Yokogawa Electric Corporation announces the conclusion of a business transfer agreement with Oki Electric Industry Co., Ltd.(OKI) on March 26. Under this agreement, Yokogawa will transfer the Ome Factory of Yokogawa Manufacturing Corporation, Yokogawa's manufacturing subsidiary, to Oki Printed Circuits Co., Ltd., an OKI group company, on April 1. As the Ome plant of Oki Printed Circuits, this facility will continue the manufacturing and assembly of printed circuit boards for Yokogawa products.

In addition, Yokogawa Manufacturing and OKI have concluded an outsourcing contract, under which Yokogawa Manufacturing will consign the assembly of all printed circuit boards and certain other products at its Kofu Factory to OKI.

In 1969, Yokogawa started to manufacture printed circuit boards for use in its own control and measuring instruments that require a high level of reliability, and much of these Japan manufacturing operations have taken place at the Ome Factory. However, technologies in this field quickly become obsolete, and thus continuous investment is essential. Therefore, after examining this business in light of ongoing structural reforms, Yokogawa concluded that OKI was well positioned to continue and improve the manufacturing and assembly of printed circuit boards for Yokogawa products, and thereby would be able to continue employing the workers who are currently at the Ome Factory. The main reasons for this conclusion are as follows:

- OKI's electronic manufacturing service (EMS) business has good prospects for continued growth.

- OKI has the excellent technologies needed to produce highly reliable products and a solid track record in producing multiple types of products.

According to its 2016 mid-term business plan (announced on November 12, 2013), OKI sees the high-end EMS business as a growth area. In this business, OKI can make full use of its excellent manufacturing technologies and quality assurance. OKI has been in the printed circuit board business since 1965, and its large and super-multilayer printed circuit board technologies are highly respected. OKI was the first company to succeed in the design and mass production of 102-layer printed circuit boards. To grow the EMS business, OKI needs to expand its printed circuit board business and strengthen its integrated production of printed circuit boards and assembly of finished products. For these reasons, both parties have decided to sign the agreement.

Key facts about the Ome Factory:

Name: Ome Factory of Yokogawa Manufacturing Corporation

Location: 3-8-2, Fujihashi, Ome-city, Tokyo

Business: Manufacturing and assembly of printed circuit boards

Premises: 11,300 ㎡

Employees: 100

Yokogawa Electric Corporation announces that it will release ProSafe®-RS R3.02.20 on December 26. This enhanced version of the ProSafe-RS safety instrumented system (SIS) offers improved connectivity with the ProSafe-SLS SIS, enabling the status of both systems to be monitored onscreen by operators of the CENTUM® VP integrated production control system. In addition, R3.02.20 offers enhanced support of widely used open communication protocols, improving connectivity with other companies' SCADA*1 software.

In the oil, natural gas, petrochemical, iron & steel, and other energy and basic materials industries, plant safety is a growing concern. There is thus a rising demand for SISs that can help to prevent accidents by detecting abnormal conditions and initiating actions such as an emergency plant shutdown. Yokogawa provides two different SISs, the programmable ProSafe-RS and the solid-state*2 ProSafe®-SLS, and customers select which systems to utilize based on their facilities' requirements. For customers who use both SIS systems, there is need for a solution that will enable the status of both these systems to be monitored in an integrated manner.

Overview of Enhancements:

- Integrated monitoring of systems

With the ProSafe-SLS information gathering capability on ProSafe-RS SIS, operators can now monitor the status of a ProSafe-SLS SIS from CENTUM VP window. If a problem occurs anywhere in a plant, the sequence-of-event (SOE) data from both SISs will be displayed on an integrated screen at the operator terminals. Operators and maintenance engineers can then use this data to quickly identify and analyze the problem cause.

- Communication protocol support for upstream applications

In oil and gas wellhead and pipeline applications, cost performance and space saving are key considerations. To satisfy these needs, ProSafe-RS is equipped with both safety and process control functions. The SCADA systems at such sites often rely on Distributed Network Protocol 3 (DNP3) for narrowband wireless and satellite upstream communications because this open protocol supports the temporary storage of data when there is a disruption in network communications. Support of DNP3 in the ProSafe-RS R3.02.20 controller enables customers to easily replace and expand their systems in the field while continuing to use their existing SCADA infrastructure. This saves time and reduces costs.

Symphony Plus, ABB’s automation platform for the power generation and water industries, controls and optimizes one of the world’s most efficient combined heat and power plants.

DONG Energy’s Avedøre 1 combined heat and power plant is one of the most efficient of its kind in the world. The company’s long-term strategy is to transform all its power plants in Denmark from fossil fuels to cleaner burning biomass by 2020. This will reduce the carbon dioxide emissions of Denmark’s largest energy producer by a massive 90 percent.

Located near the Danish capital, Copenhagen, Avedøre 1 uses excess heat from its power generation process to produce district heating for homes and businesses in the surrounding area. This gives Avedøre 1 an exceptional energy conversion efficiency of around 92 percent. Along with the adjacent Avedøre 2, the plant supplies 200,000 households with heat and around 1.3 million households with electricity.

Prior to its forthcoming conversion of Avedøre 1 from coal to biomass, DONG Energy required a new state-of-the-art plant automation system that would give them the flexibility to operate the plant even more efficiently using renewable biomass. The system also had to be simple to engineer and configure, without the involvement of the vendors.

Simple and cost-effective evolution:

DONG Energy chose Symphony® Plus, ABB’s flagship automation platform for the power generation and water sectors and the most widely used distributed control system (DCS) in these industries.  DONG Energy already has previous experience of ABB automation systems at Avedøre 1, where its Contronic 3 boiler control system and Procontrol P13 turbine control system have been functioning reliably and efficiently throughout the plant’s lifetime since 1990.

Thanks to ABB’s policy of “evolution without obsolescence”, which ensures simple evolution to Symphony Plus from previous Symphony family members like Contronic, ABB was able to retain and reuse much of the hardware from the old automation system, significantly reducing installation costs and project execution times.

Symphony Plus is designed to meet the requirements of engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contractors in the power and water sectors, and of plant owners across all types of power generation and water treatment installations. There are now more than 6,500 Symphony DCS installations in operation all over the world, with more than 4,500 in power and water applications.

Rockwell Automation has added new virtualization, batch management and integrated motor control capabilities to its PlantPAx process automation system. With the latest system release, Rockwell Automation extends the capabilities of its modern distributed control system (DCS) platform to simplify the system’s design, deployment, operation and maintenance.

“We continue to invest in our modern DCS platform, making major strides to achieve our goal of providing the most highly distributed, cost-effective and performance-driven system on the market,” said Jason Wright, PlantPAx system marketing manager, Rockwell Automation. “The extended capabilities further enhance the PlantPAx system, helping simplify design and integration, reduce risk, and streamline operations and engineering efficiency across a user’s enterprise.”

Integrated Virtualization: Virtualization has become the rule more than the exception in global process facilities. It speeds system integration time, lowers hardware costs and burdens, and extends the life cycle of plant equipment. The PlantPAx platform now makes it easier for users to implement virtualization. Built into the core documentation of the system is a selection guide that provides guidance and best practices for adopting a virtualized automation system.

Batch Recipe Management: Upgraded batch software tightly integrates with the PlantPAx system for a range of applications, from small, basic sequencing to large, complex batch and sequencing. With new version-control capabilities, the software automatically tracks recipe changes and genealogy, and provides approval traceability in order to more easily manage recipes. This helps simplify the management of recipes throughout their life cycle.

Rockwell Automation has also updated the batch and sequence manager in its modern DCS platform. This helps reduce engineering time for process machine builders and system integrators by allowing users to configure sequences directly in the controller. Incorporating batch management and optimizing continuous sequencing, the batch and sequence manager is well-suited for both skid control and stand-alone process units, such as mixers, blenders and reactors.

Intelligent Motor Control: Through premiere integration with motor control devices – such as the Allen-Bradley PowerFlex 520-Series of AC drives, and Allen-Bradley motor starters and electronic overload relays – the PlantPAx system eases motor control configuration and delivers advanced diagnostic information directly to the operator at the HMI level. This helps ease maintenance activities and allows operators to diagnose issues before they occur. System users can monitor key process conditions leveraging the EtherNet/IP network. Tying intelligent motor devices into the unified, plantwide control architecture helps make an immediate, measurable impact on asset availability, operational efficiency and energy management.