Process Control Model is the Ultimate Trainer
Endress+Hauser Australia have designed and built a fully functional fieldbus-based process control model that offers users the opportunity to actually experience 18 different control strategies, in both Profibus and Foundation Fieldbus environments. Hands-on training is the best way for technicians, engineers and other instrumentation professionals to develop the required skills in designing and managing a process control system. The fully transportable model – said to be a world first – provides a flexible systems and programming environment with multiple strategies that can be easily and quickly reconfigured.
Over the last five years Endress+Hauser have increasingly moved beyond merely providing instruments and into the Solutions business which encompasses measuring device supply, commissioning, integration and control. “We provide the means, the know-how and the experience to design and implement a total solution and project manage the implementation,” says Jonathan Soanes, Fieldbus Solutions Manager at Endress+Hauser Australia. This includes selecting and integrating products from third party vendors.
The new rig is flexible enough to incorporate both Foundation Fieldbus and Profibus fieldbusses and showcases process automation over a wide range of instruments from multiple vendors. The rig also incorporates older 4…20 mA HART based analog instruments. “Of course, there are other vendors demonstrating Foundation Fieldbus but their presentations are static,” explains Soanes. “As far as I am aware, we are the only ones to have a fully operational, reconfigurable setup that demonstrates how instruments work in a live situation and that feels like a real plant.” Endress+Hauser’s rig offers end-to-end control with all the complexity associated with the operation of an actual process plant.
Among the 18 control strategies demonstrated are: single cascade, single PID, discrete PID, feed forward, feed back, cascade with two or more loops, blend, ratio and track-in feedback among others. Endress+Hauser is offering day-long training classes that will enable qualified process engineers to design, test, manipulate and troubleshoot a fully-functioning Foundation Fieldbus setup that is very similar to the environment found in a typical plant. Also offered is advanced training that goes over two or three days or customised training for a group. “Working on this process control rig, will give participants real world experience,” concludes Soanes.
