Risk and Resiliency Preparedness through Change Management

Modern production environments increasingly rely on technology to provide visibility, expedite and automate processes, improve efficiency, and solve other challenges. Through these measures, organizations have dramatically amplified their capabilities.

However, these technology implementations also introduce risks of their own through increased knowledge requirements, additional processes and reliance on devices. To combat these challenges, organizations can utilize a Change Management solution to improve their risk and resiliency preparedness across multiple areas:

Resilience of facility infrastructure (including electronic, computer and other automated systems)

Change Management solutions back up and restore automation system and other software programming code. In the event of a hardware or other failure, the programming can be retrieved quickly and accurately to ensure the computer and automated systems can be brought back online as soon as possible.

Operation and maintenance

All processes change over time as equipment is added, removed or modified, and as process characteristics are adjusted for new capabilities – these alterations usually result in related programming code changes in the automation system. Using a Change Management solution provides a consistent and repeatable method of tracking the changes, who made them, when they were made and ensuring this process is documented for future review.

Monitoring practices

Whether utilizing internal staff or a hired contractor, many regulated industries must document and verify critical process impacting design alterations and decisions. These typically fall under EPA, FDA or other agency guideline. Change Management solutions allow electronic auditing and verification of system modifications, ensuring security and safety.

Natural hazards and malevolent acts

All geographic regions experience natural hazards – storms, floods, and earthquakes can all cause serious disruption to production processes – Change Management solutions provide a method of safekeeping automation programming code and intellectual property so it can be restored in the event of major events. In addition, cyber security is an increasing concern for everyone, Change Management offers a level of security above and beyond traditional network architecture hardening and protects against bad actors whether external or internal to the company.

Implementing a Change Management solution is one step to increasing the risk and resiliency preparedness of a production environment and reducing the impact to automated systems and the organization as a whole. Learn more about what versiondog change management can do.