The metamorphosis of mission-critical proprietary process control systems.(Pool's Reflection)

Sleepy Lima, Ohio is sleepy no more. Last month the Fieldbus Foundation held a press event at a BDO plant in Lima to demonstrate how FOUNDATION[TM] fieldbus H1, High Speed Ethernet (HSE) and Flexible Function Block (FFB) technology, integrated with OPC, forms an open, integrated plant infrastructure for both Brownfield and Greenfield projects-improving process performance and delivering Operating Expense (OpEx) and Capital Expense (CapEX) savings. While many plants are still tied to 4-20 mA, it was exciting to see such a traditionally conservative operating facility move into the future and receive real benefits.

The Lima BDO technology demonstration was a joint project initiated by BP Amoco Chemical Company, an indirect subsidiary of BP plc., and the Fieldbus Foundation. ISP, through one of its subsidiaries, acquired BP's BDO operations in March of 2005. The Lima plant has an annual capacity of 60,000 metric tons of BDO-a building block for specialty chemicals products used in pharmaceutical, personal care, food, beverage, coatings, oil field and other applications. For the live demonstration application in Lima, a FOUNDATION fieldbus system consisting of H1 field devices and HSE linking devices was installed on a vapor system. The fieldbus controls actuated a series of butterfly valves used on the process. The demo highlighted FFB implementation of host-resident logic utilizing both discrete and analog field devices residing on H1, the co-existence of diverse control systems from various manufacturers using HSE, and the interoperability of alternate HSE linking devices and associated controllers. In addition, the demo showed the suitability of existing FOUNDATION fieldbus devices for high-speed hatching and sequencing of discrete systems, as well as the use of FFBs ...