It's exciting to discuss the virtues of collecting and storing years of process data with engineers and operators.  We often hear the ideas that are exchanged about what could be done and how the process could operate more efficiently if data was available to key individuals.  It has struck me recently how many times these data historian discussions seem limited by the fear of budget and deployment time.  Generally, by the end of a preliminary discussion, someone at the table sighs and makes a statement like, "It would be nice, but I'm sure the investment would be too much to consider".