Features

Journey to Excellence: Focus for OpsManage’11

Mid November 2011 was a busy time for Invensys Operations Management‘s team as the Gold Coast played host to OpsManage’11, the company’s Australia and New Zealand User Conference.

"Structured around the theme ‘Journey to Excellence’, OpsManage’11 focused on applying technology to empower people and drive business optimisation across manufacturing and production enterprises," explains Ng Kim Meng, Vice-President & Managing Director, Invensys Operations Management, Australia & New Zealand.

The sessions were organised around four streams: Process Control, SCADA, Business Intelligence and Safety & Critical Control.

Demo Alley offered hands-on demonstrations of solutions from Invensys Operations Management brands Avantis, Eurotherm, Foxboro, SimSci-Esscor, Triconex and Wonderware and partners.

The speaker line-up included presentations from users BP Bulwer Island Refinery, Newcrest Mining, Saab Security and Woodside, among others.

Kim Meng is pleased with the attendance which saw around a hundred professionals from customer companies turn up for the event. "This is a 25 percent increase over last year," he told PACE.

Invensys also used OpsManage’11 to showcase some of the 70 new products the company are launching through financial year 2011/12.

"Structured around the theme 'Journey to Excellence', OpsManage’11 focused on applying technology to empower people and drive business optimisation across manufacturing and production enterprises," explains Ng Kim Meng, Vice-President & Managing Director, Invensys Operations Management, Australia & New Zealand."Skelta has been a fantastic acquisition for us," explains Kim Meng (pictured alongside).

"Skelta’s suite of Business Process Management solutions have been integrated as “Archestra Workflow” into our Wonderware System Platform.

"We’re embedding business process management functionality into our applications allowing our customers to improve their procedures, consistency, meet regulatory compliances and safety standards.

"Skelta’s suite of Business Process Management solutions have been integrated as “Archestra Workflow” into our Wonderware System Platform.

"We’re embedding business process management functionality into our applications allowing our customers to improve their procedures, consistency, meet regulatory compliances and safety standards.

"One of the conference highlights was the site visit to the BP Bulwer Island Refinery. "The full suite of Invensys hardware and software is used at that site," explains Kim Meng. "This includes DCS, safety, simulation, advanced applications."

Soon after the event, Invensys Operations Management announced the next major evolution of its Foxboro I/A Series distributed control system.Soon after the event, Invensys Operations Management announced the next major evolution of its Foxboro I/A Series distributed control system.

As the core DCS component of the company’s InFusion Enterprise Control System, the latest I/A Series system includes an Intelligent Marshalling solution and Foxboro Control Software and Simulation software, which reduce total cost of ownership and expand traditional DCS functionality for enhanced collaboration, execution and visibility across the enterprise.

With traditional control systems, field wiring must be sorted out in a marshalling cabinet before it is connected to the main I/O module terminal strips of the DCS panel.

It’s an inflexible approach that often leads to expensive indirect costs. But because the I/A Series Intelligent Marshalling solution features the Universal Fieldbus Module, a per-channel, configurable I/O module that supports a variety of analogue and digital signal types, it eliminates the need for marshalling entirely.

“Unlike other control offerings on the market today, with Intelligent Marshalling, each channel is software configurable on a per-point basis, with no extra hardware required.

All configurations can be done at the workstation, meaning you can securely configure a point from anywhere in the world. It is a simple, elegant solution that eliminates traditional marshalling panels as we know it,” said Thad Frost, director of fieldbus product management, Invensys Operations Management.

Designed to simplify engineering efforts and improve the user experience, Foxboro Control Software 3.0 embeds the company’s Wonderware System Platform and InTouch HMI within the Foxboro I/A Series system, applying common object technology from process control up to the business system level and out to any third-party system.

This allows users to integrate all of their plant devices, systems, databases and software applications.

Additionally, enhanced integration with the latest advanced software applications from Invensys, including its mobile workforce management and workflow offerings, provide more systems flexibility, adaptability and responsiveness, helping to drive lower total cost of ownership.

By enabling real-time access to critical plant and business data, users are better able to balance competing strategic objectives related to controls, assets, environment, safety and people to optimise their overall business and achieve operational excellence.

The new Foxboro Control Software Simulation 3.0 offering simulates Foxboro Control Software 3.0 applications for rapid, high-quality systems checkout without the need for control hardware.

Simulation capabilities include dynamic control of time, alarms and trends using the same configuration files that are used in a live I/A Series DCS.

The software also provides an instant interface to the company’s SimSci-Esscor DYNSIM, Foxboro FSIM and Triconex TRISIM dynamic simulation engines, which are used to simulate plant operations, behaviour and responses in conjunction with the DCS or simulated DCS.

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