PC's are gaining momentum in the world of control. PLC's are quickly becoming obsolete under the power that PC control brings. As with any new technology there is a natural reluctance to the change that it brings. PC control has been field proven time and time again and is the control system of the future. PC's have been recently acknowledged for their superior control ability. A few examples of such acknowledgement are listed below:

During the 1998 MBAA District Ontario's Annual One Day Technical Seminar, Dave Bambrick from Molson Breweries (Ontario) presented a session entitled "PLC's vs. PC's Issues to Consider for Brewery Automation". Excerpts from this session are summarized below:

Disadvantages of PLC's that PC's have overcome:

• High initial cost to purchase a PLC system
• Costly to upgrade the PLC when you want to expand or modify your existing technology
• Difficult to connect to other systems
• PLC's are slow to add new features to their systems
• Proprietary hardware and software (locked into a chosen supplier for life of equipment)

• PLC control systems have a long development time to create a program to operate your system
• Problems are difficult to debug (RLL could have 300 to 400 lines to check)
• Increased downtime because of debugging problems
• Extensive training required to learn how to maintain and operate the PLC system
• Difficult to modify or change programming (again, RLL could be large 300 to 400 lines)