IEN: What are the major concerns facing providers of automation technology and related products and services in the next few years? How can they be addressed?
Sahagun: #1. Helping processors with integration of mechanicals and electrics that are already on the floor or are sourced from a multiplicity of manufacturers. Systems Integrators have opportunities.
Example: American Synthetic Fiber, Pendergrass, GA, pioneered an industry first for electrical integration and control of its new production lines. Working alongside systems integrator Electric Systems, Inc (a wholly-owned subsidiary of N.S.C. Schlumberger), ASF elected to install a combination of PC control and Multi-drive AC motor control for seamless operation of all processes from the carding system to the winder. The two lines installed, to date, are the largest and first production lines in the nonwovens industry to be built this way, with the Multi-drive featuring a true, common DC bus. (For more on this application, click here.)
Why this configuration of control? "Because it optimizes throughput, increases operational reliability -- fewer power devices are required in a Multi-drive -- utilizes all regenerated energy, and reduces inventory costs of spare parts dramatically," notes Mike Mauney, director of business development, ESI. "It is a cost-effective solution for an industry that utilizes machinery and processes that generate significant inertia and regenerative energy."
#2. PC control availability.
Example: To integrate the diverse equipment at ASF, ESI created a Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) program, utilizing Wonderware''s In Touch and In Control platforms, then used a Profibus communication protocol to link SCADA to the individual ABB drives within the Multi-drive.
The advantages are enormous, operationally and in terms of costs. "Processing sequences for recipes are up and loaded in the PC; if there''s a problem with the system, you simply plug in a new PC -- you''re back up in minutes," notes ESI''s Mauney. "The PC, at an approximate cost of $2,500, is your spare part." That contrasts with a traditional PLC control system that usually requires a manufacturer to keep six to seven PLC boards in spare-parts inventory.
"It''s easy," says Troy Ash, ASF Nonwoven plant manager. "I can download my recipes to a floppy disk, upload them into the substitute PC -- and we''re running. It''s much less cumbersome and time-consuming than trying to come back on line with the PLC-controlled systems."
#3. Making electrical equipment ever easier to install, commission, and start, for both in-house and third-party engineers.
Example: This easier, emerging master control at ASF of all machinery means drives and motors -- the critical connecting components between PCs and machinery -- have to be extremely dependable, points out Jeremy Nighan, regional manager for ABB Automation Technologies, Drives & Power Products. "Manufacturers like ASF expect to run 24/7 year-round," he notes, "so drives have to provide high reliability, repeatability -- and require less service."
IEN: What innovations are in store for users of automation systems and peripherals? What enhancements can be expected in automation software?
Sahagun: Interoperability between a manufacturer''s controls, across entire product spectrum.
Example: ABB''s IndustrialIT designation for thousands of products ensures that, at a product level, the new drives and motors (as one example) interoperate with all ABB products; and, through versatile connectivity, the controllers can also be integrated easily with different process automation systems.
IEN: What advances do you see in motors, controls, networks, power systems, and web services?
Sahagun: #1. Easy installation, commissioning and startup!
Example: The watchwords for drive technology and drive trends? "Small and extremely user friendly," notes Mark Kenyon, ABB product manager for the new ACS 800 family of low-voltage drives now reaching the industrial marketplace worldwide.
ABB''s new drives series -- narrowest in the industry -- is up to 50% smaller than its equivalent predecessor in the ABB ACS 600 drive range, and features like the Intelligent Start-up Assistant built into the new series "means, literally, that the commissioning and tuning of a high-performance drive could not be easier," Kenyon said. (For more on the ACS 800, click here.)
#2. Common technology across controls.
Example: "Seen through the eyes of users, this kind of wide range of horsepower in a single drive family (ACS 800), provides a common technology for a host of applications, small to large," said Kenyon. "All drives across a facility or within a process can share common features, such as interface with fieldbuses, tools for sizing, commissioning and maintenance, and common spare parts. That is the definition of efficient, smart installation and usage of electrical control and manpower."
#3. Encoder-less Operation!
Example: ABB''s Direct Torque Control technology at Georgia-Pacific''s Gypsum Paper Mill, San Leandro, CA. "Encoder-less operation of a paper mill is a quantum leap in simplification," said Mike Giraudo, vice president of system integrator Intec Solutions, Livermore, CA, which designed and implemented the project. "Mechanically, the encoders and wiring to them cease to be necessary; they''re gone in one fell swoop."
The DTC drives -- a total of 13 on the paper machine -- have operated flawlessly for more than two years, according to G-P plant manager Fred Curcio.
Giraudo noted that use of ABB''s ACS 600 series'' open-loop Direct Torque Control technology also eliminated the need for installing encoders on G-P''s finishing end equipment. The DTC feature, according to ABB, enables each machine''s motor drive to calculate the state (torque and flux) of the motor 40,000 times per second, making the drive virtually tripless.
The retrofit provided operators exceptional control of the machine. All drives and motors at San Leandro are wired to a master SAF controller platform, for which Intec created proprietary software. The programmable linear controller uses a processor with input cards and, via fiber optic connection, talks directly to the drives. The fiber optic cable is the I/O to the drives. SAF, in turn, reports to a SCADA program that provides historical trends of data for troubleshooting faults or identifying operating problems. (For more detail, click here.)
IEN: Is the drive toward lean/flexible manufacturing impacting this sector? In what ways?
Sahagun: Technology that will plug and play anywhere.
Example: Through the recent addition of a very unique factory-within-a-factory at the company''s 190,000 sq ft facility, new ABB technologies are enabling drives to perform better, be more energy efficient, smaller in size, and integrate easily with automation systems. This global factory for borderless markets serves North America, and is a mirror image of ABB''s automated facilities in Finland and China. The modular assembly facility produces a made-to-order low-voltage AC drive (featuring a total of only 35 parts) every 20 minutes. New ABB DC drives continue to be developed, as well -- modular motor controllers, designed to make wiring and startup incredibly fast and easy for end users.