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This year, DMC’s David Berno, Nikhil Holay, Brandon Tanner, John Williams, and Elizabeth Reed will attend the conference to participate in technical discussions, connect with our partners, and, on September 22nd, Elizabeth will even sit on a panel to discuss common problems in integration projects.

Being connected to a strong community of experts is just one of the many benefits of being designated an Ignition Premier Integrator. It also allows us to continuously learn about new technologies, solutions, and how to solve our clients’ biggest engineering challenges. We can’t wait to connect once again with the Ignition community this September.

Panel: Avoiding Million-Dollar Mistakes in Automation Projects

On September 22nd, Director of SCADA and MES, Elizabeth Hill Reed, will sit on a panel to discuss the most common failure points seen in control system projects with other automation experts. Here’s what panel attendees can expect to hear:

• Real-world examples and lessons learned from failed and high-risk control system integration projects.
• A discussion of the most common reasons automation projects exceed budgets or fail to meet performance expectations.
• How system integrators drive project success through disciplined requirements development and cross-functional coordination.
• Strategies for identifying and mitigating technical, organizational, and implementation risks early in the project lifecycle.

The session will be a good chance for conference attendees to reflect on important lessons learned from high-risk integrations and walk away with strategies to mitigate these kinds of challenges on their next project.

What to Expect This Year: Panels, Demos, Table Talks and More

ICC 2026 will have many more discussions and sessions over the three days, featuring leaders and experts in the industry. From software demonstrations to larger industry discussions, the schedule this year includes a variety of topics designed to spread ideas and spark conversations among Ignition users.

In addition to panels, workshops, and demonstrations, ICC will also feature table talk sessions again this year, allowing conferencegoers to explore topics that pique their interests. Be sure to look out for our automation experts at different table talk sessions over the three days of the conference!

Check out the full schedule for ICC 2026.

2026 Conference Information

• When: September 22-24, 2026
• Where: SAFE Credit Union Convention Center, Sacramento, CA
• How to Attend: Register for Tickets Here

ICC is a great opportunity to continue to grow connections and relationships within the Ignition community.

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DMC’s night out at Casa Bonita.

The Denver office headed to the famous Casa Bonita in Lakewood, Colorado, with a few plus ones in tow. There was fantastic food, a plethora of performances, and, of course, camaraderie among teammates.

Why Casa Bonita?

Casa Bonita is a Mexican restaurant in Lakewood, Colorado, that opened in 1974. It was originally part of a chain of restaurants that started in Oklahoma City.

What’s so special about this Mexican restaurant, you might ask? Well, Casa Bonita is a highly immersive dining experience. Picture tableside magic shows, puppet theater, hidden rooms and explorable caves, arcade games, and a 30-foot indoor waterfall with cliff divers, and you’ll start to understand a fraction of the spectacle that is Casa Bonita.

Casa Bonita’s star has also risen in popular culture! In recent years, it was purchased and restored by “South Park” creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone. What began as a passion project turned into a roughly $50 million investment to revive the iconic restaurant, preserving a uniquely Colorado experience for future generations.

Max Domenech summed up the experience perfectly: “For those who know Casa Bonita, no explanation is necessary. For those who do not, no explanation will suffice.” And off to Casa Bonita the Denver team went.

The Crew

The team started throwing around the idea of going to Casa Bonita as an Activity Fund event back in 2022, but it wasn’t until this year that the Denver team was finally able to make that dream a reality. “We waited months to be able to get a reservation,” Andrew Williams noted.

But secure a reservation, they did!

When a spot opened on March 12^th, the team jumped on it, and 12 teammates headed to Casa Bonita for Thursday night dinner with friends and family.

First Impressions: Walking Into Another World

When you first arrive at Casa Bonita, one of the first things you notice is the building’s cotton-candy pink façade and iconic Spanish colonial-style bell tower. This appearance is completely intentional and meant to start the immersive experience before restaurant-goers ever step through the door.

But even the outside of the building has treasures hiding in plain sight.

At the very top of the iconic pink bell tower sits a 22-karat-gold dome and statue of Cuauhtémoc, the last Aztec emperor of Mexico. It’s such an iconic piece of architecture in Lakewood that the city designated the Casa Bonita building a historic landmark in 2015.

And that’s just the exterior. The immersive adventure really begins once you find your table.

Casa Bonita By the Numbers

We’ve covered the pink façade, the classic Mexican architecture, and the 22-karat gold dome, but Casa Bonita is a 52,000-square-foot restaurant with treasures galore. There are arcade games, performers, stunts, music, treasures, and caverns scattered throughout the restaurant—not to mention a 30-foot waterfall.

Let’s take a look at some of the impressive stats this restaurant puts up on a yearly basis:

The team walked into Casa Bonita for Thursday night dinner and was taken to a table large enough to accommodate a party of 12+. “Entering the building is like going into a different world. Our table was located in the caverns,” Andrew said, “complete with the sound of dripping water. We also passed a jungle area on the way to our table.” Casa Bonita creates an experience for diners the moment they walk through the front door, and it certainly doesn’t end when the food arrives at the table.

Every 15 minutes, restaurant-goers can expect to see cliff divers, sword fights, puppet shows, and magicians throughout their dining experience. “It’s an experience. Dinner is just an excuse to be there!” Andrew also added.

Once everyone got their fill of Mexican food, it was time to explore. The team spent plenty of time around the famous Casa Bonita pool and Acapulco-style cliffs, but they also explored the caves, a wishing well, and haunted trails.

Why Events Like This Matter at DMC

Experiences like this go far beyond the run-of-the-mill team dinner. Stepping away from project work and into a shared, unique experience gives DMC team members the chance to connect and enjoy each other’s company. Whether it’s watching cliff divers while taking a second helping of nachos or exploring hidden caverns after a puppet show, DMC after-work events help strengthen the relationships that carry into everyday work and allow us to crack a smile while solving a complex problem.

At DMC, collaboration is at the core of everything we do. Events like this create opportunities to build trust and communicate more openly. That foundation translates directly into stronger project teams, more effective problem-solving, and ultimately better outcomes for our clients.

Just as importantly, it reflects DMC’s culture. We take our work seriously, but we also recognize the value of having fun. A night at Casa Bonita is a reminder that great teams are built through genuine connection just as effectively as they’re built through sharing technical expertise.

We’ll let Julia Cherkasskaya have the last word: “Three hours flew by!”

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One of the ways that shows up? LEGO.

Read on to learn more about a special LEGO team-building activity at our Chicago office earlier this year, and how it reflects a culture that values fun, creativity, and collaboration just as much as technical excellence.

A Tradition Built Brick by Brick

LEGO-building isn’t just a one-off event at DMC, it’s a long-standing tradition. From team-wide builds where everyone tackles the same kit, to more technical LEGO exercises alongside NASA-related battery testing, LEGO-building activities have taken on many shapes over the years, blending creativity, collaboration, and technical curiosity in a way that feels uniquely “DMC.”

It has also been a way for DMC to engage with the broader community. Our offices have hosted FIRST LEGO League teams in the past, giving students a glimpse into engineering principles while giving DMC engineers the opportunity to mentor students interested in STEM careers.

Across all of these experiences, one thing is clear: LEGO is a big deal at DMC. So, when we welcomed Luke Horwath to the team this past winter, an engineering student who once competed on the show LEGO Masters, it felt like the perfect opportunity to make our 2026 LEGO activity something truly special.

2026 LEGO Activity

LEGO activities have become a favorite at DMC. Last year, the Chicago team built individual kits side by side, from classic art and Star Wars sets to Vespa models and botanical builds. Everyone chose a kit that matched their interests.

For 2026, DMC’s Recruiting Lead, Carly Bessinger, set out to try something new and teamed up with new hire and LEGO enthusiast Luke Horwath. His idea: a collaborative LEGO mosaic, where each person builds a section that comes together into one larger piece. “The inspiration came from my experiences at LEGO conventions,” Luke said.

The LEGO Master

Before appearing on LEGO Masters, Luke was already well known in the LEGO community. He showcased original builds at conventions, including 7-foot-tall roller coasters, a life-size working pinball machine and claw machine, and full LEGO cities. One of those events led to his casting on Season 5 of LEGO Masters, where he and his mother, Anne, became finalists and earned the Golden Brick along the way.

Creating the LEGO Mosaic Design

Cut to 2026, Luke got to work with Owen Johnson creating the mosaic concept, landing on the Chicago skyline as the inspiration for the design. Owen drafted a rendering, selecting colors to bring the skyline image to life. Then, Luke used Bricklink to match the colors in Owen’s design to available LEGO brick colors while sourcing the bricks.

“Owen spent so many hours coming up with an incredible design that leaned DMC and Chicago-centric. He came up with the final concept of the DMC logo integrated into the night skyline, which I thought was fantastic!”

Each dot in the rendering above represents a 1-by-1 LEGO piece. To accomplish the depth of color of the Chicago skyline at night, Owen leaned on a design “technique” you’ve probably seen before: dithering. From there, Owen’s engineering mindset really kicked in. We’ll just let him explain:

“The tiles we used on the mural are basically like pixels, just low color ‘bit depth’. I used standard image manipulation techniques: scaling (no interpolation mixed with cubic and linear for a balance of punchiness and smoothness), plus basic color and contrast adjustments. Each pixel was quantized to a single LEGO color using error-diffusion dithering, specifically Floyd–Steinberg. I used the web tool DitherIt with a custom palette of available LEGO colors. Luke also helped select colors that weren’t too expensive or hard to distinguish.”

He explored several different concepts before landing on the final design: the Chicago skyline at night featuring the DMC logo. Below are some early design ideas, including a galaxy mosaic and another skyline concept with DMC Easter eggs.

The Assembly

Once Owen and Luke completed the design and the logistics of the build, it was time to assemble the team. The LEGO activity had approximately 50 participants, and the 50-inch-square mosaic ended up including 26,000 LEGO bricks. For comparison, a 6-foot LEGO rollercoaster takes about 4,000 to 5,000 bricks.

Everyone who participated in the event was responsible for assembling one 5-inch-by-5-inch square. Each square had accompanying LEGO pieces that formed part of the mosaic. As Luke explained, “When you’re building your section, it doesn’t really look like anything up close—that probably means you’re doing it right if it just looks like a scattered mess!”

That made the final result even more satisfying.

50 Participants, 100 Hands, and 26,000 Bricks

When all 100 individual 5-inch by 5-inch sections finally clicked together at the end of the night, the team stepped back to see their work come to life. The result was an expertly designed LEGO picture of the Chicago skyline with the DMC logo floating above the buildings in the night sky. A striking visual built one small piece at a time.

While the mosaic itself was an impressive feat of creativity and engineering problem-solving, the true takeaway from the night went beyond the final product. The project required coordination, patience, and trust in a shared vision where no single piece made sense on its own.

That’s what made the outcome so meaningful.

Each participant contributed a small part, knowing it would only come together when combined with the work of others. In the end, the completed picture showcased what happens every day at DMC when team members collaborate, bring their unique strengths to the table, and build something bigger than themselves. At DMC, whether it’s a 26,000-brick mosaic or a complex engineering project, the same principle holds true. Great results come from teamwork, thoughtful problem-solving, and a shared commitment to getting it right.

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Find out more about the team’s fun night out on the town, DMC’s commitment to company culture, plus a few details about Ragtime’s award-winning revival.

The NYC Office’s Outing to the Theater

The show itself went off without a hitch, and the team sat back and watched Broadway stars like Joshua Henry, Caissie Levy, Brandon Uranowitz, and an ensemble cast trip the light fantastic. Everyone who attended the show had great things to say about the performances and production, “The show had so much talent! I was so excited to see Shaina Taub because I loved Suffs,” Megan added. For Leo Herman, the show’s staging really stood out: “I really enjoyed the staging—there was one part where the entire back of the stage opened up to reveal this huge space, and it was super cool!”

In true New York fashion, the nine team members hopped on the uptown 1 train after work to the Lincoln Center Complex. They stopped briefly at the theater’s pond to snap a picture (see if you can spot the DMCer who accidentally fell in). And then it was curtain call, and the team took their seats in the Vivian Beaumont Theater’s mezzanine. “The Lincoln Center is cool because it’s small and round, so you’re always pretty close to the action,” Megan Flynn remarked about the iconic venue.

The NYC office is no stranger to evenings out at the theater. At least once a year, they try to come together to see a show playing at one of the many theaters in New York. It just so happens Ragtime has received some real critical acclaim this time around, including a few Tony awards.

Ragtime

Ragtime is based on the 1974 book of the same name, written by E.L. Doctorow. Set in the early 20th century, it weaves together the stories of three distinct groups in the United States. African American life reflected through the story of Coalhouse Walker Jr., a talented Harlem musician. The white upper class represented by Mother, the matriarch of a prosperous family in New Rochelle, New York. And a story of the immigrant experience told through Tateh, a Jewish newcomer from Latvia. “We had no idea what to expect, but we all thought the show handled its themes very well,” Megan remembered about the production.

Alongside these fictional narratives, the musical also features prominent historical figures, including Harry Houdini, Booker T. Washington, J. P. Morgan, Henry Ford, Emma Goldman, and others.

The 2026 revival stars Caissie Levy as Mother, Joshua Henry as Coalhouse, and Brandon Uranowitz as Tateh, and was nominated for eleven Tony Awards, winning four, including Best Revival of a Musical. The cast even performed the show’s opening number at the 79th Tony Awards this year.

DMC’s Commitment to Culture

From catching the train together to taking in an award-winning performance, the NYC team’s night at Ragtime is a great example of how DMC team members make time for connection beyond the office. Events like these highlight the importance of building strong relationships across teams, creating shared experiences, and celebrating the vibrant cities where we work.

Whether it’s an evening on Broadway, a cake tasting, or a day of skiing, DMC’s commitment to company culture fosters collaboration, creativity, and camaraderie. And as this memorable night at the theater shows, sometimes the best way to strengthen a team is to enjoy something extraordinary together. And despite the little mishap, falling into the fountain before the show, Jackie still had a great time.

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To address this, DMC applies modern version control, continuous integration, and continuous deployment practices widely used in traditional software development. These processes, and the software that enables these processes, seek to lower the barrier between development (Dev) and operations (Ops). This blog will review how to apply the foundational DevOps principle of version control to Rockwell PLCs.

Version Control and Git

Version control systems (VCS) are essential for applying modern DevOps practices to Rockwell PLC development. These systems help create a standardized and reliable way for teams to collaboratively develop, manage, and test code efficiently.

Git, which is a distributed version control system (DVCS) originally created by Linus Torvalds, enables effective collaboration among developers through useful features such as branching and merging. Some of the key concepts to understand in Git include the following:

Local/Remote Repository

A full copy of the entire code base is synchronized to a developer’s local repository. This means that each developer has their own complete version of the project on their computer. Developers can then synchronize their code changes with others by pushing their updates to the remote repository and pulling changes from it into their local repository. This process allows multiple developers to collaborate effectively by keeping their work up to date and integrated with the team’s overall progress.

Non-Linear Development

Multiple developers can work on different features simultaneously without interfering with each other. Git facilitates this by allowing branching, merging, and pulling code changes. It also has built-in data integrity mechanisms that help prevent lost changes and keep the history consistent

The main branch of code is called “main” or, in legacy systems, “master”. This branch should generally be the head of development and is the only branch present when first starting a project.

Other branches of development branch off from main, usually with a focus on implementing a specific feature or fixing a specific bug. After this code is completed, it is merged back into main (which can be configured to require appropriate permissions), and then usually either deleted or compressed into a single commit.

Local Repository Command

These core Git commands interact directly with your PC’s local repository. It is important to note that these commands do not affect the remote repository, which requires a different set of commands that will be covered next.

• Branch: This command allows you to create a copy of an existing branch, usually the main branch, so you can work on new features separately without affecting the main codebase.
  • This command stages your changes, preparing them for commit to the active branch. It essentially tells Git which changes you want to include in the next commit.
• Commit: This command saves the staged changes to the active branch, creating a new snapshot of your project at that point in time.
• Merge: This command combines two branches into a single branch, allowing you to integrate changes from different lines of development.

The following additional commands are also commonly used as part of the normal git workflow. These commands are typically utilized by more experienced developers who are comfortable with advanced git operations and want to manage their code more effectively.

• Stash: This command allows you to temporarily save the changes you have made to your modified files in your current working branch without committing them. This is useful when you want to switch contexts or branches but are not yet ready to commit your work.
• Switch: This command is used to move between different active branches of development within your repository. It enables you to quickly and efficiently switch your working branch, making it possible to work across features or fixes.
• Diff: This command compares two different branches and highlights the differences between the files contained in each. It is particularly useful for reviewing changes, understanding what has been modified, and preparing for merges or code reviews.

Remote Repository Commands

These commands and concepts are commonly used to facilitate interaction between the local repository on your personal computer and a remote repository hosted on a server. They help synchronize and manage changes efficiently across different environments:

• Fetch: This command downloads commits, branches, and tags from a remote repository into your local repository. It allows you to see changes made by others without merging them into your working branch immediately.
• Pull: This command fetches changes from the remote branch and then merges those changes directly into your current working branch. It is a convenient way to update your local branch to the latest remote changes in a single step.
• Push: This command sends your committed changes from the local working branch to the designated remote branch. It is used to share your updates with others and keep the remote repository up to date with your work.

Merging

When developing, code differences and conflicts can arise when multiple developers work on the same file across different branches. When this occurs during a merge, it is called a merge conflict and must be resolved.

This is easily handled in traditional text-based programming environments using standard compare-and-merge tools like VSCode (free), which includes functionality for merging text files.

The following example shows a basic Python merge in VS Code. In this example, we had a main branch that was split off into another development branch, foo, which had its own function and function call added. During that time, the bar function and function call were added to our main branch. Because both branches modified the same file, a merge conflict was created. To resolve this conflict, we called git mergetool -t vscode to bring up the VS Code merge functionality. Git automatically understood what files to merge and what program to call because we configured the VS Code merge tool earlier.

The image of VS Code shows both branches (left/right) being merged, as well as the final merge result at the bottom of the screen. It is important to note that the developer could have chosen to merge the calls to the foo/bar functions without actually merging the function definitions. This makes this tool very powerful, but not error-proof.

For programs that are not text-based or are overly complicated to merge by hand, additional merge tools can be configured to simplify these conflicts.

Git and Logix Designer Compare Tool

As part of their standard product offering, Rockwell provides the Logix Designer Compare Tool to allow visual merging of Rockwell PLC code and to identify differences between PLC code. See the full Getting Results Guide from Rockwell.

This application not only offers a GUI for starting compare/merge operations, but also provides a full command-line interface to run them automatically. Based on our previous example with VS Code, the Logix Designer Compare Tool can be configured as a full git merge tool using the following commands. The path to the application can vary depending on where the tool is installed, which is accounted for by the additional path command.

git config --global merge.tool rockwell_merge

git config --global mergetool.rockwell_merge.path 'C:\Program Files (x86)\Rockwell Software\\'

git config --global mergetool.rockwell_merge.cmd 'RSLCompare.exe -m \$LOCAL \$REMOTE \$BASE'

After configuring the Rockwell merge tool, the development workflow operates exactly the same as if developing with a text-based language like Python, i.e., using standard commit, branch, merge, and push/pull commands.

Repeating the foo and bar example from earlier with Rockwell, I created a Studio 5000 ACD project with a single program/rung. From there, I created two branches of development:

• Foo – JSR to a new Foo routine, with basic logic
• Bar – JSR to the new Bar routine, with basic logic

When merging these branches, I encountered a merge conflict because the ACD file in both branches had been modified. I can resolve this by calling git mergetool -t rockwell_merge. This will tell git to take the file from both branches, as well as the base file they both originated from, and perform a three-way merge. The left content is the local branches, the right content is the remote branch, and the center content is the base branch that the local/remote branches diverged from. The following images show how this merge works:

After selecting all of our changes, we will select File → Save As… to save the resulting ACD file over our existing ACD file in our local repository. After we close the merge application, we can commit the merge result and push to our remote repository. Once this change is in the remote repository, other developers can use the same method to synchronize their code changes, enabling accelerated system development and programming.

Next Steps in DevOps

This tutorial introduced the basic concepts of Git, how to configure merge tools, and how to leverage them for Rockwell-based PLC development. Over the next few blogs in this series, we will review how to leverage Git and GitLab for continuous integration and continuous deployment (CI/CD).

In the meantime, you can work on refining your git skills and workflow with the following free resources:

• Git – Learn
• Git and GitHub learning resources – GitHub Docs
• Git Tutorials and Training | Atlassian Git Tutorial

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