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Global Business Growth From Migration/Obsolescence

ControlGlobal.com
01/17/2011

By Nick Denbow, Industrial Automation Insider

In his INSIDER interview last month, Mike Teller, general manager of IOM for Northern Europe, showed a keen interest in addressing the potential from the $53 billion of existing, installed systems now over 20 years old, and this was a topic stressed by Rashesh Mody, vice president, product and portfolio management of IOM at OpsManage'10.

IOM sees a modernization wave occurring over the next three to five years and has the Foxboro I/A series plug-in modules available to achieve this, using the existing cabinets and plant wiring for most systems, including Siemens/Moore APACS, Honeywell TDC2000/3000, Bailey Infi90/Net90, Westinghouse WDPF, Taylor Mod 300, Foxboro Spectrum and Spec 200 and Fisher Provox Series 10/20 (including HART). BC Hydro in Canada was reported to have upgraded from a legacy Bailey NET90 DCS system in this way, and Sasol, who upgraded to add the real-time performance tools available with the I/A series software, which enabled management of the energy balance between demand and supply, and saved $3 million pa.

Alternative migration approaches

Rockwell also featured migration modules of this style in its booths at the Automation Fair, showing PlantPAx direct replacements for Bailey and Honeywell TDC2000/3000, and with presentations about upgrading to Logix from SoftLogix, Modicon and SquareD.

Edwin van der Maagdenberg, for Honeywell Europe, explained that the input from Honeywell's customer advisory boards was that their problem priorities were (1) total cost of ownership and (2) technical obsolescence. To address these requests and maintain equipment dating from the 1970s, such as the TDC2000 Data Hiway, Honeywell is buying up and refurbishing its old equipment as it becomes available or is replaced, and then provides this as recycled, fully tested Hiway spares when needed. This enables replacement of the systems with original components, despite these components typically being no longer available. An upgrade option is then available, with kits to migrate to within the Experion platform. For the future, extended support life has also been negotiated for software systems; for, example Windows 7 will be supported for 8 years.