80%Reduction in manual PLC engineering work
10+Partner companies supported with legacy IDE automation
30 minutesOnboarding time for new PLC projects (down from 2–3 hours)
THE SHORT STORY
Software Defined Automation is an Industrial DevOps platform for automation engineers, managing the software that runs on PLCs (programmable logic controllers). SDA offers automated backups, code version control, secure remote access, browser-based engineering, and AI-generated code documentation for heterogeneous industrial environments, enabling unified cloud management of factory control systems.
- CLIENT
- Software Defined Automation (SDA)
- INDUSTRY
- Manufacturing
- DURATION
- Multi-month engagement to design, implement, and harden the automation framework
- THE TEAM
- 1 Senior Software Engineer
01 / Software Defined Automation (SDA)
The challenge.
- PLC IDEs with no public APIs, SDKs, or CLI access, making them effectively non-automatable.
- Highly volatile UIs with changing layouts and dynamic elements, causing brittle early automation attempts.
- Manual onboarding of projects and environments, leading to slow, error-prone setup.
- Lack of centralized error handling, logging, or monitoring, complicating debugging and reliability.
02 / Software Defined Automation (SDA)
Our approach.
- Built a UI automation framework around Windows IDEs using .NET (C#) and FlaUI for native Windows UI Automation.
- Modeled automation flows as modular CLI tools using System.CommandLine, enabling parameterized, scriptable runs.
- Introduced a robust locator strategy combining Automation IDs, hierarchies, and fallback heuristics to cope with UI variability.
- Implemented centralized logging and unified error-handling to trace failures and recover from unpredictable UI states.
03 / Software Defined Automation (SDA)
What we built.
- A reusable automation layer capable of simulating complex user behavior in PLC IDEs such as Rockwell Studio 5000 and Siemens TIA Portal.
- Modular CLI applications encapsulating workflows like project import/export, compilation, and deployment.
- Standardized onboarding scripts for new PLC projects and environments, turning multi-hour manual flows into scripted operations.
04 / Software Defined Automation (SDA)
The impact.
- Up to 80% reduction in manual effort for routine PLC engineering tasks.
- Support for legacy IDEs, enabling SDA to serve customers previously considered too rigid for automation.
- Extended market reach to 10+ partner companies using older industrial tooling.
- 90% improvement in task reliability thanks to structured error handling and logging.
- Reduced onboarding time for new PLC projects from 2–3 hours to under 30 minutes.
BEHIND THE BUILD
The technology.
- .NET
- FlaUI
- System.CommandLine
- Windows UI Automation
- Modular CLI Tools
- Centralized Logging
NEXT STORY / Resycure