As the next step in its 'Vigilance campaign' started in 2003, Yokogawa Electric Corporation and its group of companies have launched VigilantPlant, a concept that brings together the Yokogawa suite of products and services for plant optimisation that it believes sets a new standard for world-class process control and automation.
Yokogawa continues to pour significant investment into research and development and VigilantPlant spearheads the evolution of the Yokogawa Vigilance campaign, the company's commitment to industry.
Launched at the ARC Forum on 2 February, 2005, in Florida and presented by Yokogawa's president and CEO, Isao Uchida, VigilantPlant has been introduced to bring world-class operational excellence to the global industrial automation market.
The Vigilance approach to business provides Yokogawa customers with a special long-term relationship that reduces total cost of ownership, enables business through new insights and capabilities, and secures a lifetime of plant efficiency.
VigilantPlant benefits from this quality heritage as it brings together the company's products and services to create an environment where plant operators and other personnel are watchful and attentive, well informed, and ready to take action. Through solutions and services designed to help plant personnel see clearly, know in advance, and act with agility, the VigilantPlant philosophy eliminates unplanned downtime, improves asset utilisation, and allows businesses to adapt to shifting market conditions and customer demands quickly and efficiently.
Empowering plant personnel
Seeing clearly is the starting point and foundation of the VigilantPlant philosophy. It means there is a clear visibility of plant information in the form of stable and accurate realtime information exchange throughout the plant. With fewer blind spots in the plant, plant personnel can avoid guesswork and sub-optimisation.
Knowing in advance is the next step that uses the improved visibility to anticipate the changes required in the plant and the process. It utilises predictive intelligence that anticipates changes for effective planning and optimisation. Encountering fewer surprises, plant personnel can minimise reactive measures and unexpected downtime.
Acting with agility completes the cycle, making effective use of the information provided in steps one and two. This step is characterised by fast, intelligent decisions that improve the responsiveness and adaptability of plant operations. Resilient operation free of bottlenecks reduces delays and lost opportunities.
This See/Know/Act approach is grounded in Yokogawa's vision to help transform the role of plant personnel, particularly that of operators, from reacting to problems to making intelligent decisions about the process to optimise plant and business performance.
Yokogawa's roadmap for the future
Looking back at his earlier career as a factory manager at various Yokogawa manufacturing facilities around the world, Isao Uchida said: "The famed futurist, Peter Drucker, once mentioned that a well-managed plant looks silent and boring. I share the same feeling based on my experience in factory and production control. What I hated most was surprise. VigilantPlant is our vision of the ideal plant, where people are focusing their time and energy on building tomorrow's successes rather than solving yesterday's mistakes."
The company is committed to developing and delivering VigilantPlant operational excellence solutions to those areas of plant operations that have significant potential for further improvement. Asset management and safety management are two such areas where the company's VigilantPlant solutions can help improve asset utilisation and thereby contribute to the productivity initiatives of automation users worldwide. As an integral part of the VigilantPlant operational excellence solution for safety management, Yokogawa has released a new integrated safety management system, ProSafe-RS. The company plans to extend its VigilantPlant operational excellence philosophy to such areas as production management and performance management, where it already supplies a suite of practical and field-proven solutions.
With operational excellence solutions geared to automation users' future business needs, the VigilantPlant concept is aimed at transforming the way modern plants are designed and operated; the future will see plants that are operated and managed utilising knowledge provided by fast paced and adaptive information, control systems and support services. VigilantPlant will support customers and achieve smooth and reliable operation of their plants in a constantly changing business environment. This quiet, calm efficiency in control rooms is the hallmark of VigilantPlant.
About Yokogawa
Yokogawa's global network of 18 manufacturing facilities, 82 affiliate companies, and over 650 sales and engineering offices spans 28 countries. Since its founding in 1915, the US$4 billion company has been engaged in cutting-edge research and innovation, securing more than 7000 patents and registrations, including the world's first digital sensors for flow and pressure measurement. Industrial automation and control, test and measurement, information systems and industry support are the core businesses of Yokogawa.
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.
The main Yokogawa product groupings are: recorders, controllers, transmitters, flowmeters, analytical (liquid and gas) as well as distributed control systems. The company is also an exclusive distributor for American Meter and Dresser gas equipment, Barksdale pressure and level devices and Kinetrol Actuators.
For more information contact Bennie Cilliers, Yokagawa SA, 011 681 2500, [email protected], www.yokogawa.com/eu
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