Yokogawa Electric Corporation has recently launched Stardom, a new, unique concept of industrial automation systems proposed by Yokogawa. The company intends to lead the industrial automation systems market with its distributed control systems (DCSs, product names: Centum CS 3000/1000 R3) and this new NCS (Stardom), an open-architecture system networking various distributed devices. The first delivery of the products is planned for the end of April, 2002.
To survive intensifying global competition, it has become a crucial task for the manufacturing industry to build a manufacturing system that can meet the requirements of lower costs and quick response to ever-changing demands. In line with this, Yokogawa has been striving to intensify the link of its DCS with the production management systems and to network field connections.
On the other hand, control systems need to be advanced in markets that have not been prime targets for DCSs. Such markets include control and monitoring of oil and gas wells distributed in a wide area, wide-area co-generation control and monitoring, and semiconductor manufacturing equipment and food-products manufacturing processes where autonomous control is required for individual processes or equipment. An unsophisticated control system consisting of a PC and programmable logic controllers (PLCs) has proven unreliable in many aspects including engineering efficiency, system expandability, and long-term stable supply of parts and components. These issues - and others - have prevented this means of control from being an acceptable solution. This allowed Yokogawa to discover a new niche market, positioned between the DCS market and PC plus PLC market, for a product with both flexible system configurations and necessary and sufficient reliability. For this reason, the company proposed the NCS and developed Stardom.
"These days, the functionality required for an industrial control system varies largely," according to Akira Nagashima, director and executive vice president of the Industrial Automation Systems Div. "It has become crucial to directly link the business operation to manufacturing, and enable seamless information communications with management information systems in order to have a more efficient enterprise business operation.
"While Yokogawa's DCSs - the Centum CS 3000 and Centum CS 3000 R3 - embody advanced and reliable controllability and affinity for management information systems, the need for a new control system is increasing in realms DCSs cannot cover. Yokogawa, which offers top-level technologies and proven achievements for plant control systems, has constantly aspired to innovate technologies in these realms, and under the new Yokogawa-proposed concept called NCS, new products have been developed for these new markets. We are now able to offer solutions for every kind of industrial automation system."
Stardom overview
The Stardom network-based control system is a series of products that constitutes an NCS. An NCS allows users to choose the optimum components for application from the provided components grouped by function, such as those for control, operations, or monitoring, and links them using leading-edge network technologies. This allows the use of COTS (commercial off-the-shelf) and thus offers the configuration of an open and efficient industrial automation system with flexible expandability and upgradability.
Stardom actualises an NCS by: (1) offering reliable controllers performing autonomous control as the core of a system; (2) linking integrated and scalable control, operation, and monitoring software featuring web-based human interface functionality with the autonomous controllers, via high-speed connections to the Internet to build a system; and (3) offering application portfolios that enable effortless implementation of advanced functions. It allows users to apply their know how in a secure manner.
Stardom allows distribution and autonomy of control functions, integration of data, messages, and events, and features a web-based human interface based on Internet technologies. It may well be the first system that makes the most of the Internet world in the sphere of control.
About Yokogawa
Yokogawa's global network of 18 manufacturing facilities, 69 affiliate companies and over 200 sales and engineering offices span 28 countries. Since its founding in 1915, the US$3 billion company has been engaged in research and innovation of the highest order, securing over 4500 patents and registrations, including the world's first DCS and digital flow and pressure measurement sensor. Industrial automation systems, test and measurement systems and information services are a core business of Yokogawa. For more information about Yokogawa Electric Corporation, visit www.yokogawa.com
About Yokogawa South Africa
Yokogawa South Africa was originally founded in 1978 as Delta Controls, the exclusive distributor of Yokogawa Process Control and Instrumentation (PCI) products in South Africa. In 1997 Delta Controls became a wholly owned subsidiary of Yokogawa Europe
With its head office in Johannesburg and branches in Vanderbijlpark, Durban and Cape Town, Yokogawa South Africa is fully capable of selling, engineering and supporting the full range of Yokogawa PCI products.
The main Yokogawa product groupings are: recorders, controllers, transmitters, flowmeters, analytical (liquid and gas) as well as distributed control systems. The company is also exclusive distributor for American Meter and Dresser gas equipment, Barksdale pressure and level devices and Kinetrol actuators.
Anna-Marie de Lange, Yokogawa South Africa
011 681 2500
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