Answer
SCADA is a general term for a computer system for supervisory control. Its etymology is an acronym for Supervisory Control And Data Acquisition.
The general idea of a supervisory control system is that the components of the entire system can be broadly categorized into "upper" and "lower" levels, which can be just imagined as a pyramid-shaped model.
First, at the bottom of the pyramid are the actual devices and machinery that are subject to monitoring and control. For example, machine tools and production lines in factories, air conditioning and lighting equipment in commercial facilities and buildings, power receiving and transforming equipment, and many other types of equipment.
Next, it is the "lower side system" (instrumentation system) that compiles the control signals of the actual devices in those facilities and is responsible for the actual control of the equipment.
SCADA is positioned at the top of the pyramid and is called the "upper system". It provides many functions as a bridge between humans and machines, such as communication driver functions to connect to PLCs, graphic screens (GUI) for monitoring and operation, data loggers and trend graphs to record signal values, and alarm monitoring functions to monitor equipment alarm conditions.
FA-Panel is a SCADA package software for building upper level systems.