While I was off in HART land...

I received the following email from Lee Swindler, whose presentation at the Honeywell User Group Americas conference we profiled, both on this blog and in the "electronic show daily" we produced. Lee's email is reproduced in its entirety: -----Original Message----- From: Swindler, Lee R. [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Thursday, June 22, 2006 8:43 AM To: [email protected] Cc: Tibbitts, Mark A.; Salom, Jaime; Johansen, Carl H Subject: RE: Live from the 2006 Honeywell Users Group meeting While Lyondell appreciates the publicity you have given my presentation on alarm management at last week's Honeywell User Group Symposium, I would like to clarify a few points: Though we did struggle with this particular OPC interface, we have implemented many others with success. OPC is complex when compared to a simple Modbus interface, but can be used effectively once mastered and does have functionality (like failover redundancy) that Modbus cannot provide. I can assure you that we have a well developed and functional MOC system within Lyondell. The problem discussed in my presentation falls outside the MOC process. Although I am an advocate of hot cutover, I recognize that there are times when the risks outweigh the benefits. Only when the new control system can be installed in parallel with the existing control system and when the process can be safely run in manual during the transition can you even attempt hot cutover. In the case of this project, we elected to cut over 50% of the loops hot. As stated in the presentation, in the end this was a successful project. The project team overcame all the challenges listed and delivered a functional Experion control system that the operators are very satisfied with. I don't want my exposure of problems we had along the way to diminish the significance of their tremendous accomplishment. Thanks- Lee Swindler Lyondell Chemical Company No problem, Lee. Happy to clarify things.