Problem

While each of LF Bioenergy’s farms was equipped with a robust PLC and SCADA system to support local operations, access to these systems was largely limited to on-site personnel. This created a visibility gap not only for corporate users, but also for the farmers themselves, who had little to no means to monitor performance remotely. As a result, LF corporate teams lacked timely insight into remote operations, making it difficult to assess performance, identify issues, and respond efficiently across their growing network of farms.

As the number of sites increased, LF’s limited remote connectivity and lack of a centralized platform to aggregate and standardize data, made collecting data from each farm individually time-consuming and inefficient. LF needed an enterprise-level solution that could bridge the gap between local operations, farmers, and corporate oversight, delivering unified visibility and scalability.

This project presented several technical challenges owing both to the diverse user base and the integration with existing satellite farm systems. The solution needed to deliver a B2C-style user experience, including simple user onboarding, invitations, and self-service account management, while avoiding a traditional SCADA feel.

At the same time, the TAS team had to bridge gaps between enterprise and local SCADA systems that had been built with differing design philosophies. TAS also needed to standardize tag naming across farms to enable consistent data aggregation. Finally, the platform needed to maintain a mobile-first design so farmers could view key statistics for their farms at a glance from anywhere.

Solution

TAS built the Ignition solution on a cloud-deployed implementation, providing a scalable and centralized foundation to unify data across all satellite farms. By leveraging Ignition’s flexibility, TAS developed a platform that bridges the gap between enterprise visibility and farm-level operations while delivering a modern, intuitive user experience.

TAS established a standardized tag naming structure, creating a true Unified Namespace across all sites. This allowed for consistent data aggregation, simplified development, and scalable expansion as LF added new farms. On top of this data model, TAS developed fleet-wide dashboards and standardized reporting, including a monthly operations dashboard that provides both high-level insights and detailed, farm-specific performance metrics.

From a user experience standpoint, TAS designed the system to feel more like a modern web application than a traditional SCADA platform. TAS integrated an external identity provider (IdP) to streamline user onboarding, while enabling secure access and self-service account management. The platform also introduced a multi-tenant architecture for the Farmer’s Portal, ensuring users only have visibility into the farms they are authorized to access, yet still maintaining a unified system at the enterprise level.

Together, these elements created a highly scalable, secure, and user-friendly solution that not only addressed LF Bioenergy’s immediate challenges but also established a foundation for long-term growth and continued expansion.

Result

The Ignition solution delivered immediate and measurable value to LF Bioenergy, enabling their “Farmers First” mission through improved visibility, accessibility, and transparency across all operations. Corporate users now have a centralized view of the entire fleet, supported by monthly operations dashboards and standardized reporting that provide both high-level insights and detailed, farm-specific performance metrics. Ignition has significantly improved operational efficiency and decision-making across the organization.

The platform has also successfully supported LF Bioenergy’s continued growth, providing a scalable foundation for onboarding new farms without adding complexity. Farmers now have direct access to their facility performance, including visibility into profitability and emissions offset, strengthening engagement and alignment with LF’s sustainability goals. To date, the system supports environmental impact tracking equivalent to offsetting approximately 55.5 million miles driven.

Project Team

Kaleb Blankenship led this effort with close coordination and collaboration from LF Bioenergy’s team, who were instrumental to the project’s success. Blankenship developed a strong understanding of LF’s expectations and brought that vision to life within Ignition, delivering a solution that fully captured the detail, functionality, and user experience the customer was looking for.

Project Scope

• Start Date: March 2025

• Deploy Date: August 2025

• Tags: 537

• Screens: 18

• Clients: 47

• Alarms: 0

• Devices: Microsoft Azure, spoke Ignition systems by other SIs

• Architecture: Hub & Spoke

• Databases: 1x MSSQL, 1x PostgreSQL

• Historical data logged: 269,517,738 rows, 414 tags

• Number of people on team: 1