Emerson Process Experts

I'm lucky enough to receive a copy of Andrew Bond's Industrial Automation Insider newsletter each month through an Emerson subscription agreement. Andrew covers the happenings among the automation suppliers and standards bodies. You can also find some of Andrew's writings on the ControlGlobal.com site.

In the November 2008 newsletter, one item that caught some attention around here was this nugget:

…first TÜV-approved SIL3 Foundation fieldbus safety valve controller to appear on the market. The device delivers status changes automatically via Foundation fieldbus and incorporates real time alarm management eliminating the need for external wiring or I/O cards.

I have the privilege of working in the vicinity of two very knowledgeable people with respect to process safety, Riyaz Ali and Mike Boudreaux.

Riyaz notes that the Foundation SIF specifications are still under development. In a recent Fieldbus Foundation release, it quotes ARC's Larry O'Brien:

It is very clear that end users want this technology and are striving to include FF-SIF systems in their project specifications. Many major end users will probably be specifying FF-SIF systems for their new projects starting in 2011.

A September 2008 ARC whitepaper, Foundation Fieldbus Safety Instrumented Functions Forge the Future of Process Safety, provides background on the Foundation SIF standard advancement and its current draft status. Mike and Riyaz were present at the successful May 2008 Foundation SIF end user demonstration project in Amsterdam, and Mike shared his experiences with me. Riyaz also shared that one of the function blocks, the SIF_DO block, will not be available from the Fieldbus Foundation until the first half of 2009.

Many automation suppliers are developing products based on the current Foundation SIF draft, including Emerson. I asked Riyaz about the current solution Emerson provides until the standard is ratified. Riyaz responded:

The current solution for use in a Foundation fieldbus SIS application is to use the DVC6000f PD instrument. Several hundred units have been supplied worldwide to process manufacturers where partial stroke test scripts are run from host systems, such as the DeltaV system and AMS Device Manager.

In this application, process manufacturers use a solenoid valve operated by a hardwired digital output from the SIS logic solver.

Riyaz expects that until process manufacturers have sufficient experience, they will continue to use an independent solenoid valve to take the SIS valve to the fail state, while at the same time using a DVC6000f PD for partial stroke diagnostics using Foundation fieldbus through the basic process control system (BPCS).

Mike notes that both the DeltaV and DeltaV SIS systems are capable of performing these safety instrumented function predictive diagnostics. The DeltaV system is being used to perform partial stroke testing with the DVC6000f PD using Foundation fieldbus communications. The DeltaV SIS system is being used to automate partial stroke testing with the DVC6000 SIS safety valve controller using HART communications. This additional diagnostic coverage assists process manufacturers with their IEC 61511 safety lifecycle efforts.

Using diagnostics enabled by Foundation fieldbus and HART communications, the DeltaV and DeltaV SIS systems with DVC6000 digital valve controllers can provide many of the benefits today that are promised by Foundation SIF in the future.

MP3 | iTunes

Tags: SIL3 | Foundation fieldbus | HART communications | FF-SIF | Foundation SIF | partial stroke test | IEC 61511 | safety lifecycle | safety instrumented function | safety instrumented system | SIF | SIS |

November 21, 2008 in Final Control Element, in Foundation Fieldbus, in Interoperability, in Safety | Comments (0)

Emerson's DeltaV team announced news of new smart switches for the DeltaV control network. The topic of cyber-security is on the minds of a lot of process manufacturers right now. In fact, the November 2008 issue of Control magazine is devoted to security-related issues for process manufacturers.

I discussed in an earlier post how commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) technologies rapidly advanced the capabilities and performance for all of the process automation systems. Since these technologies are no longer totally proprietary and within the total control of the automation suppliers, security is a fundamental issue that must be addressed by both suppliers and process manufacturers.

The use of COTS technologies, like Ethernet-based control networks, has caused a collision in the worlds of IT and plant automation teams. Much has been written about the competing objectives and methods between these teams. DeltaV product manager, Bob Huba, has been in these discussions for several years, ferreting out requirements in his role managing security for the DeltaV system.

Bob notes that the fundamental premise behind the smart switch is to make it easy for automation engineers to secure their control networks and give them a way to help their IT organization help themselves. They can do this without having to involve the IT group in the setup and ongoing support of the Ethernet-based networks used for process control.

These switches, used to connect workstations, controllers, WirelessHART gateways, and other Ethernet-based devices are built-for-purpose and fully accessible from inside the DeltaV system. The switches are designed to work with the DeltaV control network with no configuration nor network specialization required.

Instead of COTS, the DeltaV team has coined the acronym, POTS—purpose-built, off-the-shelf to describe this class of device.

Bob described how it helps the IT team by saying that they are fully simple network management protocol (SNMP) version 3 capable, which provides three valuable services: authentication, privacy and access control.

With the proper authentication, IT staff members can get view-only access to these switches and incorporate the information into their network management processes. Bob threw a new term I hadn't heard, MIB-II. Google, always my trusty friend, told me it meant Management Information Base, and Wikipedia defined it:

A management information base (MIB) stems from the OSI/ISO Network management model and is a type of database used to manage the devices in a communications network. It comprises a collection of objects in a (virtual) database used to manage entities (such as routers and switches) in a network.

From the automation team's viewpoint, knowing that it's view-only access helps them all sleep better at night. They don't have to know a thing about SNMPs, MIBs, OSIs, ISOs and other IT stuff, which is of great comfort to them.

In addition, for local access to switch information, each switch has a built-in read-only, web browser interface. Process maintenance folk can browse any switch and get the diagnostic information they need.

What automation folks care about is that their automation systems are secure. The smart switches address one of the largest concerns—open Ethernet ports that people can plug into, or add wireless access points to—and open up the control network to all sorts of security risks. The release describes an easy way to prevent this—one-button lockdown:

The one-click lockdown application automatically scans the DeltaV network to find the DeltaV switches and then allows the user the choice to automatically unlock or lock the switches. Unlocking also enables an auto-relock of the switches in 60 minutes if the user does not perform a manual relock before then.

If you can have a way to bring peace between the automation and IT groups, have the level of security you need, and have the ease-of-use so it is in fact used, then Bob just may have ferreted out something good in all those conversations.

MP3 | iTunes

Update: ARC Advisory Group has a nice summary of these smart switches.

Tags: ethernet switch | COTS | commercial off the shelf | POTS | purpose built off the shelf | cybersecurity | network lockdown | SNMP |

November 20, 2008 in Cyber-Security, in Operations Management | Comments (0)

Last week I mentioned uploading two of ModelingAndControl.com blog's Greg McMillan's recent presentations. Like I did with his first presentation, here's a short recap of the second one, Control Loop Foundation for Batch and Continuous Control:

What are great about Greg's presentations are the specific application examples. Visit the slides 19-21 to see ways of improving neutralizer control using Feed forward control, signal characterization and proper piping to provide proper spacing for measurement devices. Similarly, slides 22-24 show ways to improve distillation column control using Feed forward control and signal characterization. You mostly don't realize the benefits of improved control until you reduce variability and move the setpoint closer to the operating limit.

Greg is really good at boiling things down. Here are his words summing up basic opportunities in process control (from slides 27 and 28):

• Decrease stick-slip and improve the sensitivity of the final element (Standard Deviation is the product of stick-slip, valve gain, and process gain)
  • Use properly tuned smart positioners, short shafts with tight connections, and low friction packing and seating surfaces to decrease valve slip-stick and dead band (do not use isolation valves for throttling valves)
  • If high friction packing must be used, aggressively tune the smart positioner
  • Improve valve type and sizing and add signal characterization to increase valve sensitivity
  • Use variable speed drives where appropriate for the best sensitivity
• Improve the short and long term reproducibility and reduce the interference and noise in the measurement (Standard Deviation is proportional to reproducibility and noise)
  • Use magnetic and Coriolis mass flow meters to eliminate sensing lines, improve rangeability, and reduce effect of Reynolds Number and piping
  • Use smart transmitters to reduce process and ambient effects
  • Use RTDs and digital transmitters to decrease temperature noise and drift
• Reduce loop dead time (Minimum Integrated Error is proportional to the dead time squared)
  • Decrease valve dead time (stick and dead band)
  • Decrease transport (plug flow volume) and mixing delay (turnover time)
  • Decrease measurement lags (sensor lag, dampening, and filter time)
  • Decrease discrete device delays (scan or update time)
  • Decrease analyzer sample transport and cycle time
• Tune the controllers (Integrated Error is inversely proportional to the controller gain and directly proportional to the controller integral time)
• Add cascade control (Standard Deviation is proportional to the ratio of the period of the secondary to the process time constant of the primary loop)
• Add feed forward control (Standard Deviation is proportional to the root mean square of the measurement, feed forward gain, and timing errors)
• Eliminate or slow down disturbances (track down source and speed)
• Add inline analyzers (probes) and at-line analyzers with automated sampling since ultimately what you want to control is a composition
• Optimize set points (based on process knowledge and variability)
• To realize the benefit of reduced variability, often need to change a set point

He sums up the presentation with these key points:

• Tune the loops
• Use digital positioners and throttle valves to get resolution better than 0.5%
• Use Coriolis and Magmeters to get accuracy better than 0.5% of rate
• Add cascade and feed forward control for disturbances
• Model the process to dispel myths and build on process knowledge
• Improve the set points
• Add composition control
• Reduce the size and speed of disturbances
• Transfer variability from most important process outputs
• Add online data analytics (multivariate statistical process control)
• Add online metrics to spur competition, and to adjust, verify, and justify controls

View or download the presentation if you think some of this guidance might benefit you.

MP3 | iTunes

Tags: neutralizer control | distillation column control | stick-slip | dead time | cascade control | feed forward control | loop tuning | online data analytics |

November 18, 2008 in Education, in Final Control Element, in Measurement, in Process Optimization | Comments (0)

I've known Emerson's Patrick Deruytter for many years. He's now the general manager for the Emerson Process Management office in South Korea. As his career has advanced, he's lived in many places—Minnesota and Texas in the U.S., Belgium and the U.K. in Europe, Australia, Singapore, and China. His experiences have included projects, project management, product marketing, lifecycle support, and general management.

He was in Austin last week and we had a chance to catch up. I found out he recently spoke at the Asia Pacific FPSO Summit with a presentation, Enabling Operational Excellence in FPSO. For those not versed in FPSOs, the acronym stands for Floating Production Storage and Offloading. When I worked in the offshore oil and gas industry in the mid-to-late 1980s, the overwhelming majority of offshore production came from fixed-leg platforms that set on the ocean floor.

Patrick highlighted some of the challenges and global trends for FPSOs. The first is the ever-increasing sophistication and complexity of the vessels and the onboard processing facilities. Oil and gas producers are building and modernizing FPSOs to meet the global needs for hydrocarbon-based energy.

Increasingly, FPSO owners want all of their systems integrated—navigation and propulsion systems, integrated automation systems (IAS), custody transfer systems (CTS), etc. Given the fast track nature of FPSO projects, equipment deliveries and skilled project engineers are critical for on time, on-budget performance. Once commissioned, the systems need to be highly reliable and easy to maintain, given the marine environment in which they operate.

Integrated systems provide a single window into the oil & gas production processes, subsea control processes, management of onboard assets, safety instrumented systems, and vessel automation processes (ballast control, offloading, power management, tank washing, etc.)

The design of the processing facilities on FPSOs is becoming extremely modular. This helps with the construction phase while the vessel is in the shipyard, and makes engineering, installation, and commissioning more manageable. The major processes like separation, gas dehydration, gas injection, oil metering, seawater treatment, power generation and distribution, custody transfer, etc. are pre-built, instrumented, and set on the deck of the vessel for integration with the automation and safety systems.

The modular trend extends to the wiring. FPSOs are moving away from large central control rooms toward remote I/O and control stations distributed among the production modules. This reduces the size of the total control room footprint, which is quite expensive on these ships. It also reduces cable runs, which reduces overall weight. And the modular design lends itself to modular pre-assembly and pre-testing which reduces overall commissioning time. Typically, the earlier you find problems, the easier and less expensive they are to resolve.

Patrick listed products across Emerson Process Management and alliance partners used in large marine projects like FPSOs and FLNG (floating liquefied natural gas) vessels. The list included DeltaV automation systems, DeltaV SIS safety systems, AMS suite software, Scanjet tank cleaning, Wärtsilä power distribution / engines / drives / vessel automation / propulsion systems, Rosemount tank radar level gauging and measurement, Fisher valves and regulators, Daniel metering and custody transfer, Micro Motion flow meters, and Valve Automation offshore valve systems.

These technologies have been applied in some of the world's largest FPSOs including ExxonMobil Kizomba A & B, BP Angola, Pemex, and Total, to name a few.

Patrick closed his presentation on WirelessHART wireless devices and how they are being incorporated in applications like wellhead annular pressure and heat exchanger pressure monitoring. This additional monitoring helps more quickly spot abnormal situations and reduces the manual clipboard and keyboard entry work processes.

The level of sophistication and technologies applied to these marine applications has come a long way from my days back in offshore oil production two decades ago!

MP3 | iTunes

Tags: FPSO | oil&gas | floating production storage offloading | IAS | CTS | FLNG | wirelessHART | annular pressure | heat exchanger |

November 13, 2008 in FPSO, in Oil & Gas, in Project Services, in Wireless | Comments (0)

ModelingAndControl.com blog's Greg McMillan copied me on two presentations he recently gave to a major chemical manufacturer. Being a blogger and firmly believing that great content should be shared with the world, I asked Greg if I could upload the files to my slideshare account. Greg graciously agreed.

Here's one of them, Opportunity Assessment and Advanced Control:

Greg listed the benefits that advanced process control can bring, based on his experience and 33 year career in the chemical manufacturing industry. These included:

• Improved yield (better selectivity)^*
• Less blending, scrap, and rework or higher price for higher grade^*
• Lower utility costs (energy minimization)
• Higher production rate (feed maximization)
• Increased on stream time (fewer shutdowns)
• Reduced maintenance (less stress on equipment)
• Safer operation (fewer shutdowns and less stress on equipment)

^*The benefits for improved yield and less scrap or rework can be taken as an increase in capacity or a reduction in raw materials

The presentation is rich with guidance for opportunity sizing and assessment, common myths and misconceptions, lessons learned, rules of thumb, and of course, Greg's famous top 10 lists. I'll highlight just the opportunity assessment portion of the presentation and leave the rest for your perusal.

Greg showed a chart of three companies who benchmarked their regulatory and batch control, advanced control, and data management. The total improvement in cost of goods sold (COGS) across these three categories was 8%.

Greg advised to begin with a thorough opportunity sizing before the opportunity assessment using cost sheets, product prices, historical trends, business plans, research reports, technical studies, and simulations to establish actual, practical, and theoretical performance—like yields and capacity improvements—with operations and technology.

Next, he counseled to work with the plant process engineers to go through the process, identify constraints, and offer ideas on opportunities to reduce gaps identified in the opportunity sizing exercise to see and work way out of the current process box. You'll want to avoid the temptation of a canned solution or to come to conclusions before the plant personnel thoroughly discuss peculiarities and special problems. Greg felt that it's important for knowledgeable people to speak first and ask questions—and to hold off on solutions. Instead, offer concepts that people can use to generate solutions and be a good listener during this phase.

And from the process itself, use the automation system and the historian to find loops in manual, limit cycles, slow or oscillatory set point and load responses, and controller outputs running near limits.

Your next step is to look for opportunities to infer compositions from fast, lower maintenance measurements such as density, viscosity, mass spectrometers, microwave, and nuclear magnetic resonance. Seek applications of accurate mass flow ratios for material balance knowledge and control.

You'll want to ask the operations folks what would happen if a set point or operating mode were changed. When developing possible solutions, pick control technologies to address opportunities and give relative estimates of implementation cost and time (e.g. high, medium, low) and percent of gap addressed. For a sanity check, ask plant process engineers to estimate percentage of gap addressed by each solution.

Greg's closing thoughts for this assessment process were to take advantage of momentum and group enthusiasm by starting on "quick hits" immediately and setting definitive schedules and assignments for others (to avoid inertia of waiting for a quote or study.) Finally, take the action to tune the loops and improve the loops.

If you view or download the presentation, look at some of the questions you should ask during this assessment on slides 16 and 17. Hopefully you'll find some nuggets on how and where to apply APC to reduce your COGS.

MP3 | iTunes

Tags: batch process | continuous process | deadband | loop tuning | process models | advanced control | advanced process control | APC |

November 11, 2008 in Education, in Process Optimization | Comments (0)

I saw Emerson's James Beall the other week and asked him for a copy of his Emerson Exchange presentation, Interesting and Useful Features of the DeltaV PID Controller.

Every year, James presents to standing-room-only crowds and his presentation (given twice) this year was no exception. PID or proportional-integral-derivative control is definitely not a new concept. I did some Googling around and found references to it dating back to 1922 when N. Minorsky published an article on its use for automatic ship steering control.

While PID control has been around for a long time, technologists keep adding innovations, like degrees of freedom to the proportional action and the derivative action.

James began by describing three common PID forms: parallel, standard (a.k.a. ISA form), and series (a.k.a. classical form.) The standard form is the default choice in the DeltaV PID function block and the series form is an option. James counseled that the choice is based on your prior experience and personal preference. The series and standard forms are identical if the derivative action is not used. Also, your choice of forms can impact the conversion of tuning constants from a previous control system.

The PID function block also has a STRUCTURE parameter that provides two degrees of freedom for the proportional and derivative actions. On a change of setpoint (SP), you can scale these actions (BETA = proportional action scaling, GAMMA = derivative action scaling) between 0 and 100%.

The PID function block has an integral dead band (IDEADBAND) for when the error (SP minus PV) gets within this dead band. At this point, the integral action stops. James described a level controller application that feeds a downstream unit in order to reduce the movement of the controller output when the error enters the dead band.

James discussed three setpoint filters based on rate of change. One filter provides a time constant in seconds of the first order SP filter (SP_FTIME). Another provides a ramp rate at which downward setpoint changes (SP_RATE_DN) or upward setpoint changes (SP_RATE_UP) are acted on when the loop is in automatic mode.

Limits can also be placed on highest and lowest setpoints allowed, whether or not these limits are obeyed when the loop is in cascade or remote cascade mode, or whether output limits of the master loop in a cascade pair are used to limit the setpoint to the slave loop in cascade and remote cascade mode.

On the subject of cascade-control loops, James shared how mode tracking, bumpless transfers, and other loop interactions are automatically handled by the PID block's BKCAL interblock communications.

Gain scheduling is another PID control innovation for loops with nonlinearities where different regions of the PID controller can have different PID tuning parameters. The DeltaV PID function block can have up to three regions with different tuning parameters, based on a selected state variable (output, process variable, error, production rate, etc.) The algorithm provides a smooth transition between the regions.

James also provides guidance on valve output characterization and anti-reset windup limits in the presentation. Although these advanced PID functions can appear quite technical, they can significantly improve the performance of PID control and provide ways to handle difficult process dynamics. The bottom line to getting this control right is better control performance and a more efficient process.

You can read about the full capabilities of the PID function block in the 9.3 version of DeltaV Books On-line.

MP3 | iTunes

Tags: PID control | proportional derivative integral | PID ISA form | PID classical form | integral deadband | setpoint filter | cascade control | gain scheduling | anti reset windup |

November 7, 2008 in Control Strategies, in Emerson Exchange, in Process Optimization | Comments (0)

Emerson's Fisher division recently announced a new three-way, temperature-control valve and actuator system. The release highlighted its potential use by process manufacturers:

The new GX 3-way has the ability to accurately control the temperature of water, oils, steam, and other industrial fluids. Applications include heat exchangers and lubricating skids.

For those not well versed with three-way valves, you'll find use for them in both flow mixing (converging) and flow splitting (diverging) applications.

I caught up with Brad Smith, the global GX control valve product manager, about some potential applications for this valve. Brad began by sharing the development objectives for this valve. Typically, when a process manufacturer cannot achieve the required control, they must reassess process-piping arrangements, often going to a 2-valve arrangement. This GX 3-Way valve provides the level of control to avoid re-piping and 2-valve arrangements.

Brad shared with me that the biggest application focus for this 3-way valve is in temperature control around heat exchangers. It was designed for high-capacity applications and precise linear characteristics required for accurate temperature control. Brad cited a specific heat exchanger application in beer brewing where the wort temperature is maintained with a glycol coolant.

Another common application for this 3-way valve is pH control on feedwater to a boiler. When the pH of the feedwater rises beyond a predetermined level, a three-way valve adds fresh make up water to reduce the pH back to target levels.

A third application Brad discussed was for test separator manifolds. Test separators are mainly used in oil & gas production facilities to measure the amounts of oil, gas, and water from the well. The manifold contains three-way valves coming from each wellhead that uses the test separator. Some installations use the three-way valves while others prefer globe valves.

A final application Brad shared was in the steel industry. Rod mills require good temperature water box control.

Most process manufacturers have temperature control applications requiring mixing flow streams or splitting flow streams. This three-way valve might have the flow characteristics and properties your application requires.

MP3 | iTunes

Tags: GX | temperature control valve | heat exchanger | lubricating skid | flow mixing | flow splitting | wort temperature control | pH control | boiler feedwater | test separator | rod mill | water box control |

November 6, 2008 in Boilers, in Feed Water Control, in Final Control Element, in Food & Beverage, in Metals, Mining, Minerals, in Oil & Gas, in pH Control | Comments (0)

When it comes to level 3 of the ANSI/ISA95 model, the production/operations management level, Emerson's Joanne Salazar and Bob Lenich are two very knowledgeable folks. I caught up with them recently in a discussion around this standard.

For those not steeped in the ISA95 standard, Enterprise-Control System Integration, it is the industry standard for information exchange between enterprise and manufacturing control activities and their supporting IT systems. This standard is oriented toward the definition of data models, work activity, and information exchange. ISA has defined four levels within a manufacturing operation that help companies optimize functions, processes, and data. These levels are based on the Purdue Reference Model for Computer Integrated Manufacturing (CIM). The levels include:

• Level 0: physical equipment and facilities
• Level 1: instrumentation, measurements, and equipment health
• Level 2: automation, asset management, and process data collection
• Level 3: operations management, workflow execution, and document management (MES)
• Level 4: transaction-based enterprise management (ERP)

Joanne noted that the level 3 functions are important because they include key work processes: workflow management, recipe control, maintaining records, and optimizing the production process. By addressing these functions, process manufacturers can reduce costs, increase efficiencies, and optimize resource utilization. Manufacturers face price pressure and increasing global competition, and seek ways to squeeze efficiencies from their manufacturing operations. Joanne also commented that process manufacturers have struggled to implement successful solutions that link the real-time plant floor activities with the transactional-based business planning functions.

Bob responded that level 3 functionality can be addressed in a comprehensive manner–including a single recipe for batch-based processes that address both manual and automated activities, life cycle documentation management, and integration of data that is not real-time–but impacts the product (such as lab results.) These level 3 solutions provide "closed loop" control for operations beyond the automated processes, which enables the manufacturer to make better and faster business decisions and optimize their resources.

While Joanne supported this vision, the practical implementation of these solutions has been difficult. Software integration interfaces have historically been time consuming and require extensive testing–not to mention the difficulties that can arise when the support staff must maintain and upgrade the software.

Bob believed this is where standards, such as ISA95 Enterprise Integration, play a big role. By defining data models, common terminology, and information exchange definitions, the integration of various software packages becomes practical in a working plant. Level 3 manufacturing operations software suppliers who adopt these standards make it easier for the process manufacturer to connect solutions from different companies.

By sitting on the ISA95 committee, Bob has had the opportunity to help define this standard. The collaborative effort of suppliers and users in this standard has helped provide a framework for software suppliers that can help to achieve some of the operational efficiencies sought. Bob pointed to Emerson's automation and operations management solutions that communicate—using the ISA88 recipe model—so that the batch process manufacturer can define a single recipe in a single engineering environment. This recipe spans all functions of an operation, both manual and automated, and enables comprehensive data collection. This single recipe approach may streamline change control and reduce the engineering effort.

And that just might squeeze some more efficiency from the manufacturing operations.

MP3 | iTunes

Tags: ISA95 | S95 | ISA88 | S88 | Enterprise Control System Integration | Purdue Reference Model | workflow management | recipe control |

November 4, 2008 in Interoperability, in Operations Management | Comments (0)

Earlier this week, I listened to Gary Mintchell's personal podcast, Automation Minutes Episode 59 (iTunes | RSS feed). Gary interviews Emerson's Jonas Berge, a member of the ISA104, Electronic Device Description Language (EDDL) standards committee. EDDL is also recognized globally by international standard IEC 61804-3. A few weeks earlier, Gary had interviewed a member of the FDT (a competing standard) marketing committee.

Jonas provides a detailed summary of what EDDL means to process manufacturers. It's a standard to display information in intelligent field devices communicating via HART, WirelessHART, Foundation fieldbus and Profibus back to the device management software and automation system. EDDL files are standards-based compressed text files that reside in the device management software to provide a consistent view to devices from different manufacturers for setup, calibration, diagnostics, etc. Through the EDDL file, the device manufacturer tells the system what command to send to get information from the device, how to decode it, and how this manufacturer would like to present the data.

Jonas offers a great analogy of how EDDL is like HTML. Both are text-based files. Client software (device management software and web browser) renders both, both are platform independent since they are text files and not installed programs, and both are version independent again since they are not installable programs. And similar to how devices like PCs, MACs and smart phones render HTML pages, PCs and handheld devices with device management software render smart device information.

Also, in how HTML supports sophisticated displays, EDDL supports sophisticated ways to render valve signatures, vibration spectrums, radar level "echo curves", dial gauges, historical trends, and step-by-step "wizard" procedures. Jonas points out that these graphical enhancements were added to the EDDL standard in 2006 to address the NAMUR NE 105 requirement to support access to full functionality in complex devices in the way the device manufacturers want this functionality to be displayed. These complex devices include valve positioners, variable speed drives, machinery health transmitters, wireless gateways, and bus diagnostic modules to name a few.

The design basis behind the EDDL standard is that the device manufacturer knows best what information their devices contain and how it should be displayed. The device manufacturers can make the full functionality of their devices visible and available on any system. The device management software suppliers know best how to provide a consistent view of trends, gauges, step-by-step procedures, etc.

For plant staff members who manage the device management software, the EDDL files do not become obsolete as the operating system is revised or security patches are added. Since these are text-based files, multiple versions can exist together within the device management software to address the plant realities of different devices, from different vendors, communicating with different digital protocols.

The information presented from these various devices have a common look and feel for the instrument technician and others who access the information. And the integrated diagnostics provided by the EDDL standard meet the NAMUR NE 91 requirements.

I captured a quick video at the recent ISA Expo 2008 in Houston, Texas. I just received some photos and ISA104 / EDDL Booth Report that show systems from ABB, Emerson, Invensys, and Siemens interoperating with advanced valve positioners and transmitters from Emerson, Endress+Hauser, Invensys, Masoneilan, MTL, Metso, Samson, and Siemens. These pictures demonstrate this interoperability in action:

MP3 | iTunes

Tags: ISA104 | EDDL | electronic device description language | IEC 61804-3 | Interoperability | asset management | Foundation fieldbus | Profibus | HART | WirelessHART |

October 31, 2008 in Foundation Fieldbus, in Interoperability, in Measurement, in Profibus, in Technologies | Comments (0)

Marshall Meier received an award for his recent Emerson Exchange presentation, Improve How You Visualize Data. I first met Marshall at last year's Exchange after I discovered we both did presentations on social media, a.k.a. Web 2.0. Here was last year's summary of his presentation.

In this year's data visualization presentation, he shared ideas from preeminent thought leader, Edward Tufte, and his seminal book, The Visual Display of Quantitative Information. Another thought leader Marshall highlighted was Stephen Few, who wrote several books on data presentation, including Show Me the Numbers.

When presenting, your focus should be on just showing the data. Don't clutter it with extraneous visual information. Why does this matter? Your data is important. It helps you and those with whom you share this data better understand problems and make decisions. The goal for an excellent graph or chart should be to get the viewers of this data to ask questions.

Marshall showed the same information presented in both a cluttered and clean presentation. The first view might prompt more thoughts about mad scientists than about the rise and fall of U.S. patents over time. Presentation viewers are more likely to engage in a conversation about the data with the simple uncluttered presentation.

One of Tufte's ideas Marshall shared was the data-to-ink ratio. This is the amount of ink devoted to the data compared to the total ink used in the graphic. For a PowerPoint presentation, think pixels instead of ink. The higher the ratio, the more you're focusing the visual display on the data.

Marshall described "chartjunk" as additional graphics not related to the data in a quest to make the chart more aesthetically pleasing. Instead, it distracts from the data. If you think your graph is boring, you're showing the wrong data. Open a USA Today newspaper and you'll find examples of chartjunk—like a gas price tracker that shows a gas pump graphic with a window containing the average price and another containing the directional price change. Although cute, the data-to-ink ratio is low.

Another example Marshall shared is the comparison between the main Yahoo page and Google page. They are at opposite ends of the visual display spectrum.

For those that love the visually exciting, 3D graphics in Microsoft Office products like Word, Excel, and PowerPoint, Marshall's simple message is, "Don't use 3D." Although it may look cool, the 3^rd dimension does not add anything. When the graph has multiple data series, 3D makes it difficult to compare data between two data points. In 2D, comparisons are easier to make. Again, the focus shifts from the "eye candy" to the data itself.

You can also fall into the trap of distorting the data. The concept of "lie factor" is the size of the effect shown in the graphic divided by the size the effect in the data itself. Graphic treatments that show a 3D-perspective can visually distort the data. Bar charts often convey size, relative differences, and area better than pie charts do.

Marshall closed his presentation with a famous graph described by Edward Tufte:

Probably the best statistical graphic ever drawn, this map by Charles Joseph Minard portrays the losses suffered by Napoleon's army in the Russian campaign of 1812.

It shows you can use creativity and "eye-candy" if it amplifies the data and not the extraneous. Congratulations, Marshall, on a very informative, award-winning presentation!

MP3 | iTunes

Tags: data visualization | Edward Tufte | Stephen Few | chartjunk | data-ink ratio | lie factor |

October 29, 2008 in Education, in Emerson Exchange | Comments (5)