Harsh Chitale, new vice president of strategy and marketing for Honeywell Process Systems, is presenting "Top Considerations for Selecting Your Industrial Wireless Solution."
"Whenever there is a bunch of buzz about something, there is always the risk of rushing into something without doing the planning necessary. Some of the lessons we've learned have been the hard way."
Think of the Future: Imagine the possibilities
Planning for wireless is no different than planning a freeway system for a city. Efficiency, reliability, and safety are the big applications to improve. Any wireless system addresses improving these use cases.
"We heard a lot about coexistence. It is NOT coexistence of standards. It is the ability of different applications to run concurrently in a small bandwidth space, in a narrow spectrum," Chitale said. "Coexistence has to be thought through early if you want to avoid bandwidth choke points later on."
Implementation of new wireless tools for personnel and plant asset safety is essentially a no brainer. Chitale pointed out some of the new applications made possible by wireless. "A chemical plant realized a 6 month ROI from their mobile field maintenance tools," he said. "Wireless corrosion monitoring is also becoming possible," Chitale reported.
"An ethanol plant prevented several costly spills," Chitale said, "and saved over $750,000."
Once you have decided what the applications are that you want to run on your wireless network, you must then talk about reliability and availability of the network you want to use.
Do you have existing wireless in your plant; what frequencies are being used?
Can the new system co-exist with existing wireless in your plant?
How close are you to potential interferences and communities?
So:
- choose a network that supports co-existence and conserves limited spectrum
- partner with a professional who can assess your site and design a reliable sywstem specific to your site
- ANTENNA SELECTION IS IMPORTANT