Representative End User Clients
Representative Automation Clients
Representative Software Clients
ARC’s European Industry Forum, part of the successful series of worldwide conferences in Europe, America and Asia, has been held in Sitges (Barcelona), Spain on May 15 - 17, 2023. The event offered exclusive presentations and workshops on strategies and case studies in line with this year’s topic “Managing Industry Evolution in Times of Global Disruption” to its 160 international participants from 20 countries
Open Process Automation (OPA) Workshop
The Open Process Automation Forum (OPAF) held a workshop on May 17th at ARC’s European Industry Forum in Sitges, Spain, was well attended, and demonstrated the emergence of a healthy OPA ecosystem with end users, system integrators and suppliers starting to offer OPA aligned products. The workshop was kicked off by ExxonMobil's Mohan Kalyanaraman and Valentijn de Leeuw from ARC.
Key elements of the workshop included an introduction to OPA presented by Jac Opmeer from Shell, co-chair of the OPAF, and presentations by suppliers in the OPA ecosystem who discussed and displayed products aligned to the OPA standard, and a live demo of the ExxonMobil test bed from Texas.
Suppliers and System Integrators representing parts of the OPA ecosystem discussed their product offerings. Presenters were:
• Marilyn Basanta from VMware, who discussed the VMware Edge, containers, and virtual machine offerings for bringing IT innovations to the OT environment.
• Luciano Botto from SMAR, who discussed the development of OPA Distributed Control Nodes (DCNs) assembled into a working prototype, and plans for a 30-city roadshow on OPA in Brazil and the rest of the world to get companies aware of the offerings and excite students in universities about OPA and its potential for fulfilling careers.
• Luis Duran from ABB, who discussed offers from ABB that decoupled control software from purpose built hardware, orchestration and other modular architecture components and features offered by ABB aligned with OPA standards and NAMUR’s Module Type Package (MTP).
• Ravindra Jagasia from R. Stahl, presented Stahl’s components currently available for deployment in an O-PAS architecture for harsh and hazardous areas of the process plant. The IS1+ Extended I/O variants, certified to ATEX, IEC Ex and NEC standards, are DCN I/O with OCF interface and DCN Compute + I/O with embedded IEC 61131-3 or IEC 61499 runtime, also ready for MTP.
• Bob Hagenau from CPlane, discussed how the Coalition for Open Process Automation’s (COPA) members, who built experience in setting up and testing and production systems, found out that proposed systems can be offered much cheaper using standard interfaces and off-the-shelf hardware (COTS hardware) - in some cases by up to 60 percent cheaper than traditional systems. Wood plc, an EPC with engineering and project expertise, would act as systems integrator and take the responsibility for the maintenance and support functions.
• Intel's Peter Hall presented a reference DCN, that can be designed and manufactured in short time using a modular board architecture to reduce the development time.
Live Demonstration of ExxonMobil OPA Test Bed
The supplier presentations were followed by a live demonstration of the ExxonMobil OPA test bed at The Woodlands presented by Jacob Thate and Hide Sawahara from Yokogawa. The demonstration showcased the capability of OPA to enable interoperability, portability, and security approaches through the OPA standard. The OPA test bed had an operator control panel to create a single pane of glass view of the process to monitor and control the process more effectively, while providing additional insight into the status of the components. The demonstration also showed how the OPA test bed can be used to improve the security of the process by isolating different parts of the process from each other. The test bed is used to validate the products against the OPA standards and qualify the products for use in the field trial in an ExxonMobil manufacturing facility.
Conclusion
The workshop on OPA in Sitges demonstrated that OPA has moved beyond concept to actual products, systems, and starts to be implemented commercially to bring benefits to users, and suppliers.
The level of interest in OPA is rising and it is exciting to be part of the transformation of the process automation industry. There is a growing demand for products and offerings in the marketplace and the ecosystem is beginning to see an increased uptake of products and services aligned with the OPA.
The contributions showed evidence that OPA offers several benefits over traditional process automation systems. These benefits include:
• Openness: OPA is based on open standards, which means that it is more interoperable with other systems. This can make it easier to integrate OPA systems with existing IT and OT systems.
• Flexibility: OPA is a modular architecture, which makes it more flexible and scalable than traditional systems. This can make it easier to adapt OPA systems to changing requirements.
• Security: OPA is designed to be more secure than traditional systems. This is due to its use of open standards and its modular architecture.
• Cost-effectiveness: OPA can be more cost-effective than traditional systems. This is due to its use of open standards and its modular architecture.
We recommend users to become familiar with OPA, experiment with it, and be ready to reap the benefits when certified products can be procured and implemented at industrial scale.
ARC’s European Industry Forum & Platform
We like to thank our sponsors, who supported the ARC EIF 2023, and all our speakers and presenters, who made the event interesting, exciting and memorable.
To complement the Forum, ARC Europe offers its online platform https://arc-industry-forum-europe.arcweb.com/en/, accessible 365 days a year. Its goal is to maintain the flow of information, and to foster network opportunities. On the platform you will find information concerning relevant economic developments and information on automation markets, as well as our quarterly industry webinars.
Materials and presentations from the Forum will be made available on our platform https://arc-industry-forum-europe.arcweb.com/en/ after registration, depending on the package chosen. Forum attendees can download presentation slides, view video recordings and receive further materials on the platform.
For more information, please contact Ann-Kathrin Blech (mailto:ablech@arcweb.com).