Yokogawa promises open-plan DCS
11 Feb 2008
Process facilities usually employ a range of products from different suppliers to monitor and control operations such as plant information management, asset management, and operation support. These systems typically interface with many kinds of data sources, including, instrumentation protection systems and data historians. This, in turn, has led to a reliance on purpose-specific databases with applications running through dedicated HMIs to support the safe and efficient operation of process plants.
According to the Japanese vendor, its new system will provide a single plant database that serves all of the key functions in real time. This unified operating environment will improve information efficiency, enhance plant safety and agility and take plant profitability to “unforeseen levels,” Yokogawa officials claimed at a 7 Feb launch in Amsterdam.
"To achieve a unified production environment, we must expand the role of DCS, breaking down the barriers of those formerly isolated real-time databases,” said Anjo Wiegerinck, marketing manager at Yokogawa Europe. Yokogawa, he said, has developed Centum VP to provide a real-time database that serves all key real-time operation systems.
“All the key pieces will be seamlessly integrated so that changes made to one part is automatically reflected throughout the whole system, enabling the customer’s business to respond quickly and efficiently, Wiegerinck continued. “Such an integrated system will reduce customer ownership costs while maintaining system integrity. Furthermore, a common user interface will allow information users to access all the relevant information providing both short-term and long-term views in an intuitive, role-based manner.”
Process operators, however, will have to wait a while before realising these benefits. Centum VP will be introduced in phases starting with the launch of the HMI, which features intuitive icons and graphics to help end users to manage real-time information without overload. The HMI, said Wiegerinck, will be followed by a release later this year that will “usher in the real-time information that powers up the real-time operating core.”
Explaining the Centum VP “roadmap”, Wiegerinck said the new HMI will make sure the information users get more actionable information and less data, thereby making them ready for the new platform. He added: “Without an advanced and intuitive HMI information users will not be able to harvest the power of the new platform. The one thing we want to avoid is forcing a new technology on our customers and making the already information overload system even worse.”
