Safety, reliability, efficiency keynote Honeywell deliverables

Introduced as a very powerful former engineer who had gone over to the Dark Side (as in marketing), Jason Urso presented the annual Honeywell Process Solutions Technology Update and Roadmap at this morning’s plenary session of the Honeywell User Group Americas 2007 Symposium.

Urso's theme this year was how Honeywell products, systems, software and services ensure safety, increase reliability and improve efficiency for their customers. He called these three issues the fundamental pillars to achieve operational excellence, and said that this was Honeywell’s mission.

Urso talked of safety, and pronounced that Honeywell’s safety systems are designed to improve emergency response, reduce human error, reduce unexpected equipment failures as well as maintain stable control. “Process safety incidents are usually preceded by events which can be detected and prevented,” he noted.

Working across the company’s Fire and Gas Division and Industrial Safety Division, Honeywell has put together safety systems that use Experion as the human interface, while drawing on the expertise and systems of the other divisions to produce integrated safety instrumented systems, fire and gas detection systems, automatic people tracking and muster systems--all enabled by the brand new Honeywell OneWireless network, also announced at the HIG event.

Safety also includes operator training, procedural operations, boundary management, alarm management, the creation of intuitive operator displays—all of which are intended to reduce human error and improve systematic safety over the entire enterprise, Urso said. “Our systems also can reduce unexpected equipment failures by enabling asset management, automated maintenance rounds and corrosion detection—once again enabled by the OneWireless system.”

Honeywell’s advanced control and regulatory control software, Urso said, can permit the user to maintain stable control of the plant processes. In addition, Urso explained how Honeywell’s business suite provides the efficiency improvement that customers need by providing an integrated field to supply chain platform for faster decision-making from field instruments through the DCS, the QCS, the SIS, the asset management and process optimization systems, along with operator effectiveness and eventually winding up at improved business agility.

The Experion PKS (Process Knowledge System) is, Urso stressed, the heart of the way to improve customers’ business results. Urso shared detailed roadmaps for the entire Honeywell product suite for the next two years, and predicted significant advancements across the entire product line.

The last stop on Urso’s tour was business agility solutions. “Here, he said, “you can optimize your entire business with our unique designed-for-each-industry business platforms--BusinessFLEX for refining and chemicals, OptiVision for the pulp and paper industry, and POMS for the life sciences and fine chemicals.” He continued, pointing out that Honeywell’s integrated programs go all the way through the enterprise. “Honeywell can provide performance, production planning and scheduling management and ERP integration through SAP.”

Concluding his race through the Honeywell product line, Urso closed, “Last, we can say that Honeywell’s commitment to helping the customer improve safety reliability and efficiency has never been stronger.”