News
Process automation and digitization of vital infrastructure
- 11 December 2024
The infrastructure sector faces an enormous task in the coming years. Given the current state of the acreage, more effort is being put into renovation than new construction. The aim is to tackle this task with minimum disruption and maximum availability. ICT Group uses various tooling to focus on standardisation of operating and control systems and the testing of all systems before they are rolled out. This increases reliability and reduces nuisance. ICT Group gives advice from design to management and maintenance with managed services for vital assets. All these aspects will also be discussed at InfraTech 2025, through demos at their booth 6.506 and in the various presentations provided by ICT Group.
Bridge detection demo
One of those demos is about detecting dangerous situations on a movable bridge. "The idea for this arose after a fatal accident in the Zaan region when opening a bridge where a cyclist was standing on the wrong side of the barrier," says Hergen Schuringa, account manager at ICT TriOpSys. "Together with Rijkswaterstaat and Pegamento, we have developed a solution in which cameras in combination with artificial intelligence detect objects and people and send a signal to the operator's user interface. The concept is similar to the extra alertness that is obtained in a car with blind spot detection and should be seen as an additional tool to monitor safety. With cameras and screens on our stand visitors can experience the operation of the system for themselves."
Demo HoloNXT
"With HoloNXT, we visualize different aspects of (mission-critical) systems in a holographic 3D environment. Think of displaying measured values where they are actually measured, or supporting maintenance work on site with the link to an asset management system such as Ultimo," says Matti van Hille, operations manager at ICT Group.
ICT Group is located in hall 6 on the software square. In their own software theater they provide various presentations:
Presentation: Automated testing
The fact that technological developments are of great added value in updating and renovating vital assets is proven by ICT Group, among other things, with its contribution to the upgrade of the Hubertus tunnel. "Here we ensure that the operation and control are delivered free of residual points before the tunnel is closed for nine months at the end of July 2025," says Matti. "A similar exercise has already been carried out for the Maasdelta tunnel and the Holland tunnel on the A24 Blankenburg connection. During the presentation, we will show how we approach such a process, in which we also go into technical depth."
Presentation: Standardization
Standardization of software for operating systems and your SCADA environment provides insight, fewer operating errors and better maintainability. "We illustrate this on the basis of a project we carried out for HHNK in updating and adjusting the operation and control of the wastewater treatment plants. We show our approach from practice and build a bridge to the infrastructure."
Presentation: Secret management
Cybersecurity is an important theme in vital infrastructure. To simplify password management, ICT TriOpSys has developed the 'secret management' service. "We will discuss this in more detail during the presentation on the basis of a project with the municipality of Amsterdam," says Hergen. "Assets such as VRIs, switch cabinets, etc. are often protected with a standard password that never changes. It is too time-consuming. Secret management is a tool that rotates the passwords of all systems according to certain agreements and fully automatically, thus increasing security and availability."
Managed Services
Finally, ICT Group will also tell visitors more about Managed Services in Vital Infra at InfraTech 2025. "Assets not only need to be built and renovated, but also managed and maintained for a long time. You will also find that expertise at ICT Group," says Frans Lambregts, business development manager who advocates that 'managed services' should be involved in the design of an asset for the best possible management and maintenance of an application and software system. "At least that is the approach we use for the Maasdelta tunnel and the Holland tunnel on the A24 Blankenburg connection, but also for the Hubertus tunnel that we maintain for years to come. In this way, the chance of malfunctions is minimal, and if something does happen, 'managed services' have a team ready 24/7 to solve it."
In short, ICT Group is going all out during InfraTech 2025 and would like to invite interested parties for a cup of coffee at booth 6.506.
