Fasten your seatbelts. We’re about to quantum leap 10 years into the future of process automation. By the year 2032, we’ll have entered a new era of the distributed control system (DCS), that workhorse of process automation that is at the heart of all the most critical processes on the planet—those that provide the basic building blocks of our everyday lives, including energy, power, water, metals, minerals, chemicals and more.
ABB, the acknowledged global leader in DCS, envisions that process automation systems of the future will empower industries to better compete in a fast-changing world. Systems will be modular and adaptable yet reliable, integrated and secure, allowing simpler and faster project engineering, deployment and commissioning. Further, they will facilitate sustainable performance and increasingly autonomous operations through the digital transformation of operations and robust collaboration among people and equipment as well as information and operational technology (IT/OT) systems.
“Perhaps most importantly,” adds Joachim Braun, Division President Process Industries at ABB Group, “as we introduce new technology into our systems, we’ll continue to do it in such a way that our installed base of customers can make use of it, add it in a stepwise fashion according to their needs, while retaining the intellectual property investments they’ve made over the years.”
A global tour, 10 years in the future
While this is a story of technological innovation, it’s also a tale of transformation for the people who engineer, build and operate these processes. “The next generation will not settle for how things are being done today,” notes Brandon Spencer, Division President Energy Industries at ABB Group.
To help bring the ABB vision to life, in this series of articles you’ll be introduced to five individuals whose working lives are quite different from mine and yours today. In Chile, we’ll meet a digital native process operator who uses the latest tools and technologies to both understand the complexities of the copper mine at which he works and to make optimal interventions when needed.
In the southeastern U.S., we’ll visit with a power plant project engineer who no longer spends his time counting inputs and outputs or programming in ladder logic. Rather, he’s configuring modular, higher-level container-based systems to meet process-specific application requirements—including the plant’s new carbon-capture systems.
On the other side of the planet, we’ll stop in on an Indian oil refinery manager who no longer frets about his control systems contributing to unplanned outages. Instead, because of process automation systems that are no longer hamstrung by hardware and software dependencies, he can focus on optimizing operations knowing core control system functionality is protected by virtually unlimited fault-tolerance schemes.
Next, we visit a systems engineer at a specialty chemicals maker in Spain. We’ll learn how she successfully keeps the plant’s process automation and associated systems in optimal, up-to-date working order, even as the company continues to tweak its processes and product line in response to changing market demands. Maximizing innovation while preserving continuity are her twin priorities.
Our final stop is at a South African aluminum manufacturer, where a sustainability project engineer has worked for more than a decade to coordinate the implementation of systems to better measure carbon emissions and other sustainability impacts in real time, as well as to minimize the environmental impact of production operations. He’s relying on ABB expertise in process automation systems as well as their expertise in the integrated control of increasingly electrified operations powered by renewable resources.
Each of these five portraits is intended to provide a different perspective on how ABB intends to transform the automation of industrial processes, as well as the lives of those individuals responsible for their design, commissioning, operations and maintenance. For greater detail into the trends driving ABB’s Process Automation Systems Vision, as well as the architecture they’re creating to make this vision a reality, download the whitepaper, and we hope you enjoy your tour of the not-so-distant future.
Key deliverables of tomorrow’s DCS
ABB’s Process Automation System Vision will allow existing and new customers to adopt new innovations while maximizing their return on investments, at their pace and as needs dictate. ABB will separate automation into an evergreen, modular core that prioritizes real-time response, complemented by an extended, digitally-enabled environment that securely connects to the Industrial IoT and enhances the collaboration of people, systems and equipment.
Realization of the ABB Process Automation Systems Vision will:
- Reduce the total cost of system ownership with an open, cyber-secure, standards-based platform that adapts constantly to evolving needs
- Automate engineering and project management through flexible engineering workflows that provide adaptive, modular system design and project execution
- Accelerate digital transformation for greater profitability by leveraging a digital ecosystem for extended control and Industrial IoT capabilities
- Provide safe, secure and reliable system operations, either locally or remotely, with a high degree of autonomy
Further, realization of the ABB Process Automation Systems Vision will help industry to:
- Address increasing unpredictability brought about by fluctuating energy prices, disrupted supply chains and higher compliance costs
- Enable energy transition to green energy sources through the electrification and integrated control of processes formerly powered by fossil fuel combustion
- Evolve production needs from single-commodity operations to diverse product lines and smaller, specialized units located closer to customers
- Adapt to a next-generation workforce that wants all the familiar benefits of digitalization without sacrificing the reliability, availability and security of established systems
- Drive digital transformation to leverage new business models that facilitate change while conforming to workplace expectations
- Maximize innovation while preserving continuity to maintain users’ intellectual property while allowing them to innovate and adapt to changing markets and regulatory requirements
Note: The characters and organizations depicted in this vision are fictitious. The ABB DCS Vision, however, is very real. Download the white paper at https://new.abb.com/control-systems/control-systems/envisioning-the-future-of-process-automation-systems.
This was just one stop on our tour of ABB's Process Automation Systems Vision 10 years in the future. Don't miss a single stop. Read more at the articles below.
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