Matrikon has recently announced the release of the Matrikon Industrial UA Modbus Gateway, housed in a small form factor gateway that provides secure, powerful and broad connectivity to access data from RTU’s, PLCs or any other devices that use the Mobus data protocol.

As a native Modbus communicator, the UA Modbus Gateway can connect to any device that uses the standard Modbus protocol both over Serial or Ethernet connections on one side and makes it securely available to OPC UA clients on the other via OPC UA over Ethernet. Unlike Modbus, OPC UA, the next generation of OPC - the de facto standard for open standards based data connectivity, offers all the features Modbus lacks such as: security, reliability, and data modelling. The UA Modbus Gateway allows data sharing via UA as natural next step up from using Modbus.

“The UA Modbus Gateway is a great example of the power and versatility OPC UA has to offer when embedded in a small, rugged field device. From pump stations and plants, to off-shore rigs - there is strong demand for secure, reliable data connectivity right to the data source without a PC in the middle. Matrikon OPC UA Gateway answers this demand directly – making OPC UA data sharing as fast and easy as the Modbus protocol it interfaces with.“ said Darek Kominek, marketing manager of MatrikonOPC.

Matrikon Industrial UA Modbus Gateway is well suited for challenging situations that include:

• limited power availability in remote conditions

• remote or unmanned stations that need data collection

• limited space requiring a compact solution

• operation in extreme temperatures and/or dusty environments

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National Instruments has announced NI InsightCM Enterprise, a new software solution that helps companies gain insight into the health of their capital equipment for machine maintenance and operations. With more than 15 years of experience in condition monitoring, NI developed NI InsightCM Enterprise as its first end-to-end software solution that addresses Big Analog Data challenges and builds on the industrial Internet of Things.

Using NI InsightCM Enterprise, companies can cost-effectively monitor both critical and ancillary rotating machinery, which helps them gain a more holistic view of their fleets and manage operational risk while maintaining profitability and production efficiency. The enterprise solution solves the data management, data analysis and systems management challenges that are common in Big Analog Data applications. Its inherent flexibility and open architecture make it an ideal choice for meeting evolving diagnostic program requirements.

NI InsightCM Enterprise acquires and analyzes sensory information, generates alarms and allows maintenance specialists to remotely diagnose machine faults. Ready-to-run condition monitoring systems based on the CompactRIO hardware platform can acquire from a wide range of sensors for improved fault diagnoses. This hardware and software solution simplifies the configuration of and measurements from thousands of sensors, so users can remotely monitor device health, configure channels and upgrade firmware on deployed systems.

This online condition monitoring solution is ideal for companies in a variety of industries, including oil and gas, power generation, mining, rail and industrial manufacturing, that need to optimize machine performance, maximize uptime, reduce maintenance costs and increase safety.

Key Benefits:

• Cost-effective: Lowers the instrumentation cost for monitoring both critical and other plant equipment at a fleet-wide scale

• Open: Offers open software architecture to access data and gain interoperability with third-party enterprise software packages, such as CMMSs, database historians and prognostics tools

• Easily scalable: Scales from one to hundreds of nodes per NI InsightCM Enterprise server and replicates one solution at multiple facilities

• Flexible: Incorporates CompactRIO to adapt to changing sensory needs while maintaining the user’s investment in the platform

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/Honeywell Process Solutions has announced that its DynAMo™ alarm management technology is improving safety and productivity at more than 100 process plants and pipelines around the world by helping operators better and more quickly evaluate alarm situations in control rooms.

Plants and pipelines are increasingly relying on numerous automation systems, which can produce more than 1,000 system alarms in a given day. The number of alarms can often overwhelm operators, a problem that leads to lower production and increased safety incidents that cost the process industry billions of dollars every year, according to the Abnormal Situation Management® (ASM) Consortium, an industry group dedicated to advancing process technology.

"The DynAMo solution, which was launched in November 2013, allows plant operators to tune out noise and focus on critical situations by more efficiently managing and evaluating alarms," said Ali Raza, vice president and general manager, Honeywell Process Solutions. "This allows operators to more easily detect and prevent problems, and to develop and implement effective alarm management strategies aligned with industry-recognized guidelines and standards."

DynAMo is based on Honeywell's 20-plus years of alarm management experience in the process industries. DynAMo reduces control room alarms by up to 80 percent by allowing operators to create customizable dashboards on computers or mobile devices that allow them to view the alarm system health at a glance. This allows operators to better and more quickly diagnosis alarms and their causes and consequence on one console.

Honeywell has licensed DynAMo technology at plants in Australia, Canada, Japan, Saudi Arabia, and the United Kingdom, among others, as companies work to increase the efficiencies of their control rooms.

Richard Wawrzon, process engineering and control team leader for Qenos Pty Ltd., Australia's leading supplier of polyethylene and polymers, said, "High quality tools to manage and maintain process alarm systems are critical to running petrochemical plants. Honeywell's DynAMo Alarm Suite has sensibly integrated analysis, documentation and notification tools to provide support engineers with an efficient way to stay in control of process alarm systems. Once process safety is being looked after, key resources can focus on production efficiency."

As a global alarm management solution provider, Honeywell recognized the severity of alarm problems at industrial sites and delivered an effective tool for assisting in optimizing alarm management programs, which are intended to prevent alarm floods and reduce operator loading. With the DynAMo Alarm Suite, personnel can monitor alarm issues based on their specific roles and take action before abnormal situations escalate. A new, customizable, role-based dashboard enables operators, engineers and managers to view the health of their alarm system at a glance. The software has added mobile device compatibility for viewing alarm metrics at any time, from almost any location.

Chris Lucas, gas control team leader for Alliance Pipeline in Canada, said, "We chose Honeywell to provide our alarm management solution because its DynAMo Alarm Suite will help us meet our alarm philosophy and control room management plan objectives. Honeywell's involvement with the ASM Consortium and the American Petroleum Institute also weighed into our decision, as did integration with the control system of our choice."

DynAMo Alarm Suite works with any control system as well as complementing Honeywell's Experion® PKS system. The alarm software provides a single window into alarm system performance and regulatory compliance, helping companies adhere to industry standards such as ISA 18.2, EEMUA 191, API 1167, and PHMSA.

Honeywell also provides a variety of services to help customers get the most out of their alarm management strategy. This includes alarm rationalization, alarm philosophy and strategy, workshops, best practices training and other services to enable customers to focus on alarm management priorities.

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Schneider Electric, the global specialist in energy management, is first to introduce a unified supply chain management solution for the hydrocarbon processing industry. Built on its ground-breaking Spiral Suite platform, the new offering closes the value gaps left by poorly integrated legacy tools. By improving collaboration across the refinery, Spiral Suite software helps traders, planners and schedulers make reliable decisions, manage risks and ultimately increase profitability.

“Spiral Suite promises to transform the refinery business environment from being a place where hundreds of people work in isolation—not seeing or understanding how their bits of individual work contribute to the whole—to a place where workers first see and understand how their decisions impact others and then cooperate to collectively unlock the maximum value of their economic forecasts,” said Ravi Gopinath, Ph.D., executive vice president, Schneider Electric Global Solutions, Software Business.

“The latest advances to our Spiral Suite toolset achieve, above and beyond, what many refiners and vendors have tried and failed to do with legacy solutions: It improves understanding and cooperation between traders, planners and schedulers and replaces several disjointed point solutions with a single, easy-to-use application. In short, it increases transparency and collaboration across different business groups, enabling our customers to make the best overall decisions for safety and profitability while taking better advantage of new opportunities presented by the market. It’s a great example of the new, game-changing technology Schneider Electric will continue to introduce to help our customers plan and manage their future.”

Spiral Suite users can contribute to and add value to one another’s decision making without the risk of overwriting data or causing downstream processing issues at the plant. Combined with powerful, intuitive visualizations, everyone is able to view, understand and respond to incidents. All refinery activities are supported within a single, highly intuitive environment, and accurate, up-to-date information is available across the business. Planners can see future scheduling constraints; schedulers can assess their decisions against commercial impact and operational feasibility. Users from different disciplines and locations are now able to work together effectively to create the most flexible, optimal plan for any set of circumstances, unlocking potential cost savings and margin improvements that could total millions of dollars each year.

“With Spiral Suite, even novice planners can be up and running within a week, rather than after a year of training it would normally take with heritage products,” said Peter Reynolds, senior consultant with ARC Advisory Group. “In an industry where challenges are coming from every direction, companies risk losing out if they continue to apply outdated work processes that rely on experts. In some cases, optimized production planning is only achieved through knowledge held by a small number of people and naturally collaborative working relationships. As these experts retire, more companies are looking to invest in a sustainable solution that supports the younger, more mobile workforce. Spiral Suite offers exceptional ease-of-use, meaning users can perform all the necessary analytics and backcasting to make profitable, risk-adjusted feedstock purchasing and refinery planning decisions within weeks of licensing.”

Spiral Suite’s SaaS deployment model, off-the-shelf integration and exceptional ease of use mean the application can be learned within days. Legacy point solutions can be replaced quickly and simply, without incurring the high cost of implementing or maintaining data transfer. Inadequate, unsupported integration bridges are removed, as is the need for application experts and extensive training courses, which lowers total cost of ownership. Data from in-house and external systems can be made available automatically within workflows, and people from across the business can work in parallel to build the supply chain model within weeks, without needing to know matrix math.

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