PLCs and controllers, to the HMI graphical visualization interface (Factory Torview), to CSS technology (PlantPAx).
Siemens uses the Partner Academy, a space where specialists learn about Teaporter, one of the most widely used programming software programs, as well as its products, controllers, and peripheral components such as smart relays, frequency converters, and others.
In this way, Tunning Ingeniería’s professional teams contribute not only to providing operational continuity for their customers, but also to keeping them protected against cyberattacks.
Emanuel Zamorano, Head of Platform and Technology, P&T, Tunning Ingeniería.
In a project for a large mining client, a control system was implemented to monitor leaching piles using wireless instruments that work with a gateway that receives data and sends it via Ethernet or Modbus TCPIP communication to an existing controller in the plant. Tunning was asked to validate with a manufacturer that the equipment met the cybersecurity requirements to integrate the gateway with its wireless plant system instruments.
“We demonstrated that we could block ports, segment the network, assign VLANs, encrypt communications, and that the link between the gateway and the wireless instruments was encrypted. In this way, we ensured that no other equipment with the same characteristics that could generate a cyberattack could enter the Wi-Fi network,” concluded Tunning’s head of P&A.
