Electricity + Control July 2018

IIOT + INDUSTRY 4.0

Integrated control systems for the process industries At Achema 2018, the leading trade show for the process industries, Beckhoff presented its open PC-based con- trol technology for all vertical process industry markets. PC-based control enables the user to implement holis- tic solutions for barrier-free system integration through to Zone 0/20 with integrated communication capabilities from the sensor to the cloud. To withstand increasingly tough market and cost pressures, the process industry needs future-proof au- tomation solutions. The only way to implement these is through holistic system connectivity that overcomes the traditional separation between discrete automation and process automation. PC-based control technology from Beckhoff provides the ideal basis for this purpose. With PC-based control, even distributed systems can be connected with little effort while enabling access to centralised and therefore highly efficient analysis and pro- cess control capabilities. Because of its interoperability, openness and integrated support of cloud-based services, the Beckhoff automation system is also ideal for imple- menting connectivity in production environments in line with current Industrie 4.0 and Internet-of-Things concepts. The user benefits across the board – from horizontal inte- gration, even beyond enterprise boundaries, and vertical integration with connected production systems to consist- ent engineering over the entire equipment life span. The Beckhoff approach also makes barrier-free control solutions from Zone 0/20 through to the cloud possible. In addition to standard automation components, a broad portfolio of products for use in hazardous areas is availa- ble. These include: – ELX-series EtherCAT Terminals with intrinsically safe inputs and outputs for the direct connec- tion of field devices located in Ex Zones 0/20, 1/21 and 2/22 (without separate intermediate barriers) – ELX-series EtherCAT Terminals with additional TwinSAFE SC technol- ogy – Multi-touch Control Panels and Panel PCs of the CPX series for use in Zone 2/22 –TwinCAT as the software platform with special interfaces and libraries for process technology, cloud communication viaTwinCAT IoT, and cy- cle-synchronous data analysis via TwinCAT Analytics.

Ground-breaking commercial modular enabled process automation solution

ABB has introduced new innovative digital technology, offering process industries lower costs, reduced risks and improved schedule along with the ability to adapt to changing consumer demands. This is the first solution to combine an orchestration layer and a mod- ule layer integrated with the technology of module type packages (MTPs). With the ongoing need for personalised medicines, products with short production campaigns or smaller volumes of multiple products, traditional automation systems can be inflexible. ABB’s modular automation system provides the flexibility that is needed through a building block approach that can be scaled up or down depending on the production demand. The modular automation system is ideal for pharmaceutical plants, biotech manufacturers, fine chemical factories and food and beverage industries. It is the first time that ABB offers a solution based on the mod- ular automation concept to automate and orchestrate intelligent modules tailored to the plant’s manufacturing needs. The new solution also offers seamless integration with many existing systems, offering less down- time during implementation. The result is less support and troubleshoot- ing and an improvement of run-time within the plant. The module layer contains a number of intelligent modules described as standardised MTP technology, each of which has different facets in- cluding human-machine interface (HMI), services for supervisory control, history, diagnostics and archiving.Within the intelligent modules, control- lers from ABB’s Freelance range are implemented using MTP technology. These pre-automated intelligent modules can be easily added, ar- ranged and adjusted according to production needs. The orchestration layer is a combination of operations and supervisory control of the modules. ABB Ability TM System 800xA operates the pro- cess and orchestrates the intelligent modules. The system also enables fast and flexible integration of the modules. The System 800xA operation's HMI functionality is enabled for oper- ator effectiveness which allows for quick and intuitive decisions based on rapid access to data. Batch management applications can be used to improve batch production. Efficient alarm management and a high capac- ity and secure data storage for processing information is also available. An open architecture backbone links the orchestration layer to the mod- ule layer with communication via OPC UA. Modular enabled automation reduces cost, risk and schedule by eliminating the non-standard interfaces. Integrating an intelligent module into the orchestration system is a matter of hours compared to days for a traditional package unit and skid integration. Enquiries: Email media.relations@ch.abb.com

PC-based control provides barrier-free communication in process industry applications – vertically from Zone 0 through to the cloud and horizontally inside and outside enterprise boundaries.

28 Electricity + Control

JULY 2018