Control Engineering Europe magazine has an article, Wireless offers flexibility for life. It highlights some of the benefits that are being reported by industrial wireless networks, both during the project implementation stage and throughout the life of a plant.
Ali Erener, project chief engineer for the Tüpras refinery in Turkey was quoted:
"Ground conditions make excavation for new cable runs difficult, but with the Smart Wireless solution we can minimise costs for cabling, cable trenches, conduits, and cable trays... Going wireless also gives us the flexibility to add more devices in the future – not only for level and temperature measurements, but also for tank water control and nitrogen pressure control at our blanketing tanks, which are far from the control room."
Emerson's Ann Robin highlighted ongoing benefits:
Wireless technology also allows measurements to be added more easily, even on a temporary basis, maybe to validate some new assumptions or to measure the effects of a new approach. It is important to remember that putting a wired measurement in place is not just about wiring in a sensor. You need to consider the junction box, marshalling panel and of course, it will use up valuable I/O, which can add up to a very costly measurement. “Any of these can be a bottleneck when a project scope changes in a wired world, even if the original design allowed a margin for additional requirements. Changes can quickly use up capacity that was designed-in, which then causes problems. In a wireless project, expansions could only require you to add a gateway, which would be much less of a headache..."