If it ain’t broke – DO fix it.
Today we’re going to talk about modernization. In a recent presentation, Darrell Halterman, senior product manager, PLC controls products, Emerson, discussed the fact that in industrial markets, when a technology has been working well for years, it’s tempting to simply let it be. After all, there are always more important things to worry about. But the fact is that by standing pat, industrial manufacturers can be missing out on technological advances that could save time, money and maintenance, and allow far greater efficiency. One such example is users still relying on old generation PLCs such as the popular Series 90-70 and 90-30 – formerly GE and now Emerson.
Why would you want to modernize your PLCs? For the same reason you would upgrade your truck or your computer. To take advantage of the many improvements that have occurred over twenty years. In the case of PLCs, here are a few of these new benefits available with the new PACSystems RX3i:
You might say, all those benefits are great, but they don’t outweigh the lost productivity and total chaos of a shutdown and upgrade. You’ve just addressed the heart of the matter, because, while other PLC manufacturers can migrate, the new Emerson PACSystems RX3i is literally designed to allow easy, efficient, cost-effective migration as a standard feature.
With new Emerson PLC systems, you can swap out an old Series 90-70 rack in 10 minutes, and switch over an entire plant in a matter of hours with no shutdown. This is not your typical modernization program. Emerson executes with a unique, multi-stage process that works on your timetable with no loss of productivity.
Take, for example, a major South American oil producer’s FPSO unit. The big problem was that they couldn’t bring the rig back to shore without a full retrofit. Emerson’s solution was hot modernization of their old Series 90-70 redundant controllers to new PACSystems RX3i controllers. They upgraded the remote I/O one panel at a time. The results were a fully modernized control solution with no controls obsolescence, and increased system extensibility with a fiber optic ethernet backbone installation all achieved with no lost production and no system downtime.
A water and wastewater authority was using an obsolete Series 90-70 control system. They had a limited amount of waste lagoon storage and were frequently exceeding the available outage time, resulting in overflows and EPA fines. Emerson’s solution was pre-conversion of the obsolete controllers to new PACSystems RX3i controllers. I/O conversion racks were used to avoid moving field terminations. Each rack was switched in 10 minutes and the entire plant was converted with one three-hour outage. With controller application execution speeds at four times the old controllers, they have had no lagoon overflows or EPA reportables.
In a final example, a major automotive manufacturer had over 600 obsolete Series 90-30 controllers operating in each plant, with limited outages and limited maintenance staff. They needed a modernization program that wouldn’t interfere with production. The first full system upgrade was planned for a three-day weekend outage and involved 150 variable frequency drives and 32 GENIUS I/O nodes. To the customer’s amazement, the entire upgrade to RX3i controllers and PROFINET remote I/O took just six hours. Results were so encouraging that the team devised a strategy to update Series 90-30 controllers to RX3i over lunch breaks, freeing longer outages for other maintenance activities.
As these examples so clearly show, not only have PLCs greatly improved, but so has the entire modernization process. If you’re still stuck in costly shutdown routines, it’s time to switch to updates over lunch.
How could you benefit from the new approach to PLC modernization?
In reply to Jack.Zhang:
In reply to Leo Mennen:
In reply to Michael Richards:
Jack, I think we can all agree that Profinet is the way of the future. Consider however, that the Versamax GBI is still an active product. There are no concrete plans for it to be discontinued as far as I know. The best approach is to replace the controllers to pacsystems now. Use the GCG as Mike mentions above for an interface to the existing Genius. Concentrate on the CPU's for now and deal with the I/O second. This lowers downtime and minimizes risk. After the CPU's have been updated you can deal with each I/O panel one at a time. Again, shorter downtime windows and lower risk.
In reply to Mats Andersson: