Five-System AVEVA Plant SCADA Upgrade — Zero Exceptions at Acceptance

Queensland Magnesia (QMag) engaged Parasyn to upgrade the SCADA platform across its Parkhurst (Rockhampton, QLD) magnesite processing operation, spanning five production areas: KG1, Electrofusion, Crushing & Bagging, Deadburn and Mine site. All five systems were running Citect 2018 R2 and needed to move to AVEVA Plant SCADA 2023 R2 — a major version upgrade involving significant conceptual changes to the platform, not a routine point-release update.

Early estimation testing against a single project file suggested the conversion was comparatively low-risk relative to Parasyn's past major-version upgrades, but with only one of five systems test-converted, contingency was built in for unknowns. The engagement covered the full lifecycle: design, offsite conversion and testing, formal Factory Acceptance Testing, staged on-site deployment and cutover, and Site Acceptance Testing across all five plant areas.

The scope covered the complete upgrade lifecycle across all five production systems, with each area treated as an independent upgrade unit to contain risk and allow lessons from one system to be applied to the next.

Upgrading from Citect 2018 R2 to Plant SCADA 2023 R2 is not a like-for-like update. Parasyn's estimation testing had already flagged it as a major version change with significant conceptual differences, carrying real risk of deprecated functions, driver incompatibilities and tag conflicts surfacing only once each system was fully converted and tested.

Left unresolved, faults like the primary/standby duplicate reporting issue or the broken LIMS OPC link would have surfaced as data integrity problems in live production. Because every issue was caught and resolved during the staged SAT process — including a deliberate pause between 17 October and 10 November to let the Deadburn system run in parallel before full cutover — QMag reached final acceptance on 20 November 2025 with zero outstanding exceptions.

1. Design & Preparation
   Startup workshop with QMag, ITMP development, and test-conversion of each plant's Citect project files against the target Plant SCADA 2023 R2 environment.
2. Offsite Upgrade (Brisbane)
   Conversion of all five systems — Deadburn, Electrofusion, Crushing & Bagging, KG1 and Mine site — starting with Deadburn to establish a reusable upgrade checklist.
3. Internal Testing & Pre-Testing
   Verification of core functionality for each upgraded system, followed by readiness testing ahead of formal client sign-off.
4. Formal FAT (Brisbane)
   Factory Acceptance Testing with QMag representatives for all five systems before any hardware left Brisbane.
5. Staged On-Site Cutover (Parkhurst)
   Four-stage deployment: KG1 & Electrofusion parallel running then full cut-over; Deadburn parallel running then full cut-over alongside the development system.
6. Close-out
   As-built SDM/SCM documentation, final Test Summary Reports, system backups, and formal Project Acceptance sign-off.

QMag formally accepted the upgraded system on 20 November 2025, with all requirements met, all deliverables issued, and no outstanding exceptions or deficiencies.