PLCs, DCSs & Controllers


Yokogawa ensures uptime in the mill

February 2017 PLCs, DCSs & Controllers

Yokogawa’s Centum VP is proving its premium uptime guarantee of 99.99999%, ensuring Yokogawa’s sugar clients have total control of their mills and refineries at all times during the milling season.

This is achieved by Yokogawa’s unique Pair and Spare architecture, a patented quadruple modular redundancy design. This unique feature of the Centum series improves the stability of process control. Each processor module has redundant CPUs that execute the same realtime computations simultaneously. Their outputs are constantly compared and a bumpless switchover to the standby processor module is initiated if any anomalies, caused by electronic noise or other phenomena, are detected. This minimises the likelihood of errors having any impact on process control. Yokogawa’s Pair and Spare technology is the key to achieving 99.99999% of uptime availability.

New developments ensuring lowered total cost of ownership

Network I/O, the next generation software configurable smart I/O, reduces footprint, lowers marshalling costs and allows flexible I/O binding. Matched with the FieldMate Validator, Yokogawa’s commissioning tool, significantly faster project completion and reduced costs are achieved without compromising on quality.

Future operating systems

Secure migration paths relating to the ever changing Windows environment also ensures that clients are empowered to adapt quickly and implement the new operating systems.

Data transparency

The introduction of Yokogawa’s Exaquantum Data Historian to the sugar industry demonstrates the well-known fact that plant data is the basis for all solutions in the process industry. As such, data must be easily captured and accessible to ensure longterm improvement opportunities. Based on open standards, Yokogawa’s data historian and Production Information Management System (PIMS) solution captures data easily to provide a valuable bedrock. Yokogawa’s solution is especially unique in that implementation costs are significantly lower when compared to the alternatives.

From incoming cane to sugar output, plant information must be available in order to drive improvements. In order to access the vast amounts of process information from a plant, and use the information effectively, users require a system that presents the collected information in a timely way that is both concise and easy to understand.

Fitting seamlessly into the existing infrastructure, a PIMS system allows managers, engineers and operators to obtain appropriate information suitable for their job role.

Batch data historian

Yokogawa’s Exaquantum/Batch is an intelligent ISA-88 Batch Information System providing verified analysis and reporting facilities that collect, store and display current and historical data from sugar batch production, equipment and recipe viewpoints.

This enables easy user access to batch information for decision support, production planning, production scheduling, analysis, process improvement, quality and legislative compliance purposes.

Production supervision

RPO Production Supervisor VP is a core component of Yokogawa’s real-time production management suite, whose unified platform enables the unlocking of the true potential of one’s valuable production assets.

Production Supervisor VP monitors and visualises KPIs, inventory and process data by effectively collating key production and quality information, which enables users to see live production performance information via its easy-to-configure user interface. It aids problem-solving and the identification of root causes along with possible countermeasures using the system’s drill-down functionality.

Linking with other information, such as historic process and event data, provides a valuable insight into diagnosing sugar production problems. Production Supervisor promotes management by exception by utilising KPIs. This dramatically reduces the amount of information that supervisory staff need to receive. Through the use of SharePoint web parts, users can quickly configure the required KPIs that can be grouped within a hierarchy.

Production Supervisor brings fundamental benefits to sugar production management. These include facilitating timely and effective decision making, the promotion of proactive problem solving, possible root cause identification and eliminating information overload by presenting context and role-based information supporting health and safety, environment and financial regulatory compliance.

Summary

Yokogawa provides sugar manufactures with a wide range of automation and control possibilities, which are coupled with intelligent Management Information Systems (MIS) to assist plant management, maintenance personnel and operational staff to optimse production, reduce losses and improve profits.

For more information contact Christie Cronje, Yokogawa South Africa, +27 (0)11 831 6300, christie.cronje@za.yokogawa.com, www.yokogawa.com/za



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