“We are not just another DCS vendor,” proclaimed Honeywell Process Solutions President Jack Bolick during his keynote at the annual user gathering in the desert heat of Phoenix on June 16.
The point is that while Honeywell is, indeed, a major distributed control system, or DCS, vendor, fully a third of the company’s revenues comes from service, project management and other knowledge work. Approximately 700 end-user customers gathered for the opening also heard the end-user leaders of the User Group extol the many values derived from customers working with their vendor. More than 205 product enhancements have been documented that were based on user input.
Jason Urso, vice president of technology, gave the technology keynote unveiling many new products that have been released. These include updates to Safety Manager, Batch Manager, Peer Control Interface, OneWireless, level gauges and simulation software for training refinery operators.
The updated OneWireless product is designed to be compatible with the ISA100.11a standard that is under development by a committee of the Instrumentation, Systems and Automation Society. The hardware, which is released for sale now, will be easily updated via software distribution over the network when the final standard is released. The release also extends Honeywell’s product line of transmitters with a new XYR 6000 Digital Input wireless transmitter. In addition, the latest OneWireless release expands the interface capabilities of the system, supporting the Hart protocol. OneWireless system management software makes any XYR 6000 transmitter communicate to existing Hart-enabled applications in the same manner as to a wired Hart device.
What’s that level?
Honeywell also introduced its new family of microwave radar level measurement instruments for use in plant storage tanks. The VersaLevel line further enhances the company’s expanding field-device portfolio and provides customers highly accurate and easy-to-install devices for efficient tank-level monitoring. Germany-based Krohne will manufacture the level transmitters to Honeywell’s standards and specifications for quality, performance and reliability.
HPS also partnered with another Honeywell company, process technology provider UOP LLC, to provide simulation software that trains refinery operators how to best run UOP processes. The UOP Master Simulation Models contain embedded UOP mathematics and kinetics in the Honeywell’s UniSim framework, so the simulation environment is as close to real-life refining operations as you can possibly get. UniSim improves plant safety and efficiency by allowing manufacturers to design and test processes before they are implemented in their plants, as well as train operators to use those processes and reduce errors that could lead to plant incidents.
Honeywell Process Solutions
www.honeywell.com/ps
