8 trends in automation

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Trends in Aut8. Trends in Automation

Peter Terwiesch, Christopher Ganz

The present chapter addresses automation asa major means for gaining and sustaining produc-tivity advantages. Typical market environment fac-tors for plant and mill operators are identified, andthe analysis of current technology trends allows usto derive drivers for the automation industry.

A section on current trends takes a closer lookat various aspects of integration and optimiza-tion. Integrating process and automation, safetyequipment, but also information and engineer-ing processes is analyzed for its benefit for ownersduring the lifecycle of an installation. Optimiz-ing the operation through advanced control andplant asset monitoring to improve the plant per-formance is then presented as another trend thatis currently being observed. The section coverssystem integration technologies such as IEC61850,wireless communication, fieldbuses, or plant datamanagement. Apart from runtime system inter-operability, the section also covers challenges inengineering integrated systems.

The section on the outlook into future trendsaddresses the issue of managing increased com-plexity in automation systems, takes a closer lookat future control schemes, and takes an overallview on automation lifecycle planning.

Any work on prediction of the future is based onan extrapolation of current trends, and estimationsof their future development. In this chapter wewill therefore have a look at the trends thatdrive the automation industry and identify thosedevelopments that are in line with these drivers.

Like in all other areas of the industry, the futureof automation is driven by market requirements onone hand and technology capabilities on the otherhand. Both have undergone significant changes inrecent years, and continue to do so.

In the business environment, globalizationhas led to increased worldwide competition. Itis not only Western companies that use offshoreproduction to lower their cost; it is more and

8.1 Environment ........................................ 1288.1.1 Market Requirements ................... 1288.1.2 Technology .................................. 1298.1.3 Economical Trends ....................... 129

8.2 Current Trends ..................................... 1308.2.1 Integration .................................. 1308.2.2 Optimization ............................... 138

8.3 Outlook ............................................... 1408.3.1 Complexity Increase...................... 1408.3.2 Controller Scope Extension ............ 1418.3.3 Automation Lifecycle Planning ....... 141

8.4 Summary ............................................. 142References .................................................. 142

more also companies from upcoming regions suchas China and India that go global and increasecompetition. The constant strive for increasedproductivity is inherent to all successful players inthe market.

In this environment, automation technologybenefits from the rapid developments in the in-formation technology (IT) industry. Whereas some15 years ago automation technology was mostlyproprietary, today it builds on technology thatis being applied in other fields. Boundaries thathave clearly been defined due to the incompat-ibility of technologies are now fully transparentand allow the integration of various requirementsthroughout the value chain. Field-level data isdistributed throughout the various networks thatcontrol a plant, both physically and economically,and can be used for analysis and optimization.

To achieve the desired return, companies needto exploit all possibilities to further improve theirproduction or services. This affects all automationlevels from field to enterprise optimization, alllifecycle stages from plant erection to dismantling,and all value chain steps from procurement toservice.

In all steps, on all levels, automation may playa prominent role to optimize processes.

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128 Part A Development and Impacts of Automation

8.1 Environment

8.1.1 Market Requirements

Today, even more than in the past, all players in theeconomy are constantly improving their competitive-ness. Inventing and designing differentiating offeringsis one key element to achieve this. Once conceived,these offerings need to be brought to market in the mostefficient way.

To define the efficiency of a plant or service,we therefore define a measure to rate the variousapproaches to optimization: The overall equipmenteffectiveness (OEE). It defines how efficiently theequipment employed is performing its purpose.

Operational ExcellenceLooking at the graph in Fig. 8.1, we can clearly seewhat factors influence a plant owner’s return basedon the operation of his plant (the graph does notinclude factors such as market conditions, productdifferentiation, etc.). The influencing factors are onthe cost side, mainly the maintenance cost. Togetherwith plant operation, maintenance quality then deter-mines plant availability, performance, and productionquality. From an automation perspective, other fac-tors such as system architecture (redundancy) andsystem flexibility also have an influence on availabil-ity and performance. Operation costs, such as costof energy/fuel, then have an influence on the productcost.

Planned hoursMax. prod/h

8400500

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Fig. 8.1 Overall equipment effectiveness

Future automation system developments must in-fluence these factors positively in order to find wideacceptance in the market.

New Plant ConstructionOptimizing plant operations by advanced automationapplications is definitely an area where an owner getsmost of his operational benefits. An example of thelevel of automation on plant operations can be seen inFigs. 8.2 and 8.3. When it comes to issues high on thepriority list of automation suppliers, delivery costs areas high if not even higher. Although the main benefit ofan advanced automation system is with the plant owner(or operator), the automation system is very often notdirectly sold to that organization, but to an engineer-ing, procurement, and contsruction (EPC) contractorinstead. And for these customers, price is one of the topdecision criteria.

As automation systems are hardly ever sold off theshelf, but are designed for a specific plant, engineeringcosts are a major portion of the price of an automationsystem.

An owner who buys a new automation system looksseriously at the engineering capabilities of the supplier.The effect of efficient engineering on lowering the offerprice is one key item that is taken into account. In to-day’s fast developments in the industry, very often theability to deliver in time is as important as bottom-lineprice. An owner is in many cases willing to pay a pre-

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Trends in Automation 8.1 Environment 129

Fig. 8.2 Control of plant operations in the past

mium for a short delivery time, but also for a reducedrisk in project execution. Providing expertise from pre-vious projects in an industry is required to keep theexecution risk manageable. It also allows the automa-tion company to continuously improve the applicationdesign, reuse previous solutions, and therefore increasethe quality and reduce the cost of the offering. Whentalking about the future of automation, engineering willtherefore be a major issue to cover.

Plant Upgrades and ExtensionsApart from newly installed greenfield projects, plantupgrades and extensions are becoming increasingly im-portant in the automation business. Depending on theextent of the extension, the business case is similar tothe greenfield approach, where an EPC is taking care ofall the installations. In many cases however, the ownertakes the responsibility of coordinating a plant upgrade.In this case, the focus is mostly on total cost of owner-ship.

Fig. 8.3 Trend towards fully automated control of plantoperations

Furthermore, questions such as compatibility withalready installed automation components, upgrade strat-egies, and integration of old and new componentsbecome important to obtain the optimal automation so-lution for the extended plant.

8.1.2 Technology

Increasingly, automation platforms are driven by infor-mation technology. While automation platforms in thepast were fully proprietary systems, today they use com-mon IT technology in most areas of the system [8.1]. Onthe one hand, this development greatly reduces develop-ment costs for such systems and eases procurement ofoff-the-shelf components. On the other hand, the lifecy-cle of a plant (and its major component the automationsystem), and IT technology greatly differs. Whereasplants follow investment cycles of 20–30 years, ITtechnology today at first sight has reached a productlifecycle of less than 1 year, although some underly-ing technologies may be as old as 10 years or more(e.g., component object model (COM) technology, aninterface standard introduced by Microsoft in 1993).

Due to spare parts availability and the lifecycle ofsoftware, it is clear that an automation life span of20 years is not achievable without intermediate updatesof the system. A future automation system thereforeneeds to bridge this wide span of lifecycle expectationsand provide means to follow technology in a mannerthat is safe and efficient for the plant.

Large investments such as field instrumentation, ca-bling and wiring, engineered control applications, andoperational data need to be preserved throughout thelifecycle of the system. Maintaining an automation sys-tem as one of the critical assets of a plant needs to betaken into consideration when addressing plant lifecycleissues. In these considerations, striking the right balancebetween the benefits of standardized products, bringingquality, usability, cost, and training advantages, and cus-tomized solutions as the best solution for a given taskmay become critical.

8.1.3 Economical Trends

In today’s economy, globalization is named as the driverfor almost everything. However, there are some aspectsapart from global price competitiveness that do have aninfluence on the future of automation.

Communication technology has enabled compa-nies to spread more freely over the globe. Whilein the past a local company had to be more or

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less self-supporting (i. e., provide most functions lo-cally), functions can today be distributed worldwide.Front- and back-office organizations no longer needto be under the same roof; development and produc-tion can be continents apart. Even within the sameproject, global organizations can contribute from vari-ous locations.

These organizations are interlinked by high-bandwidth communication. These communication links

not only connect departments within a company, theyalso connect companies throughout the value chain.While in earlier days data between suppliers andcustomers were exchanged on paper in mail (with cor-responding time lags), today’s interactions betweensuppliers and customers are almost instant.

In today’s business environment, distances as wellas time are shorter, resulting in an increase in businessinteractions.

8.2 Current Trends

8.2.1 Integration

Looking at the trends and requirements listed in theprevious Sections, there is one theme which supportsthese developments, and which is a major driver of theautomation industry: integration. This term appears invarious aspects of the discussions around requirements,in terms of horizontal, vertical, and temporal integra-tion, among others. In this Section we will look atvarious trends in integration and analyze their effect onbusiness.

Process IntegrationPast approaches to first develop the process and then de-sign the appropriate control strategy for it do not exploitthe full advantages of today’s advanced control capabil-ities. If we look at this under the overall umbrella ofintegration, there is a trend towards integrated design ofprocess and control.

In many cases, more advanced automation solutionsare required as constraints become tighter. Figures 8.4–8.6 show examples which highlight the greater degreeand complexity of models (i. e., growing number ofconstraints, reduction in process buffers, and nonlineardynamic models). There is an ongoing trend towardstighter hard constraints, imposed from regulating au-

Fig. 8.4 Trend towards reduction of process buffers (e.g., supply chain, company, site, unit)

thorities. Health, safety, and especially environmentalconstraints are continuously becoming tighter.

Controllers today not only need to stabilize one con-trol variable, or keep it within a range of the set-point.They also need to make sure that a control action doesnot violate environmental constraints by producing toomuch of a by-product (e.g., NOx). Since many of theseboundary conditions are penalized today, these controlactions may easily result in significant financial lossesor other severe consequences.

In addition to these hard constraints, more and moreusers want to optimize soft constraints, such as energyconsumption (Fig. 8.7), or plant lifecycle. If one rampsup production in the fastest way possible (and maybemeet some market window or production deadline), en-ergy consumed or plant lifecycle consumption due toincreased stress on components may compensate thesequick gains. An overall optimization problem that takesthese soft constraints into account can therefore resultin returns that are not obvious even to the experiencedoperator.

A controller that can keep a process in tighterconstraints furthermore allows an owner to optimizeprocess equipment. If the control algorithm can guaran-tee a tight operational band, process design can reducebuffers and spare capacity. Running the process closer

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Trends in Automation 8.2 Current Trends 131

Fig. 8.5 Trend towards broader scope, more complex, and integrated online control, for example, in pulp operations

Dynamic mass balance

xk+1 = g (xk) + vkInlet pulp

Inlet steam

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Connection of units, pipesand measurements Server

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25 Production units38 Buffer tanks250 Streams250 Measurements2500 Variables

Fig. 8.6 Trend towards a nonlinear dynamic model

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Fig. 8.7 Trend towards automated electrical energy man-agement

to its design limitations results in either higher out-put, more flexibility, faster reaction or allows to installsmaller (and mostly cheaper) components to achieve thesame result.

A reduction of process equipment is also possibleif advanced production management algorithms are inplace. Manual scheduling of a process is hardly evercapable to load all equipment optimally, and the so-lution to a production bottleneck is frequently solvedby installing more capacity. In this case as well, theapplication of an advanced scheduling algorithm mayshow that current throughput can be achieved with lessequipment, or that current equipment can provide morecapacity than expected.

By applying advanced control and scheduling algo-rithms, not only can an owner increase the productivityof the installed equipment, but he may also be able toreduce installed buffers. Intermediate storage tanks orqueues can be omitted if an optimized control schemeconsiders a larger part of the production facility. Inaddition to reducing the investment costs by reducingequipment, the reduction of buffers also results in a re-duction of work in progress, and in the end allows theowner to run the operation with less working capital.

Looking at the wide impact of more precise controlalgorithms (which in many cases implies more ad-vanced algorithms) on OEE, we can easily conclude thatonce these capabilities in control system become moreeasily available, users will adopt them to their benefit.

Example: Thickness Control in Cold-Rolling Mills Us-ing Adaptive MIMO Controller. In a cold-rolling mill,where a band of metal is rolled off an input coil, runthrough the mill to change its thickness, and then rolledonto an output coil, the torques of the coilers and theroll position are controlled to achieve a desired outputthickness, uncoiler tension, and coiler tension. The pastsolution was to apply single-loop controllers for eachvariable together with feedforward strategies.

The approach taken in this case was to design anadaptive multiple-input/multiple-output (MIMO) con-troller that takes care of all variables. The goal wasto improve tolerance over the whole strip length, im-prove quality during ramp-up/ramp-down, and enablehigher speed based on better disturbance rejection. Fig-ure 8.8 shows the results from the plant with a clearimprovement by the new control scheme [8.2].

By applying the new control scheme, the operatorwas able to increase throughput and quality, two inputsof the OEE model shown in Fig. 8.1.

Integrated SafetyThe integration of process and automation becomes crit-ical in safety applications. Increasingly, safety-relevantactions are moved from process design into the automa-tion system. With similar motivations as we have seenbefore, a plant owner may want to reduce installed pro-cess equipment in favor of an automation solution, andreplace equipment that primarily serves safety purposesby an emergency shutdown system.

Today’s automation systems are capable of fulfill-ing these requirements, and the evolution of the IEC61508 standard [8.3] has helped to develop a commonunderstanding throughout the world. The many localstandards have mostly been replaced by IEC 61508’s

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Fig. 8.8 Cold-rolling mill controller comparison

safety integrity level (SIL) requirements. Exceeding thescope of previous standards, ICE61508 not only definesdevice features that enable them to be used in safetycritical applications, it also defines the engineering pro-cesses that need to be applied when designing electricalsafety systems.

Many automation suppliers today provide a safety-certified variant of their controllers, allowing safetysolutions to be tightly integrated into the automa-tion system. Since in many cases these are speciallydesigned and tested variants of the general-purpose con-trollers, they are perceived having a guaranteed higherquality with longer mean time between failures (MTBF)and/or shorter mean time to repair (MTTR). In someinstallations where high availability or high quality isrequired without the explicit need for a certified safetysystem, plant owners nevertheless choose the safety-certified variant of a system to achieve the desiredquality attributes in their system.

A fully integrated safety system furthermore in-creases planning flexibility. In a fully integrated system,functionality can be moved between the safety con-trollers and regular controllers, allowing for a fullyscalable system that provides the desired safety level.

For more information on safety in automation pleaserefer to Chap. 39.

Information IntegrationDevice and System IntegrationIntelligent Field Devices and their Integration. Whentalking about information integration, some words needto be spent on information sources in an automationsystem, i. e., on field devices.

Field devices today not only provide a processvariable. Field devices today benefit from the hugeadvancements in miniaturization, which allows man-ufacturers to move measurement and even analysisfunctions from the distributed control system (DCS)into the field device. The data transmitted over field-buses not only consists of one single value, but ofa whole set of information on the measurement. Qualityas well as configuration information can be read directlyfrom the device and can be used for advanced assetmonitoring. The amount of information available fromthe field thus greatly increases and calls for extendedprocessing capabilities in the control system.

Miniaturization and increased computing poweralso allow the integration of ultrafast control loops on

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the field level, i. e., within the field device, that are notfeasible if the information has to traverse controllers andbuses.

All these functions call for higher integration capa-bilities throughout the system. More data needs to betransferred not only from the field to the controller, butsince much of the information is not required on the pro-cess control level but on the operations or even at theplant management level, information needs to be dis-tributed further. Information management requirementsare also increased and call for more and faster dataprocessing.

In addition to the information exchanged online, in-telligent field devices also call for an extended reach ofengineering tools. Since these devices may include con-trol functionality, planning an automation concept thatspreads DCS controllers and field devices requires en-gineering tools that are capable of drawing the pictureacross systems and devices.

The increased capabilities of the field devices im-mediately create the need for standardization. Thelandscape that was common 20 years ago, where eachvendor had his own proprietary integration standard,is gone. In addition to the fieldbus standards alreadywidely in use today, we will look at IEC 61850 [8.4] asone of the industrial Ethernet-based standards that hasrecently evolved and gained wide market acceptance inshort time.

Fieldbus. For some years now, the standard to commu-nicate towards field devices is fieldbus technology [8.5],defined in IEC 61158 [8.6]. All major fieldbus technolo-gies are covered in this standard, and depending on thegeographical area and the industry, in most cases oneor two of these implementations have evolved to be themost widely used in an area. In process automation,Foundation Fieldbus and Profibus are among the mostprominent players.

Fieldbus provides the means for intelligent field de-vices to communicate their information to each other, orto the controller. It allows remote configuration as wellas advanced diagnostics information.

In addition to the IEC 61158 protocols that arebased on communication on a serial bus, the HARTprotocol (highway addressable remote transducer pro-tocol, a master-slave field communication protocol) hasevolved to be successful in existing, conventionallywired plants. HART adds serial communication on topof the standard 4–20 mA signal, allowing digital infor-mation to be transmitted over conventional wiring.

Fieldbus is the essential technology to further inte-grate more information from field devices into complexautomation systems.

IEC 61850. IEC 61850 is a global standard for communi-cation networks and systems in substations. It is a jointInternational Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) andAmerican National Standards Institute (ANSI) stan-dard, embraced by all major electrical vendors. Inaddition to just focusing on a communication protocol,IEC 61850 also defines a data model that comprises thecontext of the transmitted information. It is thereforeone of the more successful approaches to achieve trueinteroperability between devices as well as tools fromdifferent vendors [8.7].

IEC 61850 defines all the information that can beprovided by a control function through the definition oflogical nodes. Substation automation devices can thenimplement one or several of these functions, and definetheir capabilities in standardized, extensible markuplanguage (XML)-based data files, which in turn can beread by all IEC 61850-compliant tools [8.8].

System integration therefore becomes much fasterthan in the past. Engineering is done on an object-oriented level by linking functions together (Fig. 8.9).The configuration of the communication is then derivedfrom these object structures without further manual en-gineering effort.

Due to the common approach by ANSI and IEC,by users and vendors, this standard was adopted veryquickly and is today the common framework in substa-tion automation around the world.

Once an owner has an electrical system that pro-vides IEC 61850 integration, the integration into theplant DCS is an obvious request. To be able to notonly communicate to an IEC 61850-based electricalsystem directly from the DCS, but also to make use ofall object-oriented engineering information is a require-ment that is becoming increasingly important for majorDCS suppliers.

Wireless. When integrating field devices into an au-tomation system, the availability of standard protocolsis of great help, as we have seen in Device and Sys-tem Integration. In the past this approach was veryoften either limited to new plant installations wherecable trays were easily accessible, or resulted in veryhigh installation costs. The success of the HART pro-tocol is mainly due to the fact that it can reuse existingwiring [8.9].

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Fig. 8.9 Trend towards object-oriented modeling, e.g., visual flowsheet modeling; combined commodity models withproprietary knowledge; automatic generation of stand-alone executable code

The huge success of wireless technology in otherareas of daily life raises the question of whether thistechnology can also be applied to automation prob-lems. As recent developments have shown, this trend iscontinuously gaining momentum [8.10]. Different ap-proaches are distinguished as a function of how poweris supplied, e.g., by electrical cable, by battery or bypower harvesting from their process environment, andby the way the communication is implemented.

As with wired communications, also wireless sum-marizes a variety of technologies which will bediscussed in the following sections.

Close Range. In the very close range, serial com-munication today very often makes use of Bluetoothtechnology. Originating from mobile phone accessoryintegration, similar concepts can also be applied in sit-uations in which devices need to communicate overa short distance, e.g., to upgrade firmware, or to readout diagnostics. It merely eliminates the need for a se-rial cable, and in many cases the requirement to haveclose-range interaction with a device has been removedcompletely, since it is connected to the system throughother serial buses (such as a fieldbus) that basically al-low the user to achieve the same results.

Another upcoming technology under the wire-less umbrella is radio frequency identification (RFID).

These small chips are powered by the electromagneticfield set up to communicate by the sensing device. RFIDchips are used to mark objects (e.g., items in a store), butcan also be used to mark plant inventory and keep trackof installed components. Chapter 49 discusses RFIDtechnology in more detail.

RFID can not only be used to read out informationabout a device (such as a serial number or technicaldata), but to store data dynamically. The last mainte-nance activity can thus be stored on the device ratherthan in a plant database. The device keeps this informa-tion attached while being stored as spare part, even if itis disconnected from the plant network. When lookingfor spares, the one with the fewest past operating hourscan therefore be chosen. RFID technology today allowsfor storage of increasing amounts of data, and in somecases is even capable of returning simple measurementsfrom an integrated sensor.

Information stored on RFID chips is normally notaccessed in real time through the automation system,but read out by the maintenance engineer walkingthrough the plant or spare parts storage with the corre-sponding reading device. To display the full informationon the device (online health information, data sheet,etc.) a laptop or tablet personal computer (PC) canthen retrieve the information online through its wirelesscommunication capability.

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Mid-range. Apart from distributing online data to mo-bile operator terminals throughout the plant, WiFi hasmade its entrance also on the plant floor.

The aforementioned problem, where sensors can-not easily be wired to the main automation system, isincreasingly being solved by the use of wireless com-munication, reducing the need and cost for additionalcabling.

Applications where the installation of wired instru-ments is difficult are growing, including where:

• The device is in a remote location.• The device is in an environment that does not allowfor electrical signal cables, e.g., measurements onmedium- or high-voltage equipment.• The device is on the move, either rotating, or mov-ing around as part of a production line.• The device is only installed temporarily, either forcommissioning, or for advanced diagnostics andprecise fault location.

The wide range of applications has made wireless de-vice communication one of the key topics in automationtoday.

Long Range. Once we leave the plant environ-ment, wireless communication capabilities throughGSM (global system for mobile communication) ormore advanced third-generation (3G) communicationtechnologies allow seamless integration of distributedautomation systems.

Applications in this range are mostly found in dis-tribution networks (gas, water, electricity), where smallstations with low functionality are linked together ina large network with thousands of access points.

However, also operator station functionality canbe distributed over long distances, by making thin-client capability available to handheld devices or mobilephones. To receive a plant alarm through SMS (shortmessage service, a part of the GSM standard) and to beable to acknowledge it remotely is common practice inunmanned plants.

Nonautomation Data. In addition to real-time plantinformation that is conveyed thorough the plant au-tomation system, plant operation requires much moreinformation to run a plant efficiently. In normal opera-tion as well as in abnormal conditions, a plant operatoror a maintenance engineer needs to switch quicklybetween different views on the process. The process dis-play shows the most typical view, and trend displays andevent lists are commonly use to obtain the full picture

on the state of the process. To navigate quickly betweenthese displays is essential. To call up the process displayfor a disturbed object directly from the alarm list savescritical time.

Once the device needs further analysis, this nor-mally requires the availability of the plant documenta-tion. Instead of flipping through hundreds of pages indocumentation binders, it is much more convenient todirectly open the electronic manual on the page wherethe failed pump is described together with possibilitiesto initiate the required maintenance actions.

Availability of the information in electronic formatis today not an issue. Today, all plant documentationis provided in standard formats. However, the infor-mation is normally not linked. It is hardly possibleto directly switch between related documents withoutmanual search operations that look for the device’s tagor name.

An object-oriented plant model that keeps refer-ences to all aspects of a plant object greatly helps insolving this problem. If in one location in the system,all views on the very same object are stored – processdisplay, faceplate, event list, trend display, manufacturerinstructions, but also maintenance records and inventoryinformation – a more complete view of the plant statecan be achieved.

The reaction to process problems can be muchquicker, and personnel in the field can be guided tothe source of the problem faster, thus resolving issuesmore efficiently and keeping the plant availability up.We will see in Lifecycle Optimization how maintenanceefficiency can even be increased by advanced asset man-agement methods.

Security. A general view on the future of automationsystems would not be complete without covering themost prominent threat to the concepts presented so far:system security.

When systems were less integrated, decoupledfrom other information systems, or interconnected by4–20 mA or binary input/output (I/O) signals, systemsecurity was limited to physical security, i. e., to pre-vent unauthorized people access the system by physicalmeans (fences, building access, etc.).

Integrating more and more information systems intothe automation system, and enabling them to distributedata to wherever it is needed (i. e., also to companyheadquarters through the Internet), security threats soonbecome a major concern to all plant owners.

The damage that can be caused to a business by neg-ligence or deliberate intrusion is annoying when web

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sites are blocked by denial-of-service attacks. It is sig-nificant if it affects the financial system by spywareor phishing attacks, but it is devastating when a coun-try’s infrastructure is attacked. Simply bringing downthe electricity system already has quite a high impact,but if a hacker gains access to an automation system, theplant can actually be damaged and be out of service fora significant amount of time. The damage to a modernsociety would be extremely high.

Security therefore has to be at the top of any listof priorities for any plant operator. Security measuresin automation systems of the future need to be con-tinuously increased without giving up some of theadvantages of wider information integration.

In addition to technical measures to keep a plant se-cure, security management needs to be an integral partof any plant staff member’s training, as is health andsafety management today.

While security concerns for automation systems arevalid and need to be addressed by the plant manage-ment, technical means and guidance on security-relatedprocesses are available today to secure control systemseffectively [8.11]. Security concerns should thereforenot be the reason for not using the benefits of informa-tion integration in plants and enterprises.

Engineering IntegrationThe increased integration of devices and systems fromplant floor to enterprise management poses anotherchallenge for automation engineers: information inte-gration does not happen by itself, it requires significantengineering effort. This increased effort is a contra-diction to the requirement for faster and lower-costproject execution. This dilemma can only be resolvedby improved engineering environments. Chapter 86, en-terprise integration and interoperability, delves deeperinto this topic.

Today, all areas of plant engineering, starting atprocess design and civil engineering, are supported byspecialized engineering tools. While their coupling wasloose in the past, and results of an engineering phasewere handed over on paper and very often typed intoother tools again, the trend towards exchanging datain electronic format is obvious. Whoever has tried toexchange data between different types of engineeringtools immediately faces the questions:

• What data?• What format?

The question about what data can only be answeredby the two parties exchanging data. The receiver only

knows what data he needs, and the provider onlyknows what data she can provide. If the two partiesare within different departments of the same company,an internal standard on data models can be agreedon, but when the exchange is between different busi-ness partners, this very often results in a per-projectagreement.

In electrical systems, this issue has been addressedby IEC 61850. In addition to being a communicationstandard, it also covers a data model. Data objects(logical nodes) are defined by the standard, and en-gineering tools following the standards can easilyintegrate devices of various vendors without projectspecific agreements. The standard was even extendedbeyond electrical systems to cover hydropower plants(and also for wind generators in IEC 61400-25). So far,further extensions into other plant types or industriesseem hardly feasible due to the variance and companyinternal-grown standards.

The discussion on the format today quickly turnsinto a spreadsheet-based solution. This approach is verycommon, and most tools provide export and/or importfunctionality in tabular form. However, this requiresseparate sheets for each object type, since the datafields may vary between objects. A format that supportsa more object-oriented approach is required.

Recently, the most common approach is to go to-wards XML-based formats. IEC 61850 data is basedon XML, and there are standardization tendencies thatfollow the same path. CAEX (computer aided engineer-ing exchange, an engineering data format) accordingto IEC 62424 is just one example; PLCOpen XML orAutomationML are others.

The ability to agree on data standards between en-gineering tools greatly eases interaction between thevarious disciplines not only in automation engineering,but in plant engineering in general.

Once the data format is defined, there still remainsthe question of wording or language. Even when us-ing the same language, two different engineering groupsmay call the same piece of information differently. A se-mantic approach to information processing may addressthis issue.

With some of these problems addressed in a nearerfuture, further optimization is possible by a more par-allel approach to engineering. Since information isrevised several times during plant design, working withearly versions of the information is common. Updatesof the information is normally required, and then up-dating the whole engineering chain is a challenge. Towork on a common database is a trend that is evolving

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in plant design; but also in the design of the automa-tion system, a common database to hold various aspectsof automation engineering is an obvious idea. Oncethese larger engineering environments are in place, dataexchange quickly becomes bidirectional. Modificationsdone in plant design affect the automation system, butalso information from the automation database such ascabling or instrumentation details should be fed backinto the plant database. This is only possible if the dataexchange can be done without loss of information, oth-erwise data relations cannot be kept consistent.

Even if bidirectional data exchange is solved, morepartners in complex projects easily result in multidirec-tional data exchange. Versioning becomes even moreessential than in a single tool. Whether the successfulsolution of data exchange between two domains can bekept after each of the tools is released in a new versionremains to be seen. The challenges in this area are stillto be faced.

Customer ValueThe overall value of integration for owners is appar-ent on various levels, as we have shown in the previousSections.

The pressure to shorten projects and to bring downcosts will increase the push for engineering data inte-gration. This will also improve the owner’s capabilityto maintain the plant later by continuously keeping theinformation up to date, therefore reducing the lifecyclecost of the plant.

The desire to operate the plant efficiently and keepdowntimes low and production quality up will drivethe urge to have real-time data integrated by connect-ing interoperable devices and systems on all levels ofthe automation system [8.12]. The ability to have com-mon event and alarm lists, to operate various type ofequipment from one operator workplace, and to obtainconsistent asset information combined in one system arekey enablers for operational excellence.

Security concerns require a holistic approach on thelevel of the whole plant, integrating all components intoa common security framework, both technically andwith regard to processes.

8.2.2 Optimization

The developments described up to now enable one fur-ther step in productivity increase that has only beenpartially exploited in the past. Having more informa-tion available at any point in an enterprise allows

for a typical control action: to close the loop and tooptimize.

ControlClosest to the controlled process, closing the loopis the traditional field of automation. PID controllers(proportional-integral-derivative) mostly govern today’sworld of automation. Executed by programmable logiccontrollers (PLC) or DCS controllers, they do a fairlygood job at keeping the majority of industrial processesstable.

However, even if much more advanced controlschemes are available today, not even the ancient PIDloops perform where they could if they were properlytuned. Controller tuning during commissioning is moreof an art done by experienced experts than engineeringscience.

As we have already concluded in Process Inte-gration, several advantages favor the application ofadvanced control algorithms. Their ability to keep pro-cesses stable in a narrower band allows either to choosesmaller equipment to reach a given limit, or to increasethe performance of existing equipment by running theprocess closer to boundaries.

However, controllers today are mostly designedbased on knowledge of a predominantly fixed process,i. e., plant topology and behavior is assumed to be as-designed. This process knowhow is often depicted ina process model which is either used as part of the con-troller (e.g., model predictive control) or has been usedto design the controller.

Once the process deviates from the predefinedtopology, controllers are soon at their limits. This caneasily happen when sensors or communication linksfail. This situation is today mostly solved by redundantdesign, but controllers that consider some amount ofmissing information may be an approach to increase thereliability of the control system even further. Controllersreacting more flexibly to changing boundary conditionswill extend the plant’s range of operation, but will alsoreduce predictability.

Another typical case of a plant deviating from thedesigned state is ageing or equipment degradation. Con-trollers that can handle this (e.g., adaptive control) cankeep the process in an optimal state even if its com-ponents are not. Furthermore, a controller reacting onperformance variations of the plant can not only adapt toit, but also convey this information to the maintenancepersonnel to allow for efficient plant management andoptimization.

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Plant OptimizationAt a plant operation level, all the data generated byintelligent field devices and integrated systems comestogether. To have more information available is posi-tive, but to the plant operator it is also confusing. Moredevices generating more diverse alarms quickly flooda human operator’s perception. More information doesnot per se improve the operation of a plant. Informationneeds to be turned into knowledge.

This knowledge is buried in large amounts of data,in the form of recorded analog trend signals as wellas alarm and event information. Each signal in itselfonly tells a very small part of the story, but if a largernumber of signals are analyzed by using advancedsignal processing or model identification algorithms,they reveal information about the device, or the systemobserved.

This field is today known as asset monitoring. Theterm denotes anything from very simple use countersup to complex algorithms that derive system lifecycleinformation from measured data. In some cases, the in-ternal state of a high-value asset can be assessed throughthe interpretation of signals that are available in the au-tomation system already used in control schemes. If thedecision is between applying some analysis softwareor to shut down the equipment, open it, and visuallyinspect, the software version can in many cases moredirectly direct the maintenance personnel towards thetrue fault of the equipment.

The availability of advanced asset monitoring al-gorithms allows for optimized operation of the plant.If component ageing can be calculated from measure-ments, optimizing control algorithms can put the loadon less stressed components, or can trade asset lifecy-cle consumption against the quick return of a fast plantstart-up.

The requirement to increase availability and pro-duction quality calls for advanced algorithms for assetmonitoring and results in an asset optimization schemethat directly influences the plant operator’s bottom line.The people operating the plant, be it in the opera-tions department or in maintenance, are supported intheir analysis of the situation and in their decisions bymore advanced systems than are normally in operationtoday.

When it comes to discrete manufacturing plants, theoptimization potential is as high as in continuous pro-duction. Advanced scheduling algorithms are capableof optimizing plant utilization and improving yield. Ifthese algorithms are flexible to allow a rescheduling and

Control Process

Reference ActuationSensing &estimating

Economic life cyclecost estimate

Context, e.g. market price,weather forecast

Life cyclecost model

Economicoptimization

Fig. 8.10 Trend towards lifecycle optimization

production replanning in operation to accommodate ur-gent orders at runtime, plant efficiency can be optimizeddynamically and have an even more positive effect onthe bottom line.

Lifecycle OptimizationThe optimization concepts presented so far enablea plant owner to optimize OEE on several levels(Fig. 8.10). We have covered online production opti-mization as well as predictive maintenance throughadvanced asset optimization tools. If the scope of theoptimization can be extended to a whole fleet of plantsand over a longer period of time, continuous plant im-provement by collecting best practices and statisticalinformation on all equipment and systems becomes fea-sible.

What does the automation system contribute tothis level of optimization? Again, most data origi-nates from the plant automation system’s databases.In Plant Optimization we have even seen that assetmonitoring provides information that goes beyond theraw signals measured by the sensors and can be usedto draw conclusions on plant maintenance activities.From a fixed-schedule maintenance scheme where plantequipment is shut down based on statistical experience,asset monitoring can help moving towards a condition-based maintenance scheme. Either equipment operationcan be extended towards more realistic schedules, oremergency plant shutdown can be avoided by early de-tecting equipment degradation and going into plannedshutdown.

Interaction with maintenance management sys-tems or enterprise resource planning systems is todayevolving, supported by standards such as ISA95.Enterprise-wide information integration is substantial to

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be continuously on top of production and effectiveness,to track down inefficiencies in processes both technicaland organizational.

These concepts have been presented over theyears [8.13], but to really close the loop on thatlevel requires significant investments by most industrial

companies. Good examples of information integrationon that level are airline operators and maintenancecompanies, where additional minutes used to servicedeficiencies in equipment become expensive. Failureto address these deficiencies become catastrophic andmission critical.

8.3 Outlook

The current trends presented in the previous Sectionsdo show benefits, in some cases significant. The push tocontinue the developments along these lines will there-fore most probably be sustained.

8.3.1 Complexity Increase

One general countertrend is also clearly visible in manyareas: increased complexity to the extent that it be-comes a limiting factor. System complexity does notonly result in an increase in initial cost (more in-stalled infrastructure, more engineering), but also inincreased maintenance (IT support on plant floor).Both factors influence OEE (Fig. 8.1) negatively. Tocounter the perceived complexity in automation sys-tems it is therefore important to facilitate widerdistribution of the advanced concepts presented sofar.

Control, equipmentdesign optimizationOperating procedureoptimizationMany others

Yieldaccounting

Soft sensing

Diagnosis and troubleshooting

Optimization (steady state + dynamic)

Decision support

Linearization

Data reconciliationData reconciliationParameter estimationParameter estimation

FittedFittedmodelmodel

Plant

Rawplantdata

Reconciledplant

information

InitialInitialmodelmodel

Offline

Online

Plant data

EstimationEstimation

Linear modelsLinear models[A,B,C,D][A,B,C,D]

Model predictive controlModel predictive control

Linearized modelsAdvanced MPC

Up-to-dateUp-to-datemodelmodel

Fig. 8.11 Trend towards automation and control modeling and model reuse

ModelingMany of the solutions available today in either assetmonitoring or advanced control rely on plant models.The availability of plant models for applications suchas design or training simulation is also essential. How-ever, plant models are highly dependent on the processinstallation, and need to be designed or at least tunedto every installation. Furthermore, the increased com-plexity of advanced industrial plants also calls for widerand more complex models. Model building and tuningis today still very expensive and requires highly skilledexperts. There is a need common to different areas andindustries to keep modeling affordable.

Reuse of models could address this issue in twodimensions:

• To reuse a model designed for one application in an-other, i. e., to build a controller design model based

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Trends in Automation 8.3 Outlook 141

on a model that was used for plant design, or de-rive the model used in a controller from one thatis available for performance monitoring. The planttopology that connects the models can remain thesame in all cases.• To reuse models from project to project, an ap-proach that can also be pursued with engineering so-lutions to bring down engineering costs (Fig. 8.11).

Operator InteractionAlthough modern operator stations are capable of in-tegrating much more information to the operator ormaintenance personnel, the operator interaction is notalways the most intuitive. In plant diagnostics and main-tenance this may be acceptable, but for the operator itis often difficult to quickly perceive a plant situation,whether good or bad, and to act accordingly. This ismostly due to the fact that the operator interface wasdesigned by the engineer who had as inputs the plans ofthe plant and the automation function, and not the plantenvironment where the operator needs to navigate.

An operator interface closer to the plant opera-tor’s natural environment (and therefore to his intuition)could improve the perception of the plant’s currentstatus.

One way of doing this is to display the status ina more intuitive manner. In an aircraft, the artificialhorizon combines a large number of measurements inone very simple display, which can be interpreted intu-itively by the pilot by just glancing at it. Its movementgives excellent feedback on the plane’s dynamics. If wecompare this simple display with a current plant op-erator station with process diagrams, alarm lists, andtrend displays, it is obvious that plant dynamics can-not be perceived as easily. Some valuable time early incritical situations is therefore lost by analyzing numberson a screen. To depict the plant status in more intuitivegraphics could exploit humans’ capability to interpretmoving graphics in a qualitative way more efficientlythan from numerical displays.

Automated EngineeringAs we have pointed out in Modeling, designing andtuning models is a complex task. To design and tuneadvanced controllers is as complex. Even the effort totune simple controllers is in reality very often skipped,and controller parameters are left at standard settings of1.0 for any parameter.

In many cases these settings can be derived fromplant parameters without the requirement to tune onlineon site. Drum sizes or process set-points are docu-

mented during plant engineering, and as we have seenin Engineering Integration, this data is normally avail-able to the automation engineer. If a control loop’ssettings are automatically derived from the data foundin the plant information, the settings will be much betterthan the standard values. To the commissioning engi-neer, this procedure hides some of the complexity ofcontroller fine-tuning.

Whether it is possible to derive control loops auto-matically from the plant information received from theplant engineering tools remains to be seen. Very simpleloops can be chosen based on standard configurations ofpumps and valves, but a thorough check of the solutionby an experienced automation engineer is still required.

On the other hand, the information contained in en-gineering data can be used to check the consistency ofthe manually designed code. If a plant topology modelis available that was read out of the process & in-strumentation diagram, also piping & instrumentationdiagram (P&ID) tool information, automatic measurescan be taken to check whether there is an influence ofsome sort (control logic, interlock logic) between a tanklevel and the feeding pump.

8.3.2 Controller Scope Extension

Today’s control laws are designed on the assumptionthat the plant behaves as designed. Failed componentsare not taken into consideration, and deteriorating plantconditions (fouling, drift, etc.) are only to some extentcompensated by controller action.

The coverage of nonstandard plant configurationsin the design of controllers is rarely seen today. Thisis the case for advanced control schemes, but also formore advanced scheduling or batch solutions, consider-ation of these suboptimal plant states in the design ofthe automation system could improve plant availabil-ity. Although this may result in a reduction of quality,the production environment (i. e., the immediate mar-ket prices) can still make a lower-quality productionuseful. To detect whether this is the case, an integra-tion between the business environment, with currentcost of material, energy, and maybe even emissions,and the production information in the plant allows tosolve optimization problems that optimize the bottomline directly.

8.3.3 Automation Lifecycle Planning

In the past, the automation system was an initialinvestment like many other installations in a plant.

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It was maintained by replacing broken devices byspares, and kept its functionality throughout the years.This option is still available today. In addition toI/O cards, an owner needs to buy spare PCs likeother spare parts that may difficult to buy on themarket.

The other option an owner has is to continuouslyfollow the technology trend and keep the automationsystem up to date. This results in much higher life-

cycle cost, but against these costs is the benefit ofalways having the newest technology installed. Thisin turn requires automation system vendors to contin-uously provide functionality that improves the plant’sperformance, justifying the investment.

It is the owner’s decision which way to go. It is notan easy decision and shows the importance of keepingtotal cost of ownership in mind also when purchasingthe automation system.

8.4 Summary

Today’s business environment as well as technologytrends (i. e., robots) are continuously evolving at a fastpace (Fig. 8.12). To improve a plant’s competitiveness,a modern automation system must make use of theadvancements in technology to react to trends in thebusiness world.

The reaction of the enterprise must be faster, at thelowest level to increase production and reduce down-time, and at higher levels to process customer ordersefficiently and react to mid-term trends quickly. Thedata required for these decisions is mostly buried in theautomation system; for dynamic operation it needs tobe turned into information, which in turn needs to beprocessed quickly. To improve the situation with the au-tomation system, different systems on all levels needto be integrated to allow for sophisticated informationprocessing.

The availability of the full picture allows the opti-mization of single loops, plant operation, and economicperformance of the enterprise.

Fig. 8.12 Trend towards more sophisticated robotics

The technologies that allow the automation systemto be the core information processing system in a pro-duction plant are available today, are evolving quickly,and provide the means to bring the overall equipmenteffectiveness to new levels.

References

8.1 S. Behrendt, et al.: Integrierte Technologie-Roadmap Automation 2015+, ZVEI Automation(2006), in German

8.2 T. Hoernfeldt, A. Vollmer, A. Kroll: Industrial ITfor Cold Rolling Mills: The next generation ofAutomation Systems and Solutions, IFAC Work-shop New Technol. Autom. Metall. Ind. (Shanghai2003)

8.3 IEC 61508, Functional safety of electrical/elec-tronic/programmable electronic safety-related sys-tems

8.4 IEC 61850, Communication networks and systems insubstations

8.5 R. Zurawski: The Industrial Information TechnologyHandbook (CRC, Boca Raton 2005)

8.6 IEC 61158, Industrial communication networks –Fieldbus specifications

8.7 C. Brunner, K. Schwarz: Beyond substations – Use ofIEC 61850 beyond substations, Praxis Profiline – IEC61850 (April 2007)

8.8 K. Schwarz: Impact of IEC 61850 on system engineer-ing, tools peopleware, and the role of the system in-tegrator (2007) http://www.nettedautomation.com/download/IEC61850-Peopleware_2006-11-07.pdf

8.9 ARC Analysts: The top automation trends and tech-nologies for 2008, ARC Strategies (2007)

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8.10 G. Hale: People Power, InTech 01/08 (2208)8.11 M. Naedele: Addressing IT Security for Critical Control

Systems, 40th Hawaii Int. Conf. Syst. Sci. (HICSS-40)(Hawaii 2007)

8.12 E.F. Policastro: A Big Pill to Swallow, InTech 04/07(2007) p. 16

8.13 Center for intelligent maintenance systems,www.nsf.gov/pubs/2002/nsf01168/nsf01168xx.htm

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Education