Sysware’s journey began in 2003, when Gruppo Grigolin entrusted the company with the design and development of the new grinding plant in Marghera. The challenge was ambitious: equip the new facility with the most advanced automation technologies available at the time. Sysware designed an architecture based on GE Series 90-70 PLCs and a supervisory network built on Wonderware InTouch. The HMI was developed with a strong focus on ergonomics, information representation and operator accessibility, including support for visual or operational limitations. The system even featured voice-based event and alarm notification, a remarkably advanced solution for that period.

A plant-wide Ethernet network enabled integration between production and management systems, while a high-performance fieldbus was adopted at field level, representing a highly innovative choice for the time. This project marked the beginning of a long-standing partnership between Sysware and Gruppo Grigolin, which over the years continued to entrust Sysware with a significant part of the automation of its plants.

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In 2005, Sysware began a long and strategic collaboration with GE and several of its business units, including GE Oil & Gas, GE Water & Process, GE Intelligent Platforms and GE Chemicals. Thanks to the deep expertise of Sysware engineers in GE technologies, the company started working with GE Energy and GE Oil & Gas on the installation and configuration of OSM units (On-site Monitoring Systems) to be deployed worldwide on GE turbines.

The introduction of these systems began in one of the core hubs of global LNG production, Qatargas, using GE SALEM proprietary systems. Over the following 15 years, this collaboration led Sysware to install, configure and integrate more than 400 diagnostic systems across the world. By the end of the 2010s, after contributing to the standardization of the solution together with Baker Hughes, Sysware decided to step away from OSM preparation activities in order to focus its resources on the development of industrial cybersecurity solutions.

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In 2008, Sysware was involved by GE Water & Process to support the commissioning of the Hamma desalination plant in Algiers, a project of major strategic importance for Algeria. Hamma was designed as a 200,000 m³/day reverse-osmosis facility, described at the time as the largest desalination plant in Africa and a landmark project for the water supply of the capital. Public sources link the plant to the delivery of potable water for roughly 1.5 to 2 million people in the Algiers area, highlighting its national importance in addressing water scarcity.

In this context, Sysware contributed to the commissioning of a control system developed with GE Intelligent Platforms, based on GE RX7i PLCs, a redundant fail-safe client/server CIMPLICITY architecture, and a dual-ring network designed to ensure reliability and resilience.

The project required a major commitment from Sysware’s best technical resources, but by the end of the year, in line with project expectations, the plant entered operation and began contributing a new and critical source of drinking water for the country.

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By 2010, Sysware’s collaboration with QualiCal had reached a new level. Although the relationship had started a few years earlier, this period marked QualiCal’s expansion onto the international stage, as the company strengthened its position in the lime industry with plants and kilns operating worldwide and increasingly advanced digital solutions for the sector.

As the partnership grew, Sysware took on a broader role, covering not only software development but also the coordination and management of Electrical and Instrumentation activities. The automation solutions delivered for these projects were based on Siemens PLCs and Wonderware platforms, often in redundant client/server configurations to ensure continuity, reliability and solid plant supervision.

In the most advanced applications, Sysware introduced Siemens PCS 7 architectures and, with the support of Siemens as technology partner, designed, programmed and commissioned its first industrial solution based on PCS 7 and FOUNDATION Fieldbus. This marked an important step in Sysware’s evolution from traditional automation supplier to system integrator capable of handling complex process-control environments. The collaboration later extended into data collection, remote diagnostics and cloud-based monitoring. Building on experience previously developed in the GE Oil & Gas world, Sysware contributed to the development of MOSAICO, QualiCal’s proprietary digital platform, designed to monitor plant operation and performance in real time from anywhere in the world through mobile devices. At the time, this was a genuinely forward-looking vision of industrial digitalization.

In 2013, Sysware began its collaboration with Aluberg, a Bergamo-based manufacturer of thin aluminium laminates and packaging solutions for the pharmaceutical and food industries. Aluberg needed a centralized system able to monitor, record and archive production data across the plant, ensuring full traceability, long-term historical storage and better control of quality-critical process information.

Sysware responded with a highly innovative solution based on Ignition by Inductive Automation, introducing a plant-wide Historian and supervision platform capable of integrating existing automation islands, connecting production data with relational databases and ERP systems, and transforming fragmented local information into a unified digital environment.

According to the case study, the rollout of the Ignition-based platform started in 2014 and progressively evolved through the phases Connect, Monitor, Analyze, Optimize and Predict, enabling centralized monitoring, long-term data retention, automatic reporting, energy analysis, OEE-oriented evaluation, defect traceability and predictive-maintenance logic.

The collaboration continues to this day: over the years, the system has expanded to integrate virtually the entire control landscape of the plant and has progressively incorporated the latest AI-based analysis technologies.

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In 2017, Sysware began a major collaboration with Persico, an Italian multinational group based in the Bergamo area and active worldwide in the automotive sector as a supplier of moulds, systems, presses, robotic cells and turnkey automated lines. For Sysware, this marked a decisive step forward: from a background strongly rooted in process automation, the company expanded into the world of discrete automation, high-performance machinery and robotic manufacturing systems.

Persico’s projects required Sysware to broaden and consolidate its capabilities across PLCs, drives, axis control technologies and multi-brand industrial platforms, while also developing full operational competence in robotic systems, including KUKA, FANUC, ABB and other leading technologies.

Just as important, the automotive environment introduced far more stringent expectations in terms of quality, consistency, commissioning discipline and project execution standards. Sysware successfully met that challenge, and within a few years became a key integration partner for Persico presses and moulding and assembly lines.

The collaboration also became a driver of innovation, pushing Sysware to develop new automation solutions in response to the technical ambition and rigorous expectations of the customer. Persico remains today one of Sysware’s key clients, with a relationship built on long-term cooperation and mutual trust.

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In 2019, through its collaboration with Baker Hughes, Sysware entered the industrial cybersecurity domain with a project of exceptional scale and complexity. The assignment was based at Ras Laffan Industrial City, the strategic heart of Qatar’s LNG industry: a major energy hub located close to the North Field and home to the world’s largest LNG export port. At the time, Qatargas described its Ras Laffan facilities as world-class assets supporting 77 million tonnes per annum of LNG production, underlining the critical importance of the site within the global energy landscape.

The challenge for Sysware was formidable. Qatargas intended to segment and protect its OT environments across one of the world’s most demanding industrial contexts, adopting state-of-the-art cybersecurity technologies and addressing the strict security expectations associated with critical LNG infrastructure. The project, based on SecurityST GEVernova product, included advanced segmentation concepts, hardened architectures, and highly specialized protective measures, including one-way gateway and data-diode based solutions where required by the security design.

The on-site implementation extended over two years and continued even through the disruptions of the Covid period. Delivering such a program required not only technical competence, but also strong planning discipline, coordination capability and operational flexibility. Sysware successfully completed the project within the expected timeframe and in compliance with the stringent security requirements of the customer, marking a decisive step in the company’s evolution toward high-end OT cybersecurity.

In 2021, Sysware opened a new and important chapter in the lime and related-products sector through a strategic collaboration with Fassa Bortolo, one of Italy’s best-known industrial groups in the building materials world, with a long heritage in lime production and integrated systems for construction and industry.

Following new investments and the acquisition of additional production sites in the Veneto area, Fassa Bortolo turned to Sysware for the development of automation and supervision software across a range of plants. The projects included both new installations and the modernization of existing facilities, covering lime kilns, grinding and classification plants, hydration systems, and even screening and storage systems for sawdust used as fuel. This variety of applications made the collaboration particularly significant, combining process complexity, plant integration and operational continuity.

Sysware’s experience, built over two decades of work in the lime and cement sector alongside QualiCal and other major industry players, played a key role in establishing trust from the outset. The solutions developed for Fassa Bortolo were based on Siemens S7-400 and S7-1500 PLCs, WinCC HMI systems and AVEVA System Platform architectures, selected according to the scale and operating requirements of each plant.

What made this collaboration especially valuable was not only Sysware’s technical competence, but also its flexibility in adapting to changing customer requirements throughout the entire project lifecycle, from engineering and software development to commissioning and post-startup support. Over time, the relationship evolved beyond the traditional customer-supplier model into a strategic partnership built on continuity, responsiveness and mutual confidence.

During the 2020s, through its close cybersecurity collaboration with Baker Hughes, Sysware became directly involved in the installation, configuration and maintenance of the SecurityST platform deployed at TAG GmbH, the Austrian transmission system operator jointly owned by Snam and Gas Connect Austria. TAG operates Austria’s largest high-pressure pipeline system, a strategic energy corridor extending from the Slovak border to the Italian border and playing a vital role in the security of gas supply for Austria and the wider European market.

For TAG, Sysware ensured the proper operation and ongoing effectiveness of OT cybersecurity protection systems during a period of growing concern over cyber threats targeting strategic European infrastructure. It was precisely in this context that the need for more structured and harmonized cybersecurity requirements across critical sectors became increasingly evident, later formalized at European level through Directive (EU) 2022/2555, the NIS2 Directive.

The same experience was then extended to the Snam environment in Italy, where Sysware carried out similar activities of configuration, maintenance and operational support across transportation and storage infrastructures distributed nationwide. From this accumulated experience, ÆGIS was born: a platform that transforms Sysware’s deep expertise in Oil & Gas cybersecurity into a structured technical offering designed to address NIS2-oriented requirements for OT environments in critical industrial sectors.

According to the roadmap of this collaboration, ÆGIS is expected to become the platform officially adopted by TAG starting from 2026, replacing the existing solution.

By 2026, artificial intelligence had become a concrete industrial lever. In OT and manufacturing environments, AI was no longer limited to reporting or offline analytics, but had evolved into an operational capability supporting engineering, decision-making, maintenance strategies and the use of historical data for real plant improvement.

Sysware embraced this transformation early, integrating AI into both internal development activities and customer support. In particular, the MES applications developed for Aluberg evolved on top of a solid digital foundation built to centralize plant data, preserve a long-term Historian and generate performance analytics. This created the ideal basis for AI-assisted access to technical knowledge and more advanced analysis of machine efficiency, helping personnel extract useful insights from more than a decade of accumulated production data.

At the same time, Sysware strengthened its AI journey through a strategic partnership with DIG:ITA, a Bergamo-based company associated with the My-DO platform. My-DO combines human knowledge with artificial intelligence, enabling controlled and secure access to technical, strategic and operational information through a conversational interface tailored to specific domains. Its logic is strongly aligned with Sysware’s world: structured knowledge, protected know-how, faster access to documentation, support for onboarding, and AI assistance across engineering, service, compliance and cybersecurity processes. In this perspective, AI is not a replacement for expertise, but a multiplier of competence, making industrial knowledge more accessible, usable and actionable across the organization.