Process Control Musings

DeltaV Virtual Studio Version 3.3 - New Features

noreply@blogger.com (Bruce Greenwald) — Sat, 20 May 2017 06:53:00 +0000

DeltaV Virtual Studio 3.3 has recently been released and I thought I’d brag about some of the new usability features that are included.

First off, DVS 3.3 is based on Microsoft Server 2016 and takes advantage of some of improvements in Hyper-V. The first thing you’ll notice after you fire up DVS is the updated user interface:

In addition to showing the last operation executed on a VM, we include what’s currently happening along with a progress bar so you’ll know things are moving along. We’ve also enhanced the information displayed in the lower right-hand corner for things like the hosts and VM’s.

We’ve enhanced the VM creation experience by allowing more adjustments during the initial setup. In the previous version of DVS, you had to spin up a VM, then power it down to change things like allocated RAM and disk size. In the 3.3 version, extra tabs have been added to the VM creation dialog box, allowing modifications to memory, processors, disk space and the enabling of Replication – during the initial creation:

When enabling Replication, the number of restores can now be adjusted, which previously required you to go into Hyper-V. Increasing the number of restore points provides additional protection in case of machine corruption. When changing the restore point number, DVS displays the additional hard drive space in the storage array that will be consumed. For performance adjustments, the replication frequency can be slowed down – this might be acceptable for non-persistent nodes like operator stations.

Another powerful, timesaving feature is the VM Builder selection:

With the VM Builder tool, you can create multiple VM’s at the same time. Like the VM Creation dialog, you select the DevData.cfg from your ProPlus that contains all the workstations and servers from your configuration:

A series of dialogs guide you through the setup of any or all the configured workstations and servers:

When you click the final Finish button, DVS will go out and spin up all the selected VMs – time for a couple of cups of coffee or even lunch.

DVS 3.3 is available at no charge to existing DVS 2.3.1 customers with Guardian Support and can be downloaded from the Guardian website.

Easy Formula Management

noreply@blogger.com (Bruce Greenwald) — Tue, 06 Sep 2016 12:04:00 +0000

One of the features in DeltaV version 13 is an easier way to manage recipe formulas. When there are dozens of formulas with hundreds of parameters for a given recipe, viewing and editing the values wasn't all that easy prior to V13. We now have the ability to copy, edit and paste formula values with Excel.

First, let’s take a look at a recipe I have in my demo system appropriately named DEMO_WITH_TRAINS along with its 4 configured formulas:

I can right-click on the recipe and select Edit Formulas:

The interface in DeltaV Explorer looks like this:

From here, I can change any of the values just by typing into the fields (remember the values contained within the <> are default formula values). But instead of 10 parameters and only 4 formulas, I could have a lot more, making this a less than ideal interface.

So now with V13, I can select everything and copy it, including parameter names and descriptions to the clipboard:

Open up Excel and paste the data in (I added the green highlight):

You can make any required changes to any of the formula values. What you can’t do is add a recipe parameter (that’s pretty straight forward, right?) or add a new formula (maybe not so obvious – I’ll come back to that in a minute). You could create a master formula Excel file and use a different worksheet for each recipe.

When you’re ready to bring the changes back into DeltaV, highlight the data cells (some or all of the green highlighted data), hit CTRL-C, then go back to the formula dialog in DeltaV Explorer, select the EXACT same size range of cells, right click and select Paste (or CTRL-V). If you don’t make the destination range the exact same size as the source range, you’ll get this type of error message:

If you need to add a new formula, right click on the recipe object and select New Formula:

Fill in the new formula dialog box as necessary:

Now editing the formula values will include your new formula:

There is one final step you have to do in order for the new formula to show up in DeltaV Operate – back in the DeltaV Explorer view, right click on the new formula and select Properties:

You need to check the “Operator can load” box which will then cause a Yes to appear in the “Release to production” column in the Explorer view.

Not To Alarm You, But Here's How to Generate An Audit Report

noreply@blogger.com (Bruce Greenwald) — Wed, 24 Aug 2016 20:24:00 +0000

Alarm Management is a big focus of DeltaV version 13, helping our customers become compliant with ISA 18.2, which provides a roadmap for compliance across all stages of alarms, from identification to implementation and management of change.

One of the tools we’ve included in V13 is an Alarm Audit Reporting tool, allowing you to compare alarms as they are currently set online in the controllers to how those alarms are configured in the DeltaV database.

Accessing the tool first requires you to launch the System Alarm Management application from the DeltaV Explorer toolbar:

I’ll have to come back to the System Alarm Management application in a future post. For now, once the app appears, click on the left most toolbar button or File, then Manage Alarm Reports…

The Alarm Reports interface looks like this:

So let’s create a differences report for the entire system – click on the green + button. I’ll give the report a name, accept the default location and select Difference Report before I hit OK:

The next dialog box allows you to select the types of alarms to include and some filtering. I’ll pick only Enabled Alarms, Process Alarms and All Functional Classifications:

The next dialog is where you get to add specific locations to the report. You can specify areas, nodes, logic solvers, units, or even specific modules. The All check box allows you to pick all of any of the above categories (except modules). Since this is a system-wide differences report, I’ll check the All box for Areas:

Finally, you’ll get to the Schedule Task dialog – you’ll see it’s not yet scheduled, but using the drop down under Schedule Task, you can select the desired frequency – Once, Daily, Weekly, or Monthly. Now you don’t have to schedule a report – you can leave it as Not Scheduled and you’ll be able to run it on demand from the Manage Alarm Reports view. For this example, I’m going to leave the report as Not Scheduled:

Now here’s an important safety tip – if you hit cancel on any of these dialog boxes, it’s going to take you all the way back to the Manage Alarm Reports view L - just be careful.

After hitting OK from above, your report will show up in the first row of the Manage Alarm Reports view. I’ll go ahead and select it to show you how the other toolbar buttons highlight. You can also get some of the choices by right clicking on the report:

Select Run from the menu, and wait until the Last Result column shows Completed:

Now use the View report button on the toolbar or the right click selection to see the results:

So out of 84 process alarms, I’ve got one difference between the controller and the database – my high alarm on LIC101 is configured for 90, but the online value is 95.

Both an XML and HTM file are generated when you run a report, so it’s highly portable. And you don’t have to be inside the Alarm Report application to generate reports. There’s a command line executable in the DeltaV/bin directory named SAMAlarmReports.exe – there’s a full explanation of how to use the executable in the help file associated with Alarm reports.

So a great use example would be to automatically generate a differences report as part of your plant’s shift turnover procedure – using, of course, DeltaV Logbooks. Another use would be to generate a runtime report for a specific unit or units at the beginning or end of a batch.

Restore Point Modification With DVS 2.3.1

noreply@blogger.com (Bruce Greenwald) — Wed, 20 Jul 2016 13:01:00 +0000

One of the cool features in DeltaV Virtual Studio (DVS) is the ability to provide disaster recovery capabilities using Virtual Machine (VM) Replication. VM Replication creates and constantly updates a replica image of a running virtual machine in a separate cluster or replication server.

By locating the two clusters in different locations, a disaster in one location can be mitigated by starting up the replica image in the second location.

Now in addition to disaster recovery, virtual machine corruption can also be addressed with replication. By default, VM Replication within DVS provides two restore points, allowing recovery from an image that is up to two hours old. Here’s the procedure to increase the number of recovery points and select the required recovery point if a corruption occurs.

A couple of important points before I go on – increasing the number of recovery points increases the disk space requirements for the replica image. Also, adjusting the number of recovery points has to be done in Hyper-V, not DVS. In next year’s release of DVS, version 3.3, you’ll be able to modify the number of restore points from directly within DVS.

From the DeltaV Virtual Studio domain controller desktop, access the Hyper-V manager:

While the recovery points are associated with a replica image, managing the recovery points is done from the primary virtual machine. You can see how many recovery points (snapshots) are available by selecting the replication location and the replica virtual machine. Be sure to select the Replication tab at the bottom of the dialog box:

To change the number of recovery points, select the host and then the primary virtual machine that requires recovery point modification, then right click on the virtual machine and select Settings…

On the Settings dialog box, scroll down the left hand pane, click to expand the Replication section, then select Recovery Points:

The Recovery Points screen will show the current number of recovery points and the estimated storage requirement. Either by using the up and down arrows or by simple typing in the field, change the number of recovery points. The estimated hard drive space will change:

Once you click OK, Hyper-V will begin keeping more restore points, once an hour, until the newly entered number is achieved. Checking the replica again will show all the configured snapshots:

If a corruption is ever detected in a primary virtual machine, use the Hyper-V manager to start the replica image and pick a recovery point. DO NOT USE DeltaV Virtual Studio to start the replica – this will automatically use the most recent snapshot and will discard all the other snapshots.

Using Fault Detection to Help Increase Process Understanding

noreply@blogger.com (Bruce Greenwald) — Thu, 07 Jul 2016 21:11:00 +0000

We released our Batch Analytics (BA) application with version 12 of DeltaV and provided some additional enhancements as part of version 13. BA uses Multivariate Analysis and Dynamic Time Warping to detect process faults, the reasons for those faults, and predicts endpoint quality, all in real time. So instead of having to wait until the batch completes to find out there was a problem, fault and quality issues can be examined while the batch is still running. This allows operations and engineering personnel to make better decisions that could correct a quality issue, dump a bad batch early, or schedule maintenance for when a unit is not in use.

Another important benefit is the education of inexperienced personnel to gain process understanding. One of the features of the fault detection screen within BA is to prioritize parameters that are contributing to a fault:

The small green band at the bottom of the screen is the normalized range of the two fault parameters, T2 and Q. A fault in this range (0 to 1) is statistically insignificant. The larger the fault peak (the large blue T2 peak is around 55), the more statistically significant the fault is. By selecting the user-friendly parameter names on the left, response plots of actual versus modeled are displayed:

The black lines above are the actual parameter response, while the dashed and dotted blue lines are the expected, modeled response. For instance, you can see that M1 Level didn’t increase as much as the model thought it should have and the Salt Bin Level didn’t drop as much as the model predicted it should have.

But you don’t have to have a fault to monitor actual versus modeled trajectories. Here’s a fault detection screen from a normal batch:

You’ll notice that while some of the peaks exceed the normalized 0 to 1 range, the largest fault is less than 2.5, compared to the 55 on the previous example. My point is you can still see the parameters on the left hand side and can plot out their actual versus modeled response:

Notice that the mixer and salt bin levels followed the predicted, modeled response. This can provide a great tool for training operations personnel to understand what “normal” is to be better prepared for process upsets and faults.

DeltaV Alarm Mosaic

noreply@blogger.com (Bruce Greenwald) — Mon, 06 Jul 2015 18:38:00 +0000

It’s been a while since I’ve posted anything, but we’re right around the corner from releasing version 13 of DeltaV and I wanted to let you know about a really cool new feature – DeltaV Alarm Mosaic.

Alarm Mosaic is part of our focus on Alarm Management and helps our customers become 100% compliant with ISA 18.2, the Alarm Management standard.

Alarm Mosaic is a new way of looking at active alarms and aid in the analysis of an alarm flood. Instead of presenting a tabular view of active alarms, Mosaic presents the alarms on a more intuitive timeline:

Each column is an adjustable time slice – from 1 second to 4 hours. Within each column, the alarms are stacked with the most recent on the bottom. Different visual indicators let you know which alarms are active acknowledged, active unacknowledged, and inactive unacknowledged. From within Mosaic, you can acknowledge alarms, call up faceplates and detail displays within DeltaV Operate, and even launch Alarm Help.

To help in root cause analysis, operator actions are overlaid with the alarms. In addition, the Alarm Characteristics panel allows the user to highlight alarms using 7 different properties including classification, area, even which displays the alarms are contained on.

A really neat feature is the History Activation view. Once an alarm flood has been successfully dealt with, the Mosaic view won’t show any alarms. By switching over to the History Activation view, the alarm flood along with operator actions can be viewed from data stored in the Event Chronicle, providing a great tool to use at shift turnover meetings and as a general teaching aid.

Check out all of the Alarm Management tools on the DeltaV website.

“Mr. DeMille, I'm ready for my close up”

noreply@blogger.com (Bruce Greenwald) — Wed, 16 Oct 2013 08:49:00 +0000

So here’s a shameless plug for a great YouTube video that’s about to go viral.

For use with our Electronic Marshalling, we’ve released the CHARM Diagnostic App for the iPhone for interpreting and diagnosing the LED lights on CIOC Characterization Modules. Using either the built in camera or manual detection, the color and blink rate of the CHARM’s LED is translated into useful diagnostic information.

In addition, wiring schematics for all 21 available CHARM types can be called up to ensure proper wiring and aid in troubleshooting.

We spared no expense in getting some top Hollywood talent to promote this new app – you can check out the video here.

Oscar balloting will start after the first of the year, but we're hoping to take home a “Duncan”

Get More Descriptive with your Alarms in DeltaV v12

noreply@blogger.com (Bruce Greenwald) — Wed, 25 Sep 2013 11:51:00 +0000

Sometimes it’s easier to get your point across with less; other times you wish you had more time or room to explain yourself. Submitting an abstract for Emerson Exchange is like that – you end up having to be creative to get your point across in the limited number of characters you’re allotted.

One place you hate to be limited is in your alarms. The more information you can provide your operators, the better they’ll be able to respond. Back in version 11 of DeltaV, we added Alarm Help functionality, to capture and display detailed information about an alarm, what to do when the alarm comes in, and what might happen if no action is taken.

And while you can get this detailed information for any individual alarm, it would be nice if there was more information available when you look at the Alarm Banner, the Alarm Summary display, or Process History View.

So in version 12 of DeltaV, we’ve added a new feature called Alarm Descriptions. You’ll find the Alarm Description field on the Advanced tab when configuring an alarm in a control or SIS module:

When you configure an Alarm Description, the text you enter gets concatenated with the module description for use in the Alarm Banner:

Alarm Banner without a configured Alarm Description

Alarm Banner with a configured Alarm Description

In the Alarm List screen, the Description field will contain the module description or the new Alarm Description, if one exists:

Alarm List without a configured Alarm Description

Background

Typically a control module would contain process information associated with a single process signal or control loop. In this case, using DeltaV Alarm Types can provide an acceptable level of detail associated with an alarm. While this may be adequate for single analog control or monitor type control modules, additional descriptive information for discrete types of alarms and SIS SIF modules are necessary.

The description shown in the alarm banner and alarm list is associated with the module itself, not the process variables used within the module. Because this information can be critical for the operator to troubleshoot an interlock or safety trip, engineering workarounds have been developed. These include adding additional Alarms Types or new, separate modules to the system whose sole purpose is to provide more descriptive information to the operator when one of these events occurs.

Alarm Descriptions remove the need to create these extra components and all the work associated with them while providing the operator with the additional information he needs. Now if I could just get additional information into my abstract submission…

DeltaV Version 12 Fun Facts and Features – Part 4

noreply@blogger.com (Bruce Greenwald) — Tue, 19 Feb 2013 15:54:00 +0000

We’ve given a helping hand to Books On Line in Version 12. Never fear, you’ll still be able to launch BOL right from the task bar in DeltaV Explorer, just like you always have.

The first change you’ll notice is when you right click on something like a function block. Prior to v12, you’d see a menu like this one with one of the choices being What’s this?

In v12, we’ve replace the words “What’s this?” with “Help”. Not a big deal at all, and rest assured Help and What’s this? are going to get you to all the information you need.

Prior to v12, What’s this? used to bring up these mini help dialogs:

What’s we’ve done in v12 is to combine the mini help dialogs into BOL as the first page of a larger section:

We’re using the same compiled HTML code to convert the mini helps into the rest of Books On Line, centralizing all the help information within DeltaV. Access to the more detailed information is easily available from the links at the bottom of the topic overview.

One other change is the location of the compiled HTML files – they’re no longer in a BOL folder on the C:\DeltaV drive of your DeltaV machine. They’re located in a Hlp folder in the same location. You can still copy this folder off and drop it onto your laptop’s hard drive for easy access to Books On Line wherever you are.

There’s a chance that after you copy BOL over to your PC, you might get a screen that looks like this when you double click on the masterbol.chm file:

If so, take a look at the properties of the masterbo.chm file:

Go ahead and click on the “Unblock” button and things should work just fine. Also, you’ll most likely have to put the BOL folder on your local PC, since you won’t be able to launch compiled HTML files over a network share. Thanks to Scott Thompson at RE Mason for these .chm tips.

DeltaV Version 12 Fun Facts and Features – Part 3

noreply@blogger.com (Bruce Greenwald) — Tue, 12 Feb 2013 16:37:00 +0000

My buddy Klaus Erni, the DeltaV Hardware Product Marketing Manager, has a couple of smaller, but pretty neat projects associated with the V12 release of DeltaV.

The first is a fiber optic connection option for our Wireless IO Card (WIOC) – the Fiber Optic IOP. With this little gizmo plugged into the WIOC carrier, you’re no longer constrained to the 100m limit of copper CAT5 and can really extend the distance for locating your DeltaV wireless field device access point.

His second project is the new the 24 VDC Power CHARM. This one’s kind of interesting – the purpose of this CHARM is to supply 24 volts to 4 wire transmitters like a MicroMotion. It now gives folks a simple alternative for wiring up these 4 wire devices without the need for a lot of extra stuff in rack room panels or field enclosures.

The process variable comes in on a normal, HART input CHARM, and the device is powered by the 24 VDC Power CHARM. You can install the Power CHARM right next to the HART CHARM or locate a group of Power CHARMs in a separate baseplate.

You don’t have to configure anything in DeltaV for the Power CHARM to work, but you can if you want and reference diagnostic information about the power being supplied to the transmitter.

DeltaV Version 12 Fun Facts and Features – Part 2

noreply@blogger.com (Bruce Greenwald) — Tue, 05 Feb 2013 17:58:00 +0000

One of our projects in Version 12 is our Licensing Revamp. We’ve made counting IO licenses and managing them much easier.

The first thing we’ve done is gotten consistent in counting Device Signal Tags (DST’s) across all our supported bus technologies. In previous versions of DeltaV, a single Foundation Fieldbus device counted as a single DST; it didn’t matter how many signals came in on that device, it only counted as one DST.

We’ve extended that methodology to our other supported busses – DeviceNet and Profibus. Each field device on these bus segments will count as a single DST. So if you’ve got a drive or motor from an MCC coming in via DeviceNet with multiple signals (start, stop, running, current, etc), it'll only count as a single DST.

Probably the licensing change I’m most excited about is how we’re handling serial IO. In the past, folks would bring multiple registers from a serial dataset into one module in DeltaV (we called them “landing modules”). In the landing modules, we’d convert the register IO references into parameters that then got picked up by other modules in the system. This allowed us to keep the DST count down when dealing with large amounts of serial data.

In Version 12, we’ve eliminated the need to use landing modules by just counting a single DST per serial dataset. So whether you’re bringing in 50 or 100 integer registers into a single dataset, it will only count as one DST, no matter how many different modules reference the registers from the dataset.

Eliminating the landing modules eliminates a lot of unneeded complexity – your control modules reference serial IO just like they would reference other IO types. Engineering and troubleshooting are simplified and controller loading is reduced by not having all those landing modules.

And to better help keep track of licensing, we’ve created an I/O License Demand utility.

You’ll be able to see how all your I/O effect your license usage before you ever have to download a controller. And it won’t matter what type of licensing dongle you have attached to your system, the I/O License Demand utility will still give you the right information.

DeltaV Version 12 Fun Facts and Features – Part 1

noreply@blogger.com (Bruce Greenwald) — Tue, 29 Jan 2013 12:00:00 +0000

One of my New Year’s resolutions (and performance review goals) was to start blogging more frequently, so I thought I’d put together a series of posts about some of the new and enhanced features in the upcoming release of DeltaV, Version 12. SIS Electronic Marshalling, Virtualization, and Batch Analytics are three big features, but I thought I'd start by covering some of the smaller, but important updates.

We’ve started taking orders for V12 and delivery is expected later this year. So what can you expect? Let’s start off with Microsoft OS version support.

In V12, both the 32 bit and 64 bit versions of Windows 7 and Server 2008 R2 will be supported. Not only are they both supported, they can coexist on the same DeltaV system. Now for folks putting in a new V12 system, this isn’t that big a deal – all the workstations and servers will be the 64 bit version of the operating systems.

But customers with V11 systems that are thinking about upgrading to V12 won’t have to worry about including an OS change along with the rest of their upgrade plans. Their 32 bit OS versions will work just fine with V12. And down the road, if they need to expand, 64 bit OS machines can be added and will work just fine with their 32 bit cousins.

Virtualization is a Reality at Emerson Exchange

noreply@blogger.com (Bruce Greenwald) — Thu, 09 Aug 2012 12:08:00 +0000

Virtualization hits the big time at this year’s Emerson Global User Exchange in Anaheim, CA, October 8^th to the 12^th.

First up are the workshops, covering a variety of topics “all things virtual”:

9-1773 – Virtualization Technology and Virus Detection

3-1760 – SLC and CSV Concepts for System Virtualization

5-1160 – Syncade Virtualization

5-1847 – DeltaV Virtualization – Product Update

Next, John Caldwell and I will be hosting a technology forum on Tuesday and Wednesday afternoons entitled “Virtualization in Process Control – Advancements and Developing Trends”. We'll have Emerson's Mark Nixon and Dirk Thiele along with Derek Pound from Microsoft as our guest speakers.

Then be sure to visit the Technology Exhibits Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday evenings and stop by the virtualization booths for some hands on time.

Finally, stick around on Friday morning and catch the “Virtualization for DeltaV” Meet the Experts session. John, Dirk, Brian Crandall, and I will be there to answer your questions and provide insight into the upcoming V12 virtualization projects.

See you in Anaheim!

We Interrupt This Blog Post to Bring You This Important Blog Post

noreply@blogger.com (Bruce Greenwald) — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 17:12:00 +0000

I've been back in Texas since October, getting acclimated to all things uniquely Texan, like great BBQ and killer margaritas. I’m also working on my Texas-speak (y’all). While I’m back in the live music capital of the world, I’m still not sure I’m ready to go out two-stepping, but I knew it was time to start blogging again.

I was in the middle of putting together by my first blog post in over 4 months (the topic was tracking operator display access – stay tuned) when I ran into a hiccup. The good news is the problem was resolved within a day, but there were some “sinking feeling” moments that brought into question any decision to work in a high tech industry.

So on my laptop I’ve got a couple of virtual DeltaV machines. One is a V11.3 build using Microsoft’s VirtualPC. The other is a VMware image of a prerelease of V12.3. I’ve got one of those speedy Dell Latitude laptops, but it was recommended to me to put my virtual images on a solid state drive (SSD) to improve performance.

Since DeltaV Standalone Simulate will be releasing soon on a SSD, and since my laptop has an Express Card slot, I decided to go out and get a SSD card. Now I didn’t do an exhaustive search on the internet, but there weren't many choices of manufacturers (I found one). And since size matters, I bought the biggest one I could find, a 96 GB model.

The first issue was less than stellar installation instructions. I know you’re thinking “Bruce, just plug it in, how hard could that be?” but in reality, it was a little more complicated. See that USB connection on the stick? Well, turns out to get all the right drivers to load, you need to first connect the SSD to the computer via the USB cable. Then plug the puppy into the EC slot. Note in the following close up that when fully inserted, the drive sticks out just a bit – this is an issue.

Anyway, now I had a new H: drive with 96 GB (actually, 86 GB available) and I get my Server 2008, V12.3 image transferred to it. I fire it up with VMware Player and I’m rocking and rolling.

In preparing for my post, I needed to load Word and Excel onto my virtual machine. I got out my MS Office install CD, pressed the button on the CDROM drive to open it, and (can you guess where this is going) the top of the tray caught the bottom of the slightly extended SSD card and popped it out.

Removing a USB stick without using the “Safely Remove Hardware and Eject Media” typically isn’t a problem. But that’s not what’s going on here. Basically what I’ve done is yank out the virtual machine’s hard drive under power. Getting messages of a “serious I/O error” from the VMware Player had me wandering just how far back I was going to have to go to recover.

Luckily, dismounting and remounting the drive from Computer Management was all that I ended up having to do, but I had several tense hours before getting the problem resolved. I won’t go as far as to say there’s a design flaw with the EC card slot or the SSD drive itself, but having to hold the SDD in place with one hand while pressing the eject button with the other hand is hokey. I’m perfecting this new Texas two-handed two step technique to avoid future issues. Just saying, y’all.

Carolina On My Mind

noreply@blogger.com (Bruce Greenwald) — Tue, 13 Sep 2011 14:40:00 +0000

For those of you hoping to get a clever tidbit of control knowledge, you’ll just have to wait for my next post.

I’ll be changing jobs here in a couple of weeks; changing companies in fact. I’ll be heading to the center of Emerson Process Management universe in Austin, TX. I’ve been in the Carolinas for almost 12 years, and while I’m excited to take on new roles and responsibilities for Emerson, I’m going to miss colleagues and customers alike that I’ve gotten to know really well.

I’ve had the privilege to work on some pretty incredible projects and pursuits in 12 years that have been the inspiration for many of my posts. I’ll continue to draw upon my experiences and share the good and the bad.

On the lighter side, I can tell you flat out I am not gonna miss Carolina BBQ. My fear is I will OD on Rudy’s, Iron Works, and Pokey Joe’s my first week. And while I made this request back in August, I’ll ask again – please cool it down just a little, OK? Was it really 105 in Austin yesterday? It’s September!

If you’re headed to Nashville for EGUE, I’ll see you there. If not, watch this space for future control gems.

Cuts Like a Knife

noreply@blogger.com (Bruce Greenwald) — Thu, 01 Sep 2011 11:31:00 +0000

Everyone’s had a Swiss Army knife at some point in their lives (I guess the North American version is the Leatherman Multi-tool - we always have to do things bigger, huh?). A Swiss Army knife with one or two screwdrivers, LED flashlight, a nail file, pliers and a toothpick is commonplace. I’ve seen models that had so many features, you couldn't find the blade.

I’ve known Bob Engel for at least 8 years now. Bob is Vice President of Informetric Systems (http://www.informetric.com/). InfoBatch is Informetric’s batch reporting package, and I’ve been sweet on InfoBatch ever since I first kicked its tires at the Emerson Exchange in Dallas back in 2004.

InfoBatch generates batch reports. And it does it very well. It allows you to connect to a multitude of data sources and aggregate them into a single, unified report. It doesn’t force you to replicate your data into yet another location (the “many versions of the truth” paradox). And if you don’t have another datastore to worry about, you don’t have to worry about all those pliers, toothpicks and nail files to manage it.

InfoBatch inherently understands the S88 model, from phases to recipes. It handles the concept of sub-phase triggers (for example, just show me a plot of a tank's temperature during the relevant portion of a phase). And it has connectors that understand the structure of the views from your data sources. Simple drop-down selections as opposed to flashlights and screwdrivers for managing custom SQL queries from software packages that don’t care if you’re creating batch end reports or your monthly bank statement.

Of course there has to be a shameless plug in one of my posts, so here it is: be sure and attend session 2-3041 at this year’s Emerson Global User Exchange, October 24th to 28th in Nashville. Bob and I will be presenting “Integrating Syncade S95 Orders, DeltaV S88 Batch Recipes and Continuous Data”. Please leave your knives at the door.

Stairway to Heaven

noreply@blogger.com (Bruce Greenwald) — Tue, 05 Jul 2011 13:18:00 +0000

Many years ago, I was working a startup in Addis, LA and the process control technician explained to me the various titles for the operation’s staff. At the top of the food chain was the title AAGLB. I asked what it stood for. The reply was “Almost A God-Like Being”.

So I was doing some Googling over the holiday weekend for Windows 7 keyboard shortcuts (I had some time to kill while I was smoking my ribs and brats). In addition to all the built-in, but little known keyboard shortcuts, I came across an interesting feature called GodMode.

GodMode (someone in Redmond has a sense of humor) is a searchable/clickable list of system tasks that automatically gets created when you create a very special folder on your Desktop named, you guessed it, GodMode.

Specifically, create a new folder on your Desktop and rename it GodMode.{ED7BA470-8E54-465E-825C-99712043E01C}. You’ll see the icon change from the standard folder to one that’s typically associated with Control Panel. Double click on the folder and you’ll see the following:

Now you’ve got a fairly comprehensive, searchable list of system functions. Just double click on any one of them to run, or right click on one, create a shortcut, then edit the shortcut to give it a keyboard shortcut. Hey, you're a AAGLB.

Skinning the Cat with XLReporter

noreply@blogger.com (Bruce Greenwald) — Thu, 09 Jun 2011 18:40:00 +0000

At what point does control functionality requirements become just too complex to implement in the native control environment? It’s a tough call, because there are so many factors that go into the decision. Converting some massive calculation into the DCS control environment just might not make sense.

Other considerations though, especially for regulated industries like biotech and nuclear, center on the ability to validate all of the control functionality in a like manner. Having one piece of code, written in a different programming language, and existing on a different platform (typically Microsoft), may not make sense.

A few years ago, I converted some pretty complex, iterative calculations into function block and SFC logic in DeltaV. I spent many months working to optimize the code to run in the controller with the rest of the control strategy.

Earlier this year, we needed to come up with some dew point calculations as part of a project. While they were eventually easy enough to code in native DeltaV format, the source for the equations came from Excel spreadsheets.

So recently two things caught my eye on a potentially better way to “skin the cat”. First, I saw a question pop up on the DeltaV LinkedIn site about Hydro Carbon Dew Point (HCDP) calculations and how to implement them with the DCS. I googled HCDP and found some very complex equations taking place in Excel to solve these calculations.

The second thing was a product update presentation I sat through from Peter Kaprielian of Sytech for their XLReporter package. As you might gather from its name, XLReporter makes heavy use of Excel for data gathering and reporting. XLReporter is jam-packed with features, and while I can’t do justice to them all here, the one that got my attention was the ability to write data, via OPC, to other systems.

That’s when the light bulb went off – could I do HCDP calculations in Excel, feeding GC data from DeltaV to the spreadsheet and getting the results pushed back down to my controller?

Now I kind of wimped out, because I don’t know the first thing about HCDP, but I do know something about dry bulb, wet bulb and humidity calculations due to our recent project work. So I set out to implement a wet bulb temperature calculation implemented in a XLReporter spreadsheet. The idea was to read air temperature and humidity values from DeltaV, process them in my XLReporter spreadsheet, then write the result back into a parameter in my controller.

Additional internet surfing netted me a dew point spreadsheet I “borrowed” for my test. I cut and pasted the spreadsheet into the Template worksheet of an XLReporter Excel workbook. Then I added real time data links to temperature and humidity parameters from a couple of different modules in my controller:

I then tied off cells E29 and E31 with the values of C18 and C17. The final step was to take the result in J34 and write it back to a parameter in one of my modules. When you run a Report Update, the Results worksheet looks like this:

And my test module in DeltaV looked like this:

I set up a schedule within XLReporter so the calculations are processed once a minute. XLReporter is a bargain at twice the price, so if you have a particularly complex or otherwise computationally intensive application, give this technique a try.

If you'd like to know more about how I pulled this off, post a comment or shoot me an email.

Troubleshooting Help

noreply@blogger.com (Bruce Greenwald) — Thu, 26 May 2011 10:43:00 +0000

Not that you need another reason to upgrade your DeltaV system to version 11, but there’s a way cool app in Windows 7 and Server 2008 R2 to enhance troubleshooting. It’s called Problem Steps Recorder or PSR for short.

What PSR does is record your mouse clicks along with the associated screenshots to produce a complied HTML file that chronicles everything you do between the time you click Start Record until the time you click Stop Record. PSR allows you to add a comment during the session, in case what’s going on needs more explanation. Now you can share your experiences with colleagues or that tech support guy so there’s less chance for misunderstanding.

You access this nifty tool by typing PSR in the “Search programs and files” dialog box of Windows 7 (remember, once your fire it up, you can right click on its icon in the tray and select “Pin this program to taskbar” for faster access).

The UI is simple and uncluttered:

I jumped over to my DeltaV boot, fired PSR up, selected Start Record, and through DeltaV Explorer, went online with an equipment module. When I was done, I pressed Stop Record. PSR automatically packages up the session you’ve had it record into a ZIP file. Inside the ZIP is an MHT file that opens in Internet Explorer Here’s a screenshot from the PSR file of me forcing a transition of an SFC:

It’s all hyperlinked and clicking on any of the images brings up a full screen view. If you’d like to have a look at the entire file I created, you can download it here.

A big shout out to David Rehbein of Emerson in Austin for turning me on to this great tool.

Tricking out Aliases, Part 2

noreply@blogger.com (Bruce Greenwald) — Thu, 10 Mar 2011 13:55:00 +0000

Scott Thompson's commnet to my last post was a good one. He couldn't include a screenshot example in his comment, so I'll share it with y'all:

Did you know that you can also use multiple aliases in a single line of code?

In the last action example in the post if the #ARBITRATION# alias pointed to a module which handled arbitration for multiple pieces of shared equipment, each with a named linked composite within the arbitration module, a reference could look like:

Tricking Out Aliases

noreply@blogger.com (Bruce Greenwald) — Mon, 07 Mar 2011 19:30:00 +0000

I’ve been delinquent in blog entries, and while I’ve had several topics floating around in my head, finding the time to get something posted has been tough. I’m not making excuses, but it’s been really busy around here lately. So it took the above video (William Shatner paying tribute to the Shuttle Discovery) to get me writing again. The idea is I’ll pull you in with a DeltaV topic, and then you’ll see my new opening video.

The concept of aliasing has been around in class based phase logic from the introduction of batch with DeltaV. Emerson has gone on to allowing aliasing in equipment modules, but this more recent addition is implemented differently than the method used for phases. I want to touch on the former technique, because I think there’re folks who might not know how to exploit it.

Below is a typical dialog box for an alias I have on a unit class to tell me who I am:

I’ve created an alias named UNIT_MOD and since I’m at the unit class level, the Path: is grayed out. The idea is to have an alias that points to the unit instance, so my phase logic can figure out who I am. If I look at the similar dialog box for an instance of this unit class, I’ll see this:

Since this is at an instance of the unit class, the path is filled in with the name of the unit module for this particular instance. By having this alias, I can have my phase logic address any parameter associated with my unit, like below where I’m setting the U_MODE_LOCK parameter to TRUE:

If you remember from your 7016 batch class (if you haven’t been to 7016, shame on you – as soon as you finish reading this, go online and register for the next available DeltaV batch class), the #’s encapsulate your alias.

So what’s going on here? Well the truth is an alias is just another parameter. It’s a special string parameter, one that you can only add and modify from the unit class and instances. Another thing you might not remember from your batch class is you can have an alias be as high level as a module name, or as specific as an individual parameter in a function block like XV-101/DC1/SP.CV. If you get too specific though, you’ll need a ton of aliases, so common practice is to stop at the module name. When DeltaV encounters the #’s, it replaces them with the string you typed in as part of the alias resolution (it's really a little more involved than that, but it's a least a 2 beer discussion, so we'll keep it simple).

Can you use the aliases without the #’s? Of course - that’s how, if you’ve checked the Ignore box in the alias resolution, you can keep your phase from hanging up, waiting for something that’s never going to happen, by looking for the .IGN of the alias to be True.

Now here’s the trick – you can look at other attributes of an alias parameter, namely .CV. Since an alias is just a string parameter, looking at the .CV attribute will return the string. So if I needed to write who I am (unit metaphorically speaking) into another parameter in another module, I could use the following:

The #UNIT_MODE# is used to resolve the alias while the UNIT_MOD.CV is the alias parameter of the unit. So, if this was running on my SF_100 unit, then the aliased Arbitration module would have SF_100 written to its REQ_ACQUIRE parameter.

Pretty tricky, huh?

$IDLE_TIME is the Blue Devils Playground

noreply@blogger.com (Bruce Greenwald) — Fri, 03 Dec 2010 13:11:00 +0000

Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE) is a hot topic these days, and again shows the interactions going on between levels 0, 1, 2 and level 3 of the S95 model. Folks are exploiting the features and functions of DCS platforms to provide intelligence towards the calculation of OEE. Bob Engel of Informetric Systems Inc, has got an excellent white paper on calculating portions of OEE by using their InfoBatch product to mine data from DCS batch historians, like the one in DeltaV. Batch analysis and batch to batch comparisons are the key outputs.

There is a missing component from batch historians, and that’s information between batches. One of the three components of an OEE calculation is Availability, and being able to account for a Unit’s time not making batches can be as important as recipe run time.

One of the new features in Version 10 of DeltaV was Dynamic Unit Allocation. This had been a long awaited feature (I’ve wanted something like this since my PROVOX days working on resins projects for Monsanto). In grossly over-simplified terms, Dynamic Unit Allocation is the programmatic selection of what units a recipe should run on.

As part of Dynamic Unit Allocation, Emerson developed the concept of the Unit Selection Policy. You configure your Selection Policies to provide the logic to the batch engine for determining which unit or units to use while the recipe is running. They provide a couple of default selection policies, one of which is the DEFAULT_LEAST_RECENTLY_USED:

So how does DeltaV know which unit is least recently used? Ah ha, they’ve added a new, default unit parameter named $IDLE_TIME. So if I have a choice of three dryer units to transfer to, and I want the one that hasn’t been used in the longest time, I can use the DEFAULT_LEAST_RECENTLY_USED policy, which in turn will somehow look at the $IDLE_TIME parameter of each dryer and pick the one with the largest value.

So this got me thinking, how could I exploit (I’m famous for this, right?) this $IDLE_TIME parameter for use in OEE calculations? How can it help me know what I don’t know – the time between batches on a unit?

My first crash and burn was to try and create an external reference parameter in a module that pointed to $IDLE_TIME of a particular unit. You can’t do, because you can’t see it when you browse, and you get an error when you try and just type the path in – SF_100/$IDLE_TIME.CV

A little voice in my head suggested I build up a dynamic reference string, but I’ve seen so many good configurations go bad with the over-utilization of dynamic referencing, I dismissed it. But since I had the expression editor open anyway, I thought I’d just try typing in the path (remember, can’t browse) to the parameter – success!

At this point, there are endless possibilities on how to use it. I decided I’d push a message to the Event Chronicle (which can then feed into the Batch Historian) the first time my unit wasn’t idle, and report how long it had been idle just prior to its use:

If your batch cycle times are measured in minutes or hours, perhaps you’d want to report a daily idle time per unit. If your cycle times are measured in days, a weekly or monthly report would be more appropriate.

Now, go be more effective.

The Wide World of Wireless

noreply@blogger.com (Bruce Greenwald) — Tue, 09 Nov 2010 12:30:00 +0000

We had a full house last week here in Charlotte, as we played host to a large group from the Savannah River Site. The focus of the three days was Wireless HART (WiHART) networks, and we had extensive, hands-on sessions.

Security was a primary focus, both to make sure the WiHART networks didn’t interfere with other RF domains and to make sure the WiHART network was secure from outside interference, both accidental and intentional.

We set up 20 different wireless instruments throughout our campus, both indoors and out, on three separate wireless gateways connected to DeltaV. Larry Wolfe, Director of Technology Deployment, and Carl Price, Director of PlantWeb Services, developed a variety of deployment scenarios to test such things as long distances (in excess of 500 ft) and signal paths through solid and glass doors.

Jeff Potter, Rosemount’s wireless security expert provided a detailed overview of the many features incorporated into Emerson’s WiHART technology specifically designed to keep it safe. One thing I learned was the way the gateway and instrument change up their encryption. See, if you had an instrument that was reading the same value all the time or one that changes very slowly (think outside air temperature), the signal back to the gateway, while encrypted, would be the same. Not so with the smarts built into WiHART. By modulating the encryption, eavesdropping or snooping become problematic.

Another clever security feature is the ability to use a HART modem attached to AMS to automatically setup the join keys on the wireless devices. This way, knowledge of the join key is limited, and only instruments that get temporally connected before being deployed to the field can join the appropriate gateway.

Our guests came well prepared also, bringing a couple of guys in from Oak Ridge with all sorts of RF sniffing tools. They were specifically looking at our 4 wireless office networks and how the WiHART devices were showing up in the RF world.

After the 3 days, the visit was considered a success. Emerson’s WiHART passed the test and with apologies to UPS, Rosemount and RE Mason can ask “what can Blue do for you”?

Genentech ECP-1 Award Winner

noreply@blogger.com (Bruce Greenwald) — Tue, 26 Oct 2010 10:24:00 +0000

We’ve all heard the expression – “Good things come to those who wait” and I guess executing some project work during the winter of 2007/2008 and seeing the positive results almost 3 years later would aptly qualify. Genentech’s ECP-1 facility in Tuas, Singapore recently received the Facility of the Year Award in Project Execution, sponsored by ISPE, INTERPHEX, and Pharmaceutical Processing Magazine.

RE Mason had an important role during the modular unit construction phase of this award-winning project at Jacobs’ facility near Charleston, SC. DeltaV and multiple bus technologies were extensively deployed throughout the modules. Larry Wolfe and Carl Price headed up a team from REM who spent many weeks back in 2008 checking out and documenting the Foundation Fieldbus and DeviceNet segments.

These modules were huge – 60 ft long, 25 ft wide, and over 18 ft tall with a shipping weight of over 170,000 lbs. There were anywhere from 3 to 6 bus segments in each of over 20 of these “double-wides on steroids”.

The pre-commissioning and validation activities executed in Charleston greatly reduced the time required when these enormous modular units were finally put together in Singapore. Read the full story of this award winning facility here.

Update: Prime Time Batch Analytics

noreply@blogger.com (Bruce Greenwald) — Mon, 04 Oct 2010 10:42:00 +0000

I thought it was worth mentioning that at the Awards Luncheon last Thursday at Emerson Exchange, Steve Sonnenberg, President Emerson Process Management, awarded the PlantWeb Excellence Award to The Lubrizol Corporation and Robert Wojewodka’s paper entitled “Batch Process Analytics (PA) – An In Depth Update”.

It was kind of neat to hear Mr. Sonnenberg give an explanation of the technology and reiterate that Batch Process Analytics will be part of the standard DeltaV product offering in version 12. I believe this will be the next big game changer in Batch Process Control.

Perhaps I'll have a paper to present at next year's Exchange in Nashville on Batch Process Analytics...