Control System Integrator in Tampa Bay, FL
HillPoint Automation is a solo controls firm run by Will Cordero, an engineer with 18 years on NASA, OneWeb, and Airbus programs. PLC programming, Ignition SCADA, and UL 508A panels for Tampa Bay plants, with one engineer from walkthrough to startup.
A Control System Integrator Serving Tampa Bay
HillPoint Automation is a solo controls engineering firm. I'm Will Cordero, and I've spent 18 years on industrial controls, most of it on aerospace and defense programs at NASA, OneWeb Satellites, and Airbus US Space and Defence. I'm based in Melbourne, on Florida's Space Coast, and I take control system integration work across Tampa Bay and Central Florida.
When you hire an integrator in Tampa, you usually get a project manager up front and a rotating cast of contract programmers you never actually meet. That's not how this works. When you call (321) 378-0424, the engineer who writes your PLC code and commissions your line is the person who answers the phone. One point of contact from the site walkthrough to startup, and the same person on the hook if something acts up afterward.
I'm vendor-agnostic. Allen-Bradley and Rockwell on one side (ControlLogix, CompactLogix, SLC 500, PLC-5, PanelView, Studio 5000 and RSLogix), Siemens on the other (S7-1200, S7-1500, TIA Portal). I don't push a platform because it's the one I resell, because I don't resell hardware. I write to what your plant already runs, or I tell you plainly when it's time to migrate off something that's gone end of life.
Aerospace Rigor for Tampa Bay Manufacturing
The integrator market around Tampa Bay is thick with firms that grew up on municipal water and wastewater. They're good at lift stations and telemetry SCADA for utilities, and that's real work. But a bottling plant, a food line, a supplement manufacturer, or a machine builder runs high-mix, fast-changing processes that a water-district playbook doesn't really cover. Different problem, different discipline.
I came up the other way. On satellite and launch programs the documentation standard is high and the failure analysis is real. 'It works on my bench' doesn't count for anything until it's proven under review. I bring that same discipline to a CompactLogix retrofit or an Ignition rollout. Every tag documented and every I/O point verified. The drawings match the panel after I leave, so the next person who opens the enclosure isn't guessing.
That matters most when you don't have a controls engineer on staff. I built the automation for a Space Coast supplement manufacturer that had no in-house controls person at all. When something changed on the floor, nobody there could read the ladder logic to figure out why. So the deliverable was working code plus documentation their maintenance team could actually pick up and use. That's what keeps a plant running after the integrator drives home.
Ignition SCADA Integration in Tampa Bay
SCADA is where I go deep. I build on Ignition 8.3, Inductive Automation's platform, and I've standardized on it for new work. Perspective handles browser and mobile HMI, so an operator can pull up a live screen on a tablet without a Windows thick client bolted to every station. The licensing is per-server, not per-seat, so adding operators or screens doesn't come with a new bill every time.
The part a lot of integrators skip is the data architecture underneath. I build a Unified Namespace on MQTT Sparkplug B, so your PLCs, HMIs, historian, and MES all read from one consistent, real-time picture of the plant instead of a tangle of point-to-point polls that nobody remembers setting up. When you add a line next year, it publishes into the same namespace. You aren't re-plumbing the whole system just to get one more machine reporting.
If you're running an older SCADA or HMI package that's getting expensive to license or hard to support, I'll scope the migration to Ignition and give you a straight read on what's worth carrying over and what should be rebuilt clean. Sometimes a lift-and-shift is fine. Sometimes the old project has fifteen years of workarounds baked in and you're better off starting fresh.
PLC Programming in Tampa: Allen-Bradley and Siemens
Most of my work starts at the PLC. New programs, machine integration, retrofits, and the migrations that get put off until the hardware finally fails on a Friday afternoon.
Allen-Bradley discontinued the PLC-5 line, and the SLC 500 is legacy and end of life. If your plant still runs either one, spare processors come from eBay and gray-market resellers, and the odds of an unplanned line-down climb every year you wait. I migrate PLC-5 and SLC 500 systems to ControlLogix and CompactLogix, and I keep the machine's behavior intact so operators don't have to relearn a process they already know cold. On the Siemens side, I program S7-1200 and S7-1500 in TIA Portal for new builds and OEM machine integration.
I also do the unglamorous work that actually keeps a plant online. Chasing an intermittent fault that only shows up on second shift, or tuning a VFD that trips every time a big motor across the plant starts. Adding interlocks after a near-miss so it can't happen a second time. Concrete problems, run down and fixed on site, with the logic documented so the fix sticks.
Industrial Automation Services Across Tampa Bay
The service set is the same one I run everywhere in Central Florida. Whether it's a full greenfield line or a single panel modification, here's what I handle in-house:
Not every job needs all of it. A lot of what I do is one focused piece: a panel that has to pass inspection, a line that needs a new HMI, or a data link between the floor and NetSuite that the finance side has been asking about for a year. Tell me the actual problem you're trying to solve and I'll scope the work to that, not to a package.
- PLC programming and migration (Allen-Bradley ControlLogix, CompactLogix, SLC 500, PLC-5; Siemens S7-1200, S7-1500)
- Ignition 8.3 SCADA (Perspective HMI, MQTT Sparkplug B, Unified Namespace)
- HMI development and PanelView work
- UL 508A control panel design and modification
- VFD selection, installation, and startup
- MES and MES/ERP integration, including NetSuite
- OT network design and segmentation
- Emergency controls service and troubleshooting
Coverage, Response, and How the Work Runs
I'm based in Melbourne, about two hours from Tampa across I-4. For project work (design, programming, commissioning, migrations), that drive is a non-issue. I plan the trips, stage the parts and the code ahead of time, and I'm on site for the pieces that need eyes and hands. A good chunk of the SCADA and PLC development happens remotely between visits, so you're not paying for windshield time you don't need.
Emergency break-fix is a different animal. If your line is down at 2 a.m., a two-hour drive is still a two-hour drive, and I'll tell you that straight when you call instead of promising a response window I can't hit. For plants inside Brevard and the immediate Space Coast, I'm close. For Tampa Bay, here's the honest version: I'm the right call for planned integration and migration work, and I'll help however I realistically can when something breaks.
Either way, you're talking to the engineer, not a dispatcher reading off a ticket. That's the whole model, and it's why I keep the firm small on purpose.
Got a line to build or a legacy PLC living on borrowed time?
Tell me what your plant runs and what's giving you trouble. I'll give you a straight answer on whether it's a same-day fix or a scoped project, and whether I'm the right integrator for it. Call (321) 378-0424 and you'll get the engineer who does the work, not a sales desk.