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Auditing and Data Gathering Services

The primary purpose of these services is to provide AGSL customers the opportunity to benefit from:-

  • AGSL’s extensive industry knowledge and experience of process critical software management
  • An audit to ensure that plant owners and operators meet their obligation to comply with a multitude of standard regulations and guidelines
  • An audit to identify the risks relating to Cyberattacks, which have grown in numbers and level of sophistication in recent years
  • Supplementing and/or freeing up client resources to ensure that audits are carried out in a timely and professional manner
  • AGSL’s independence from equipment suppliers, and inspection/approving authorities, providing an unbiased report and feedback of current processes and procedures
  • Receiving a detailed report which includes a “Gap Analysis” that reflects where improvements are required to meet compliance with relevant standards

The range of auditing and process software management services includes:

Data gathering – development of Asset Registers

Gathering the correct information to populate the control systems asset register or to validate the information in an existing register is generally an infrequent event and one which, with competent resources, well suited to being carried out by a third-party.

For “Ageing assets” industry standards, regulations and guidelines all call for the management of Obsolescence. Due to age of many controls system this requires researching information as to when these systems are longer supported by the OEM’s or considered to obsolete.

AGSL experience of providing this service to many ‘blue chip’ organisations in the Energy sector and with the integration of this information into Asset Guardian, provides our customers with single point, software based resource to manage the obsolescence of their process control systems.

Process software management quality audit

In general AGSL’s Quality Auditing services review current practices and procedures that companies use to manage and store process-related software to ensure compliance with relevant industry standards and provide recommendations for improvements.

In general these audits cover, Compliance, software backups, Change Management, fault logging, forces/overrides/bypass management, document control, correspondence, data availability, hardware register and data security, compiling and issuing a report, and detailing improvement recommendations to ensure compliance with relevant industry standards.

Onsite process software verification, validation and backup services

With AGSL’s many years experience of process control systems, we are able to offer a complete on-site service (onshore and offshore) to validate operating software versions against records held, verify the integrity of software backups and, where required and subject to the availability of the required equipment and tools, take additional backups and store these in Asset Guardian.

Asset Guardian pre- and post-installation audit

The pre-installation audit provides companies with the opportunity to benefit from our experience in developing their specification for implementing Asset Guardian within their business. The AGSL audit report provides an excellent “Road Map” and time-based plan for implementing Asset Guardian.

The post-installation audit covers a review of the installed system, to optimise the Asset Guardian solution provided.