From Honeywell and Yokogawa to Domestic Controllers: Import Substitution in Industrial Control Systems

The past few years have brought tectonic shifts to Russian industrial automation. Western vendors whose control systems had been the de facto standard at oil refining and petrochemical plants for decades have exited the Russian market. Left behind are thousands of controllers, software systems, and data exchange protocols that need not only to be kept operational but gradually replaced with domestic solutions. Yet replacing equipment is only a small part of the problem. The main challenge lies in migrating the algorithmic logic accumulated through years of fine-tuning from Western platforms to Russian ones. And this must be done without compromising production efficiency—ideally, performance should actually improve.

Today's situation is paradoxical. On one hand, we have mature domestic software products and controllers capable of handling most automation tasks. On the other, there are no standard migration methodologies, no industry standards for data transfer, and most critically, no practical experience with complex continuous production facilities. Drawing on real work at the Omsk Oil Refinery, as well as earlier at SIBUR's Tomskneftekhim, we can examine how this process unfolds, where the main pain points emerge, and which solutions prove effective.

The scale of the challenge: what we've lost and what we must gain

Over years of Russian oil, gas, and chemical enterprises operating on Western equipment, an enormous base of advanced process control algorithms has accumulated. This includes tens of thousands of PID controller settings, cascade schemes, predictive models, and online optimizers. Systems from Honeywell, Yokogawa, Siemens, and Emerson became second nature to generations of engineers. Their interfaces, programming languages, data storage methods, and communication protocols were studied inside and out. The sudden departure of vendors from the Russian market meant not only a ban on new equipment deliveries but also the end of technical support, updates, and most critically, the impossibility of legally renewing licenses for proprietary software.

According to industry experts, roughly 70 percent of Russia's large industrial enterprises depended to some degree on Western automation systems. In oil refining and petrochemicals, that figure is even higher. What needs replacing isn't just controllers but also SCADA systems, MES layers, and most importantly, advanced process control systems (APC), which include both APC and RTO components. It's these APC systems that deliver economic benefits of 2 to 10 percent in plant utilization and enable product quality management with minimal human intervention.

Simply buying a Russian controller and rewriting the program isn't enough. Western systems were refined over decades for specific types of columns, reactors, and furnaces. When migrating algorithms to a new platform, discrepancies inevitably arise in computational precision, cycle execution speed, and behavior during abnormal situations. That's why import substitution in advanced process control isn't an administrative campaign but an extremely complex engineering challenge requiring deep understanding of both old and new architectures.

How it works in practice: experience from Tomskneftekhim and Omsk Refinery

Discussion of import substitution quickly moves from generalities to specific projects, specific units, and specific numbers. This is best illustrated by two enterprises where the author of these lines worked directly: Tomskneftekhim, part of SIBUR, and the Omsk Oil Refinery owned by Gazprom Neft. Both enterprises are leaders in digital transformation in their sectors, but they approach import substitution differently, though with a common goal: replace Western control systems with domestic ones while preserving and, where possible, multiplying their effectiveness.

Tomskneftekhim: the world's first RTO+APC project for polyethylene

SIBUR's Tomsk facility is rightfully considered one of the flagships of digitalization in Russian petrochemicals. In 2024, it completed what seemed like engineering fantasy just a few years earlier: the world's first project implementing a real-time online optimization system integrated with advanced process control at a polyethylene production facility.

This involves combining two technologies. APC, or advanced process control, stabilizes plant operations by maintaining key parameters within specified narrow ranges. RTO, or real-time optimizer, works on top of APC and continuously recalculates optimal setpoints based on current costs of raw materials, energy, and target product quality indicators. Together, they enable running the plant not just stably but in the most economically efficient manner at any given moment.

The project was implemented at a tubular reactor unit producing polyethylene. The results exceeded expectations. According to industry portal Polymer Branch, thanks to the RTO+APC systems implementation, the number of manual operator interventions in the process decreased fivefold. This means operators are no longer constantly busy adjusting operating modes and have become observers who intervene only during abnormal situations. Unit productivity increased by 5 tons per day, which translates to an additional 156 million rubles annually for the company. The potential economic effect from using the RTO mathematical model to generate management actions in 2025-2026 is estimated at over 100 million rubles.

This project matters not just for the cost savings. It proved that Russian engineers are capable of more than simply copying Western solutions—they can create their own unique systems that in some aspects surpass global equivalents. Moreover, the experience gained from building this hybrid system, which combined elements of Western software with proprietary algorithmic developments, became an invaluable foundation for subsequent projects, including the automation of polypropylene production, where the author of these lines implemented a controller delivering an economic benefit of 18 million rubles per year.

Omsk Refinery: Import Substitution at a High-Tech Plant

The Omsk oil refinery owned by Gazprom Neft is an entirely different story. While at Tomskneftekhim the focus was on creating a unique overlay for existing automation systems, here the challenge is more fundamental. ONPZ today is one of the most technologically advanced and complex refineries in the country. Its modernization program, running through 2026, aims to achieve 100 percent refining depth. This is an ambitious goal, unattainable without a modern control system capable of analyzing thousands of parameters in real time and flexibly managing production.

Work in the Project Office for creating digital twins and online optimizers encompasses several key areas. This includes developing and supporting the APC software suite across Yokogawa, Honeywell, Siemens, and T Soft products. It involves import substitution of automation systems, where critically important control nodes are replaced with domestic equivalents. And it includes configuring integration logic between process control systems and APC systems, so that different systems—sometimes from different manufacturers—work as a single organism.

In parallel, Gazprom Neft is developing its own infrastructure for digital twins. In January 2026, a patent was registered for the SUPRID engineering data management system. This system creates electronic models of production facilities, incorporating complete engineering and technical documentation along with 3D models of assets. As of early 2026, SUPRID already covers the company's Moscow and Omsk refineries.

Then in May 2026, the next step was announced. At the Omsk refinery, work began on creating a digital twin of the enterprise for dynamic production optimization. The first phase is planned to cover five refining units. Virtual engineering models are being created for them that display the operation of all equipment affecting the quantity and quality of output. This is a direct path toward creating a full-fledged advanced process control system capable not just of simulating the process, but of finding optimal operating modes in real time.

What's happening at ONPZ today is import substitution in its most complex manifestation. We're not simply swapping an old controller for a new one. We're building a control system for the future, initially oriented toward Russian technological standards, but incorporating the best practices accumulated over decades of working with Western equipment.

Real Challenges in Migrating Algorithms from Western to Russian Platforms

Now, with experience from two major projects behind us, we can turn to the most important issue: the engineering problems that arise when actually migrating algorithms from Honeywell, Yokogawa, or Siemens systems to domestic controllers and software suites. At conferences and in articles, people usually talk about the high readiness level of Russian software, about 100 percent import substitution, and about how everything works just as well—or better. Practice shows, however, that the path from declarations to stable operation at an active facility is paved with nuances that don't appear in marketing brochures.

The main illusion is that it's enough to rewrite code from one language to another and the system will work the same way. In reality, different platforms handle floating-point arithmetic operations differently, have different cycle execution rates, and respond differently to noisy sensor signals. In Western systems, these characteristics were refined over decades and embedded deep in the firmware. When migrating to a new platform, a seemingly identical control program begins to behave differently. The controller might miss a brief pressure spike or, conversely, trigger a false alarm due to accumulated rounding errors.

The first challenge is divergence in the computational environment. APC and RTO systems actively use mathematical models of distillation columns, reactors, and furnaces. These models operate on thousands of variables and require high calculation precision. When migrating to another platform, even minor differences in differential equation solving algorithms can cause a virtual quality analyzer to be off by fractions of a percent. And for controlling polymerization processes or deep oil refining, those fractions of a percent translate into defects or raw material waste.

The second challenge is integration logic. At a real plant, the advanced process control system doesn't exist in isolation. It exchanges data with the process control system, with MES, with LIMS, with video surveillance systems and electricity metering. Exchange protocols, data formats, and request timings differ across manufacturers. When replacing one link with a domestic product, this entire fragile construction can fall apart. Tags stop reading, data arrives with delays, and control signals get lost. Restoring integration often has to be done manually—writing intermediate gateways, shifting polling time windows.

The third challenge is handling abnormal situations. Western systems have spent decades building up libraries for error handling. If a sensor went off the scale or communication was interrupted, the controller knew how to safely switch to backup mode. Russian solutions, especially newer ones, lack this depth of development. Engineers have to manually program all the fallback logic themselves, which multiplies commissioning time many times over. And here, experience plays a crucial role. Without it, it's easy to make a mistake that in real operation will lead to an emergency shutdown of the unit.

What to Do: Systemic Solutions Instead of Point Replacement

These challenges lead to a simple but not always pleasant conclusion. Import substitution in process control systems and advanced process control cannot be done on a "rip it out and plug it in" basis. You can't just replace a specific controller or SCADA—you need to rethink the control architecture of the entire unit, and eventually the entire plant. Building on Russian platforms, but preserving the best of what was developed over decades of operating Western equipment.

Today there's an urgent need to create standard migration methodologies. For each type of equipment—distillation column, reactor, furnace, compressor—there should be step-by-step instructions for transferring algorithms. With a list of critical nodes that need to be tested first, with methods for comparing the behavior of old and new systems on identical input data. Such methodologies could be created by industry institutes together with leading enterprises. SIBUR and Gazprom Neft have already accumulated enough experience to be trusted with this.

The second important direction is developing debugging tools. Russian automation software developers must provide engineers with tools for byte-by-byte comparison of algorithm performance on old and new platforms. Without this, the debugging process turns into a blind search for a needle in a haystack. Western systems have powerful simulators and logging tools. Our companies need not just to catch up, but to create tools that allow an engineer to see what's happening inside the controller at every moment in time.

The third direction is personnel training. Today there are almost no specialists in the market who have deep knowledge of both Western and Russian systems. It's impossible to train such people from scratch in a year. We need intensive retraining programs where experienced engineers who have worked with Honeywell or Yokogawa for decades can master domestic alternatives in a few months. And here the corporate universities of SIBUR and Gazprom Neft could play a key role. Such programs have already been launched at Tomskneftekhim and ONPZ, but their scale needs to be increased many times over.

The Role of Proprietary Developments and Patents

It's worth saying separately that import substitution isn't just about replacement, but about creating something new. Unfortunately, the industry has developed an attitude: since the vendor left, we'll take their product but with open source code, or fork an old version. This approach leads to a dead end. Sooner or later legal risks will catch up, and technologically a copy will always lag behind the original.

True technological sovereignty comes when we start creating our own algorithms that are not inferior to Western ones, and in some ways surpass them. An example is the registered patent for the invention "Universal Hydraulic Installation." Of course, this device isn't at the level of an industrial controller, but the principle itself matters—going from a practical task to a patent, rather than waiting for a ready-made solution to be brought from abroad.

In projects where the author of these lines participated personally, there were repeated situations where standard solutions weren't enough. At Tomskneftekhim, for premium grades of polyethylene, we had to develop our own advanced process control controller because existing algorithms didn't ensure the required product purity. The economic effect from this development was 12 million rubles per year. And the automatic control system for the polypropylene polymerization process, written from scratch, yielded 18 million rubles in annual savings. This isn't replacing imported with domestic. This is creating something new that by definition couldn't have been imported.

The same thing is happening now at ONPZ. The digital twins of units being created in the Project Office aren't copies of Western analogues. These are engineering structures designed with consideration for Russian specifics—raw materials, climate, operational requirements. And when in two to three years such projects become standard, the question "import substitution or not" will disappear on its own. There will simply be Russian industry using the best available technologies, regardless of their origin.

The biggest mistake today is to consider import substitution a temporary measure, a forced campaign. No. This is an opportunity to rebuild the industrial control system from scratch. To make it more flexible, more secure, more adaptable to our realities. And we have everything we need for this—ideas, people, willingness to work. All that remains is to stop looking back at what was and start building what will be.

Conclusion

A first look at the topic of import substitution for industrial automation and process control systems, using real-world examples, shows that while the task is complex, it's achievable. We have leading enterprises that have already migrated from Western platforms to Russian ones. We have engineers capable not just of copying, but of creating new algorithms and patenting inventions. We have regulatory frameworks and government support, even if still incomplete.

The main takeaway at this stage: Import substitution shouldn't be reduced to simply swapping nameplates. This is an opportunity to transition to a new management architecture, where different industrial automation systems, process control systems, MES, LIMS, and industrial data platforms are unified into a single whole based on Russian software. And this opportunity cannot be missed.