Control system process functionality enhanced

Yokogawa Electric Corp has released a new version of its flagship integrated production control system.

Yokogawa Electric Corp announces the development of Centum CS 3000 R3 Release 3.08, a new version of the company's flagship integrated production control system.

The enhanced functionality of the new version allows the integrated use of data from throughout a plant and eases the task of creating an environment for the efficient monitoring of plant operations.

In addition, an alarm and event integration function has been introduced that sends only optimal alarms to the right person at the right time.

This counters the increase in information - in particular, the increased number of alarms that are generated as a result of system integration - and contributes to the implementation of safe operations.

The world's first Consolidated Alarm Management Software Package for Human Interface Station (CAMS for HIS) is provided for alarm integration, and is based on the Consolidated Alarm Management System (CAMS) concept.

This offers a real-time alarm management function that works in harmony with a distributed control system (DCS) and provides multiple approaches to alarm management.

Yokogawa has enhanced the gateway functions of its distributed control system (DCS) in order to achieve integration of the operation and monitoring of other vendors' DCSs and programmable controllers (PLCs).

In petroleum, chemical, iron and steel, and other plants, DCSs such as the Centum CS 3000 are used in the main production processes.

Remote terminal units (RTUs) are used in upstream oil processing plants, LNG terminals, and other remotely located facilities.

PLCs are used mainly in electrical, drainage, and other types of peripheral facilities, and in loading and unloading processes.

Efficient integration and monitoring of plant operations are accomplished by integrating these controls into DCSs, serving the core responsibility of process control as well as that of operation and monitoring around the clock.

To meet the needs of the market, Yokogawa has also developed the CAMS for HIS embedded DCS software based on the CAMS concept.

Operators are being asked to respond to a greater number and variety of alarm and event messages as plants increase in sise, control rooms become more integrated, and processes grow more complex.

It is expected that DCSs will relieve operators from alarm flooding and ensure that important alarms are not overlooked.

System Integration OPC Station (SIOS) gateway functionality has been enhanced for the Centum CS 3000 R3 to operate and monitor subcontrol systems used in other processes.

Operators can control and monitor subsystems connected to the Centum CS 3000 without being aware of the differences in the systems because it has the same 'look and feel'.

Moreover, the data linkage with the Yokogawa Stardom network control system has been further enhanced to realise higher-level integration in operation and monitoring.

OPC stands for Object Linking and Embedding for Process Control, the standard interface for connecting control and measurement systems.

Based on Microsoft's object linking and embedding technology, it enables different systems from different vendors to exchange data without barriers.

Yokogawa is a member of the OPC Foundation, the US-based nonprofit organisation that promotes this interface, and the OPC Council, Japan, the Japanese regional organisation of the OPC Foundation.

CAMS for HIS, the newly incorporated alarm management package, has been developed based on the CAMS concept.

CAMS for HIS can integrate and control alarms from the CENTUM CS 3000, the ProSafe-RS Safety Instrumented System, Plant Resource Manager (PRM), and Stardom.

CAMS for HIS collects alarms and events from each system, identifies expressions, and eclipses duplicate alarms.

This package also provides value-added alarm information such as priority level, sorting identifier, root cause and action to be taken.

It helps to reduce alarm flooding, which may cause critical plant problems, and ensures safe operations.

In addition, it relieves operators from cumbersome alarm acknowledgment tasks to let them concentrate on the control and monitoring of the process itself.

Main target markets and applications for the new system include process control and monitoring of plants in industries such as petroleum, petrochemicals, chemicals, pulp and paper, pharmaceuticals, food, iron and steel, and water and sewage treatment.

In 1975, Yokogawa became the world's first company to introduce a distributed control system.

The Centum CS 3000 R3 Integrated Production Control System is the newest product in the Centum series.

More than 18,500 systems have been delivered around the world for use in petroleum, natural gas, chemical, and other types of process plants.

Yokogawa continues to introduce new functions with functional continuity, and realises an open architecture with high reliability.

These are the two main concepts of the Centum series, and Yokogawa steadily endeavours to comply with customers' needs, as well as to develop and improve the system with leading-edge technologies.

(Updated by CR, May 2007).

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