Metacom- The leader in industrial, retail, and financial communication systems.
An industrial communication system enables control plane software, such as Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) software, to interact with transducers – devices that convert electrical properties into physical properties, or vice versa.
This is used in industrial settings where a central computing system needs to communicate with a multitude of remote switches, voltage sensors, heat sensors, temperature sensors, and other transducers to monitor and control the network.
“South African businesses need to stay competitive, and therefore we need automation and very rapid communication systems to allow the interconnectedness of transducers and computers, as well as control systems in the background,” said Metacom founder and Chairman, Réan van Niekerk.
An industrial communication system differs from Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) in that the former is proprietary, whereas IIoT operates over the Internet.
A dedicated industrial communication system is expensive and requires specialised planning, installation, and training if it is to operate effectively.
How Metacom supported Eskom
Metacom has 20 years of experience in Industrial IoT communication systems, and this experience has allowed the company to become a leader in various industries.
It is therefore no surprise that Metacom runs many of the biggest IIoT communication systems in Africa – including communication systems Eskom uses to monitor and control electricity distribution in South Africa.
Metacom supported Eskom by building the first extremely reliable IIoT SCADA communication system that allows the national energy provider to manage energy distribution efficiently and reliably.
SCADA is a software control mechanism that is perfectly geared towards controlling the distribution of utilities such as gas, water, and electricity.
Eskom has now begun leveraging this robust infrastructure to add smart grid features, such as fault path indicators and various monitoring and control transducers.
These detect problems on high voltage power lines on the distribution network and report them to the central control station for immediate problem resolution and corrective action.
Vision for the future
Metacom believes that Industrial IoT communication systems have a massive future globally, and it is excited to be an innovative leader in this space.
This expertise and product innovation can be used in various industries as the equipment and communication requirements is very similar.
For example: the Store of the Future will have a range of in-store sensors that will detect people’s shopping patterns and collate and interpret this data so the business can improve their marketing efforts through increasingly accurate target marketing.
“All this very reliable communication systems and equipment in the field will permit our customers in the industrial, retail, and financial segments to develop smarter applications because we are able to provide them with the required speed and agility, technically and operationally.”
“Metacom has developed numerous vertical applications in support of our customers to be radically successful!” said van Niekerk.
