Due to increasing market, competitive, regulatory and social pressures, terminal automation is more important today than ever before. Nevertheless, many smaller petroleum-product terminals continue to operate with a relatively low level of automation, and many larger terminals operate with outdated, poorly supported automation technology and/or a hodgepodge of disconnected systems. Due to the recent flood of mergers and acquisitions, many multi-terminal owner-operators also find themselves with different systems (or, at best, different versions of the same systems) installed in their various terminals. This can make it difficult to coordinate activities, obtain the required information, avoid incidents, train operators and support the systems. All in all, it’s not a pretty picture.