Yokogawa releases batch upgrade to Centum VP

Aug. 21, 2008
Even though Yokogawa has been producing ISA88 batch processing capable DCS systems for years, that fact appears to have gone either under-marketed or under-observed in the marketplace. So, for those of you who didn't even know Centum did batch, the release below about an upgrade may come as a surprise. For Yokogawa's customers in the "procedure based manufacturing" industries (the latest buzzword for "batch") it won't be any surprise at all: With the release of CENTUM VP integrated...
Even though Yokogawa has been producing ISA88 batch processing capable DCS systems for years, that fact appears to have gone either under-marketed or under-observed in the marketplace. So, for those of you who didn't even know Centum did batch, the release below about an upgrade may come as a surprise. For Yokogawa's customers in the "procedure based manufacturing" industries (the latest buzzword for "batch") it won't be any surprise at all: With the release of CENTUM VP integrated production control system, Yokogawa’s flagship platform for the VigilantPlant Operational Excellence initiative, announced February 2008, CENTUM VP batch control capabilities has also been upgraded and enhanced and provided as an addition to the core platform.  CENTUM VP for batch control provides features and functions suitable for the chemical, specialty chemical, pharmaceutical, food and beverage industries, and any other batch applications. Based upon ISA-88 and IEC61512 standards, the batch functionality provides recipe management and process management functions layered upon the unit supervision and process control activites within CENTUM VP.  As with its predecessor, CENTUM CS Batch 3000, the function of unit supervision is a standard feature of the CENTUM VP system and is tightly integrated with the controller and operator interface. One enhancement to CENTUM VP for batch is the configurable unit faceplate that allows monitoring and execution of the batch utilizing a unique interface.  Using the custom faceplate feature of CENTUM VP, the unit faceplate provides a dashboard for a unit.  It supports the ability to display different types of unit information and control options, including trends, unit status, allocation status, and commands/statuses from a customizable unit state model.  CENTUM VP maintains core features of running the unit recipe in a dual redundant controller environment, a feature inherent with the system since 1998.  By having the batch execution resident in the highly reliable controller provides assurance that the batch will run to completion.Other basic controller features provided by CENTUM VP for batch include batch specific function blocks as standard, such as dosing, charging, ramp soaks, reactor temperature controller and a standard function block for arbitrating shared resources.  In addition, CENTUM VP batch control provides resident (equipment-based) and non-resident (recipe-based) units, separation of recipe data (formula) from equipment data (units), units as a standard function block with data and modes as well as a customizable state transition matrix. It also provides unit-centric exception handling, that allows batch engineers to create procedures in a modular fashion for mainline activities and then engineer exception handling utilizing unit monitors and interrupt processing for individual initialization, pause, restart and stop logic.  By implementing this at the unit level automation engineers only have to implement failure-handling logic one time and do not have to implement it in each phase in a unit.  CENTUM VP batch control provides for pre-configured trains/paths (equipment), and dynamic assignment of units even after the batch is already in progress.  These powerful features provide a high degree of modularity and simplicity in designing and executing batch processingCENTUM VP batch control functionality provides standard displays for product overview, product control, and unit control for recipe and product selection. These displays provide automatic up-to-the-minute documentation of the batch logic without any engineer intervention.  Logic can be followed as it runs and can be used easily for troubleshooting.  Control, interlocks, sequential function charts (SFCs), and logic code are displayed in real-time.  A batch journal - history of alarm/events associated with batch ID, is automatically created as the control recipe executes.Utilizing CENTUM VP’s “test function” single click simulator capability, procedural and exception logic can be exercised without actual controller hardware.  “Test function” also provides a good low level fidelity simulation capability that allows operators to gain familiarity with the batch process.Coupled with Yokogawa’s updated Exaquantum/Batch historian utilizing Yokogawa’s OPC Batch server to archive the control recipe, CENTUM VP provides a powerful control and information platform.  Key performance indicators for batch-to-batch comparisons within the Exaquantum/Batch are configured using Automatic Batch Data Collection by entering only a handful of data server and data storage locations.CENTUM VP batch control functions are a highly flexible and powerful addition to the CENTUM VP integrated production control system applicable from single path process cells requiring relatively simple batch tracking to multi path process cells requiring advanced batch tracking and resource scheduling.  It is specifically applicable for products that vary with formula and/or procedures, for both regulated and non-regulated industries.