Representative End User Clients
Representative Automation Clients
Representative Software Clients
ARC organized a very well attended session at the 20th annual ARC Forum in Orlando earlier this month on modularization of automation solutions and plant and process design. If you are new to the concept, modular automation or modularization essentially means the breaking down of systems, plants, processes, and unit operations into standard, modular components, much like Lego bricks. You see the modular approach in new types of process automation systems that incorporate either programmable or characterizable forms of I/O and standard cabinets/field junction boxes. You also see it in new approaches to automation system design that incorporate "late binding" techniques and utilize engineering in the cloud and virtualization concepts. Even at the plant level, process plants and facilities are increasingly being built with modular concepts in mind. For the Shell Prelude floating gas to liquids ship, for example, traditional gas to liquids process units had to be shrunk down to a quarter of their size and installed as modules in order to pack all the necessary equipment onto a single vessel. The project simply could not have been executed without a modular approach. What are the benefits of modularization? Considering the fact that the drive towards modularization is being led by the end users, there are significant economic benefits both during the engineering and project phase and throughout the lifecycle of the plant of facility. Modularization embraces open standards and open approaches. Modularization significantly reduces customization and custom engineering costs. Modularization supports the automation of many key automation functions both during design and installation and in the operational phase, as ExxonMobil's DICED concepts attest to (Auto-Detect / Auto-Interrogate / Auto-Configure / Auto-Enable / Auto-Document I/O). Similarly, modularization approaches embrace the concepts outlined in ARC's Collaborative Process Automation System (CPAS) vision. Concepts, solutions, and standards related to modular automation were all discussed during the session, which included speakers from Chevron, NAMUR (the European end user organization), and ExxonMobil. Gary La Framboise (recently retired from Chevron) discussed the mass deployment of wireless devices, in this case wireless gas detectors based on WirelessHART technology. This was a great example of how new technologies like wireless can be deployed on a large scale with relatively little cost to address specific requirements in the plant, which in this application were improved safety, improved asset integrity, and readiness for industrial internet of things (IIoT). Dr. Leon Urbas of NAMUR discussed the NAMUR NE 148 recommendations for modularization in process plants. For those not familiar, NAMUR is a chemical industry end user organization based in Germany that includes most of the major European chemical and pharmaceutical companies, from BASF and Bayer to Novartis and Evonik. NAMUR issues recommendations documents and NAMUR recommendations always find their way into supplier product offerings sooner or later. As Dr. Urbas points out, it was the fine chemical and pharmaceutical industries that originally adopted modular concepts in plant and process design, and NAMUR NE 148 requirements for modular automation specify decentralized automation with each "module" being fully automated. NE 148 also specifies flexible integration in plantwide control layers, vendor-independent integration of modules, tool support for integration engineering tasks, and vendor independent, functional, and consistent description of modules. 
If that sounds similar to the ExxonMobil concepts for a new open system that were detailed in Steve Bitar's presentation, you are not the only person to make that connection. Wrapping up the modularization session, Mr. Bitar elaborated on some of the open system concepts and the history of how the process automation industry arrived at its present state, with heavy reliance on proprietary environments and multiple layers of software and integration. ExxonMobil, in simple terms, wants to permanently collapse the Purdue model as ARC envisions in the CPAS study. The ExxonMobil Open Systems Architecture envisions a "system of systems" that incorporates cloud services for predictive maintenance, global data analytics, remote operations, and fleet optimization. Level I through Level III functions will be incorporated into an "Operations Technology Data Center" that run on a high availability, real time, and standardized advanced computing platforms. Level I through Level III functions will inter-operate using a common service bus. ARC will cover these modular concepts more deeply in an upcoming Strategy Report -- Modularization Strategies
If that sounds similar to the ExxonMobil concepts for a new open system that were detailed in Steve Bitar's presentation, you are not the only person to make that connection. Wrapping up the modularization session, Mr. Bitar elaborated on some of the open system concepts and the history of how the process automation industry arrived at its present state, with heavy reliance on proprietary environments and multiple layers of software and integration. ExxonMobil, in simple terms, wants to permanently collapse the Purdue model as ARC envisions in the CPAS study. The ExxonMobil Open Systems Architecture envisions a "system of systems" that incorporates cloud services for predictive maintenance, global data analytics, remote operations, and fleet optimization. Level I through Level III functions will be incorporated into an "Operations Technology Data Center" that run on a high availability, real time, and standardized advanced computing platforms. Level I through Level III functions will inter-operate using a common service bus. ARC will cover these modular concepts more deeply in an upcoming Strategy Report -- Modularization Strategies