Supervisory Control And Data Acquisition

Controlsoft comes with two divisions including industrial automation and control systems, manufacturing execution systems. Management execution systems are used to represent modern manufacturing process. This process is carried out in three different layers.

The bottom layer consists of automation and control systems that can be incorporated to SCADA and PLC controls. The top layer is the corporate business administration systems and it consists of enterprise packages like prism, SAP, JD Edwards. This top and bottom layer is bound together by Manufacturing Execution Systems to create a path for information and data from the factory floor to corporate planning level.

Manufacturing Execution System offers solutions that leverage the existing architecture and maximise the capability of existing plant automation systems. Services from installation to commissioning are dome by Manufacturing Execution Systems. Services offered include project management, procurement, project specification, process optimisation, MES software development, IT services and network integration.

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InduSoft announces Service Pack 4 (SP4) for InduSoft Web Studio. Based on customer feedback, Service Pack 4 promises to improve productivity, increase flexibility, and enhance the operator/machine interface.

For starters, SP4 enables a vastly superior interface for connecting to SQL databases and ERP systems. Operators and engineers can now execute any SQL statement from a Windows CE Client or an InduSoft Web Thin Client. Users can now create tables, insert records, and commit data using the standard InduSoft Web Studio interface within the limits of the applied security configuration.

This latest update also includes an enhanced interface for producing alarms, trends, and reports in the popular PDF file format. Customers can now optimize security, ensuring that final outputs cannot be altered by an operator or any other person in the process, enabling an ironclad audit trail.

According to Marcia Gadbois, VP of Business Development at InduSoft, this security enhancement is absolutely something to write home about: “We’re seeing a huge demand for security, in general, throughout the industry. Enabling our customers to understand the activity on their systems with unerring certainty is invaluable. Executives and even plant supervisors need the confidence that the data they collect about systems and system users is accurate and unalterable.”

One other notable enhancement is a built-in unit conversion interface. Now, any scientific unit can be automatically converted to any other comparable unit-Fahrenheit to Celsius for example. Gadbois explained the significance this way. “Among other benefits, our customers can now instantly convert from the American system of measurement to the Metric system effortlessly.”

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There is a substantial market for pipeline security technology in both oil-producing and oil-consuming regions in the world. Depending on the location and age of the pipeline system, however, the required features of monitoring systems for asset integrity and pipeline defects differ and fall into different market segments.

In poor regions, the main threat to pipeline systems is theft. A damaging event can happen in any part of the pipeline which is often several hundreds of kilometers long. In this case, technology is needed which can detect minimal acoustic emissions over long distances. In order to meet the logistic and economic requirements of these regions, it is important to reduce the amount of monitoring stations. The inclusion of data transmission via satellite or existing Scada cables can help overcome geographical and financial limits in this set-up.

The monitoring situation is different in High Consequence Areas (HCA). These include highly populated areas in which pipelines are more susceptible to damage by building activities or accidents. A high density of sensor nodes and a good combination of different sensor types enable the arrangement of self-organizing networks thus increasing the assessment ability of the monitoring system.

A self-organized sensor network allows the monitoring system to work even if one or more sensors are damaged or destroyed. Detection devices that deal with the protection against terrorist attacks and sabotage on pipelines require further specific features such as power supply concept and self-protection function.

As regards the planning process and the installation of monitoring technology, it is generally useful to distinguish between existing pipeline systems which need new or up-dated protection devices and pipeline systems that are yet to be built. Both areas represent significant market potential for the monitoring and protection systems. As for the former, it has to be kept in mind that the financial and logistic effort of installing protections systems needs to be acceptable to the customer. This particularly concerns the installation of detection technology during times when the pipelines are in full operation.

The planning process for future pipelines poses different challenges and offers different new opportunities. The planning process should, at the earliest possible stage, include the consideration of the feasibility for embedded sensing devices in the manufacturing process and ensure the sensing functionality as a fix intelligent part of the modern pipeline.

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John D. McDonald, P.E., general manager of marketing for GE Energy’s transmission and distribution (T&D) business, has been invited by U.S. Secretary of Energy Samuel W. Bodman to serve a one-year term as a member of the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Electricity Advisory Committee (EAC).

The EAC, which reports to the Assistant Secretary for Electricity Delivery and Energy Reliability, is being established to enhance leadership in electricity delivery modernization and provide senior-level counsel to the DOE on ways in which the U.S. can overcome the many barriers to moving forward, including the deployment of smart grid technologies, research and development of energy storage technologies, renewable energy resource system integration and new transmission infrastructure.

The mission of the EAC is to assist the DOE’s Office of Electricity Delivery and Energy Reliability (OE) in implementing the Energy Policy Act of 2005, the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 and modernizing the nation’s electricity delivery infrastructure. The EAC has been established under the Federal Advisory Committee Act.

In his 34 years of experience in the electric utility industry, McDonald has developed power application software for both supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA)/ energy management system (EMS) and SCADA/distribution management system (DMS) applications, developed distribution automation and load management systems, managed SCADA/EMS and SCADA/DMS projects and assisted intelligent electronic device (IED) suppliers in the automation of their IEDs.

McDonald is past president of the IEEE PES, co-vice chair of the IEEE Standards Coordinating Committee 36, member of the IEC Technical Committee 57 Working Groups 3 and 10, a member of CIGRE and past chair of the IEEE PES Substations Committee. McDonald is the IEEE Division VII Director in 2008-2009 and is a member of the advisory committee for the annual DistribuTECH Conference as well as a charter member of Electricity Today magazine’s International Editorial Advisory Board.

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SCADAgroup Pty Ltd announced further expansion of their already comprehensive lineup of product and service companies with the acquisition of Adaptive Instruments Corporation of Hudson Massachusetts. With their highly successful wireless instrumentation products offered under the brand of Accutech, Adaptive Instruments is a perfect catalyst for SCADAgroup’s continued growth within the telemetry and process control markets.

“Nothing is more exciting than the addition of a star player to the team,” stated Paul Chisholm, Group Managing Director of SCADAgroup. “Adaptive Instruments enters our group with immediate synergies and a product line that will continue our drive to become the world’s foremost supplier of telemetry and process control technologies”.

Having a wide range of Accutech wireless instrumentation products Adaptive Instruments has secured an impressive installed base in industries including oil and gas, chemical, pharmaceutical, food and beverage, and energy utilities. The company’s focus on technology and the development of unique products has made them a favorite within many international customers seeking innovative solutions for remote process monitoring.

“Our growth as a recognized leader in the supply of advanced instrumentation has led us directly to our entry into the SCADAgroup family of companies”, said Paul Neilson CTO and Founder of Adaptive Instruments. “Through continued focus and the synergies of our world-class teams our ability to continue introducing novel technologies such as the Accutech wireless instrumentation family now increases substantially”.

Adaptive Instrument’s entry into this progressive array of companies is just the latest in a string of strategic acquisitions by SCADAgroup which leverage market channels, products and technology. In 2006 the group acquired Control Microsystems, a global leader of SCADA hardware and software solutions headquartered in Canada, and earlier this year the group added Trio Datacom to the team, a global supplier of advanced data radio products developed in Australia.

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Invensys Process Systems has inaugurated a Gas Production Operations Center at Reynosa City, Tamaulipas State, northeast of Mexico. The facility is part of an Invensys initiative to consolidate a Center of Excellence for Upstream Oil & Gas in Mexico to help its customer Petróleos Mexicanos (PEMEX) improve asset utilization and availability in its facilities there. Earlier this year Invensys announced the opening of a similar facility to support PEMEX operations in the Marine, southeastern region of the Gulf.

The new center has all the resources necessary for Invensys to support PEMEX in the Burgos basin. The resources include technical services and training courses for operational assistance, systems and applications updates, expansions, logistics, and emergency stock for maintaining the largest SCADA system installed by Invensys in Latin America, monitoring 421 gas wells, 1 gas separation plant, 55 gathering stations, 10,643 Km of pipelines in 62 networks, 19 compressor stations, 10 tank farms with 162 storage tanks, and 12 gas selling terminals.

The short-term objective of this strategy is to provide uptime performance services and information availability to the Burgos SCADA system under a multi-year contract recently awarded for preventive and corrective maintenance and evolution of the existing infrastructure over time, including pipeline efficiency calculations; forecasting, gas nomination and billing; compressor station performance; gas quality tracking and control; leak detection and location; electronic flow measurement; gas chromatography; remote terminal units and field instrumentation.

The Center will also help sustain gas field expansion by applying scalable and effective low-cost solutions for well monitoring, hardware relocation and additional control to the Burgos asset.

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MatrikonOPC(TM) is proud to
announce the introduction of a feature rich BACnet OPC Server software
package. This product was developed in conjunction with Cimetrics Inc. to
leverage MatrikonOPC’s experience and technologies with the HVAC industries
leading BACnet protocol stack (called BACstac(TM)). The resultant
MatrikonOPC Server for BACnet is an easy-to-use solution for customers,
creating large multi-vendor systems consisting of SCADA work stations to
control both industrial networks and HVAC building automation systems.

The use of the BACnet protocol in HVAC installations has been
increasing for many years. Typical installations now include connecting
multiple facilities to centralized monitoring and control workstations. The
MatrikonOPC Server for BACnet has been designed to integrate these networks
into a cohesive system. The BACnet concept of BBMDs (BACnet/IP Broadcast
Management Device) has been included in this product to facilitate the
interconnection of networks from multiple locations. Other advanced
software features include the ability to use multiple Ethernet ports in the
central SCADA workstation, compliance with the latest OPC technologies,
communications quality tags, the ability to use multiple remote OPC Servers
(optional communications tunneling software recommended) and much more.
Flexibility and ease of use were paramount in the development of this OPC
Server.

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The National Security Agency is spearheading a team of intelligence agencies and information technology vendors in an effort toward broader use of secure multilevel workstations based on High Assurance Platform (HAP) standards and specifications.

NSA expects this year to approve outside use of HAP systems, which foreshadows the technology’s adoption by federal agencies that handle unclassified data in addition to private companies and eventually individuals, specialists in the field say.

NSA and its vendors expect to complete the technical and legal reviews that constitute the certification and accreditation (C&A) required before HAP systems can be cleared for use in the secret-and-below intelligence (SABI) world. Early HAP systems have been used in the top-secret-and-above intelligence arena for many months.

More to come

The C&A milestone will clear the first HAP release, HAP r1, for use by the SABI community.

The release builds on earlier technology work but doesn’t include some of its most eagerly awaited features, said Ed Hammersla, chief operating officer at Trusted Computer Solutions.

“HAP r4 will include the cornerstones of the HAP technology,” he said. “That is due in 2012.”

Hammersla said the virtual computing features in HAP can strengthen security and provide electricity savings for agencies and companies.

“For example, companies that operate electricity grids and pipelines have become concerned that their general business-side computers, such as the mainframes used for accounting, could provide pathways for insiders to drill through to the supervisory control and administration (SCADA) systems that regulate their networks,” Hammersla said.

SCADA system vulnerabilities have attracted widespread scrutiny as a weakness that terrorists could exploit to devastating effect.

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GE Fanuc Intelligent Platforms reached an agreement with Catapult Software Limited to globally resell their iPower product as a standard Proficy HMI/SCADA - iFIX option.

iPower delivers a unique value proposition for Electrical Transmission and Distribution SCADA applications. It combines the strength of Proficy HMI/SCADA - iFIX, with additional functionality including built-in object security, enhanced graphic capability, standard operator interfaces, alarm and event reporting and standard drag and drop electrical utility objects. The iPower option reduces customer development and maintenance costs while delivering an easier to use solution.

The Proficy iPower option will be available as a standard part to all GE Fanuc Intelligent Platforms customers. iPower is currently successfully used in installations worldwide. About Catapult Software Established in 1991, Catapult Software Limited is a privately owned company supplying proven, reliable SCADA and process control systems worldwide. Electric power, oil & gas, water/waste water utilities and industrials have all built successful operations around Catapult Software’s SCADA and automation capabilities.

“Using the combination of a standard off-the-shelf HMI package in combination with Catapult’s iPower allows utility operations to implement a true SCADA solution at lower cost point than the traditional SCADA suppliers,” said Marcel van Helten, GE Fanuc Intelligent Platform’s Global Industry Director for Infrastructure. “It clearly delivers better scalability and integration with additional functions.”

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Research and Markets (http://www.researchandmarkets.com/reports/c88688) has announced the addition of “Automation and Control Solutions in the European Pharmaceutical Market” to their offering.

The 21 CFR Part 11 regulation stipulated by the Food and Drugs Administration (FDA) was introduced in 1997. Implemented across Europe through the European Medicines Agency (EMEA), this regulation requires pharmaceutical companies to increase transparency in their production processes through audit trails and access control functions. By accepting electronic records and electronic signatures as equivalent to paper-based records and handwritten signatures, the FDA paved the way for significant changes in the way that the pharmaceutical industry maintained its records and allowed the industry to leverage technology to keep pace with the fast growth of the industry. “Compliance to various regulations such as 21 CFR part 11 and Current Good Manufacturing Practices (cGMP) put forth by the FDA remains a major factor propelling growth in the automation and control solutions market,” comments the analyst of this research. “At the same time, operational efficiency, in terms of bringing down production costs, reducing time to market and increasing flexibility in production, is also a strategic reason for pharmaceutical companies to invest in automation solutions.”

The Process Analytical Technology (PAT) initiative arose from a need felt by the pharmaceutical industry to lower production costs due to pricing pressures. Traditionally, a production process was followed, wherein the quality of the manufactured drug was checked at the end of the process. However, with the PAT initiative, pharmaceutical companies have been able to ensure the quality of their drugs during the production process itself, supporting reduced time to market, reduced costs and improved quality of products. These two factors are driving growth in the automation and control solutions market due to the scope they present for the use of automation systems such as electronic batch recording systems, analytical equipment as well as solutions for improving visibility through the production process.

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