Support Services

An engineer came across one of my blog posts and sent me a question about the configuration of a Rosemount 3051C pressure transmitter:

I'm working on a system that uses several 3051C coplanar pressure transmitters. The transmitters were installed to provide flow information via a PLC. The name plate on the transmitters indicate they have a range of 0-xxx [details removed] in H20 for a 4-20 mA signal and the PLC is supposed to convert the signal to GPM with a scaling factor. The value displayed is not representative of the actual flow rate.

According to the reference manual, the transmitter output can be configured for Square Root for flow measurements. The 3051 has two output settings: Linear and Square Root. Activate the square root output option to make analog output proportional to flow.

Is this true for both the 3051SFC and 3051C?

The 3051 SFC transmitters are also used on this system, but the PLC takes the 4-20 mA signal and multiples it before taking the square root.

When Rosemount measurement product questions like these come my way, I turn to my friends on Emerson's Rosemount Technical Support team for answers. A member of the DP [differential pressure] flow specialist team responded:

The 3051SFC is a flow meter assembly. It uses the 3051S transmitter which has a "Scaled Variable" feature which allows us to relate the measured DP to a flow rate, then actually range the transmitter's 4-20 mA output in terms of flow rate. This way you can forget about DP and forget about the square root function, it is all done in the 3051S transmitter, and the transmitter output represents flow rate. Because it would be scaled in terms of flow rate, the transfer function to the 4-20 ma output is left in the linear mode.

The 3051C, can be set to either linear or square root output, but it will always be ranged in term of a DP value, so if you want that range to represent flow, you would set the transfer function to square root output. The 3051C does not offer the "Scaled Variable" feature.

For your 3051SFC, I am a little confused why your PLC takes a 4-20mA signal and multiplies it by a factor then takes a square root. If the unit was configured to output flow then there is no longer a need to square root the value. The 4-20 mA output should already represent the flow scale that it is ranged for.

Could you supply us with the Serial number of the 3051SFC so that we can check our records on how the unit was configured when it left the factory? Kindly provide the full model number as well in order to facilitate our search.

If you have technical questions about your Rosemount measurement products, I highly recommend sending it to the appropriate specialist group email address for answers.

Emerson's Buddy Ilao, a member of the SureService support team, offers up his fifth screencast on aspects of the SureService Guardian Support service. Buddy's earlier efforts are located in this blog's screencast category.

Today's screencast provides an overview of the Alarm Management capability. Buddy summarizes this capability:

The Alarm Management tile in the Guardian dashboard provides customers complimentary or subscription reports that will help improve the alarm performance in their control systems, as based on the EEMUA (Engineering and Equipment Manufacturers Users Association) publication 191 benchmarks and best practices.

As control systems become more complex, the need for proper configuration of the DeltaV alarms becomes increasingly important. By actively addressing ineffective alarm designs, operator performance will improve and attention can be focused specifically on delivering safe, effective plant operation.

You can follow this alarm management screencast link to see the full-size version or watch this embedded version below:

Buddy shows how those with DeltaV systems can upload their alarm logs to give the service a try by looking at their alarms with DeltaV Analyze On-line. Those who participate will also receive a complimentary summary alarm analysis report. The screencast shows some of the information that is available in this report.

If you have a DeltaV system and would like an alarm analysis performed, it's worth a few minutes to watch the screencast.

I heard a great story last week from Emerson's Scott Ross, and member of the migration and modernization team. A process manufacturer is running a legacy RMV9000 system that has been in service for decades. The system is no longer sold as new. Service and refurbished assembly availability is performed on a best efforts basis. Repair services are still available for the latest version 5 RMV9000 components.

This process manufacturer had a situation where some of the controller and communication boards were exposed to a corrosive substance that damaged them. The plant's engineer thought he was completely out of luck given the age of the system. He put the call in to the local Emerson Process Management support organization and was surprised when he heard back from Scott with possible solutions.

Scott indicated the main MVCU controller processor board could still be repaired / refurbished and have the most recent EPROMs added. The cards were badly corroded, so Scott was able to track down some replacement cards to send as replacements when the boards arrived at the Emerson Process Management repair facility in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in the U.S. Scott also provided information and possible causes of the failures seen in the error codes on the controller main processor board.

The unit that manages the data highway communication and aggregates information to and from the controllers, the CCM, was also experiencing intermittent issues. The CCM's 540Mb hard disk drive was showing errors and these drives failure rates increase as they mature. Also, the 200Mb tape drive was faulty. Scott did not have any new drives available but did have refurbished units ready for this process manufacturer to procure.

For this manufacturer, the CCM's were setup in a simplex mode, so the entire unit could not be sent in to Emerson to be refurbished. They did have on-site spare units that could be returned to Emerson for repair/refurbishment and testing. Once the refurbished unit is received back from the Repair Center, the unit could be inserted into service. Scott made the suggestion that once the sent unit was refurbished that they should consider running the CCMs in a redundant mode to help with overall system availability.

In this case, the result is that this engineer has a path to get through these short-term issues, but realizes the case must be made for an overall modernization effort. I've highlighted in a prior post, Estimating Process Automation Benefits, an approach you might take for this justification effort.

This effort definitely beats the alternative of being completely out of luck.

I just read a great article, How to Achieve Competent Workforce for Safety, in the May edition of Automation World magazine. Written by editor-in-chief, Gary Mintchell (also of Feed Forward blog, Automation Gear blog and Twitter fame), this article looks at the people side of ensuring safety. It examines some of the existing regulations and standards around competency, views from both process and discrete automation suppliers and views from safety-focused organizations.

Emerson's Chuck Miller is quoted in the article and has long articulated the role of people in effective safety programs. The article notes that both the U.S. Occupational Health and Safety Administration (OSHA) and the global IEC organizations, through the IEC 61508 and IEC 61511 standards, "state that people involved with the safety lifecycle must be competent in the area in which they deal."

The safety lifecycle covers a broad spectrum of responsibilities, and Chuck notes, "even people we consider to be safety experts may not be expert in all areas of the lifecycle. For example, a reliability engineer may know a lot about the equipment, but may not be able to competently go into the plant and effectively calibrate and maintain that equipment."

The article describes the top-down support and commitment to build a strong safety culture with competent people across all phases of the safety lifecycle. To help in this competency requirement, Emerson developed a safety management system built according to IEC 61511 and had its processes audited and certified by TÜV in 2006.

A safety management system should clearly define the organization, competency policy, safety audit procedures and the safety lifecycle activities. Good guidelines exist to help. The United Kingdom's Health and Safety Executive (HSE) in 2007 published, Managing competence for safety-related system, Part 1: Key Guidance. It includes 16 principles across the plan, design, operate and audit/review phases of the safety lifecycle.

Emerson's safety management system defines clear policies and processes, roles, role competency requirements and the training/experience required to achieve the identified skills for each role. Examples of roles in the project phase are SIS consultants, SIS project leads, SIS software engineering personnel, SIS hardware engineering personnel, and SIS field equipment engineering personnel. In addition to an employee's work experience, a key part of Emerson's safety competency requirements program is the Certified Functional Safety Expert (CFSE) certification. I did a quick search on the list of CFSE/CFSP certified safety professionals and counted more than 60 global Emerson folks that are now certified.

I caught up with Mike Boudreaux to find other ways that Emerson helps end users to address their SIS competency requirements. Thorough knowledge of the entire safety system is important. Competency requirements should apply to all of the components that make up the SIS, from the sensor to the final element and everything in between. Here are some ways that Emerson is helping:

• SIS Seminars that include a safety overview, discussion of SIS applications and a discussion of the safety lifecycle
• PlantWeb University SIS courses that are free online courses that provide a good overview of IEC 61508/61511 safety lifecycle concepts.
• Process Safety Training Courses that cover the Analysis and Realization phases of the IEC 61511 safety lifecycle
• Training courses on the SIS components that Emerson supplies, including the sensors, logic solvers, final elements, and safety lifecycle tools.
• Emerson has supported the development of the CSFE/CSFP programs through participation on the CFSE Governance Board. The governance board is an independent board that administers certification tests for CFSE.

Mike also points out, "competency goes beyond knowledge of the concepts and technologies that are used to implement an SIS. Good design and implementation reduces the random and common cause hardware failures. It is in preventing the systematic failures where managing competency throughout the entire safety lifecycle becomes so important. For many end users, this means that developing competency management in the Operation phase is very critical."

Knowledge of the process application and the hazards involved is a must. IEC 61511 also calls out the need for "adequate management and leadership skills appropriate to their role in the safety lifecycle activities" as part of competency. This has a lot to do with the type of people that you employ and the company culture that you develop. It is not something that can be created overnight and it takes a long-term commitment to be successful.

Update: Welcome Feed Forward blog readers!

Twice here at Emerson Process Experts, I've featured the work of Shenling Yang. The first was in her role as member of the DeltaV technology team and the second as an integration specialist in the Life Sciences industry center. Shenling shared with me a presentation she is developing with a biotech manufacturer for the Emerson Exchange on backing up and recovering critical process data. This is a huge requirement for regulated industries like pharmaceutical and biotech manufacturers.

The scenario they will present is the dreaded 3 am phone call from the plant with the news that production has stopped, people standing around and it's up to you to do something. Choice one is to go to the plant, to rebuild the automation system configuration, to revalidate the process, to lose a bioreactor batch that may have been running for up to 100 days, and then to hopefully resume production within a few weeks. To give you a sense of the value of saving a batch, it's important to note that the medications being produced in these bioreactors save lives and any loss of a batch means a delay for a patient who needs this medication.

Choice two is to load the data backed up from the critical data backup application, have the operator restart the plant, verify normal operations and save the running batch in the bioreactor. Obviously, choice two was the way to go. It is vital to protect and recover control system data because human error or system failure can wipe out years of work, experience, plant operations information and process records.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regulates and requires fully validated backup and restoration solutions for critical data. With the FDA's 21CFR Part 11 electronic record provisions include the accurate and ready retrieval of control system information through the record retention period. The FDA's 21CFR Part 210 & 211 good manufacturing practices (GMP) require this retention period be at least one year after the expiration date of the batch.

The goal established by this biotech manufacturer was to be able to recover and be back up and running 100% with minimal loss in three hours or less. They were looking for something with minimal customization that would automatically back up the configuration and version control databases without any operator intervention. The solution was to use the Critical Data Backup application (CDBA) developed by the data management services team to meet the 21CFR Part 11 compliance for backup, recovery and preservation of electronic records. It's a part of the overall disaster recovery plan, which includes files, spare on-site server hardware, physical separation of equipment and networks, and always-available support personnel on-site and at their Emerson local business partner location.

The backup system includes a server, tape carousel and gigabit network to link multiple DeltaV systems and transfer large files quickly, safely and efficiently. This application help formalize the backup process which was not as diligent or documented as it should have been.

Like anyone who administers a server or even backs up the family PCs can attest, you don't know how good it will work until you have to use it. The day came when this site lost two hard drives in a RAID array. They were able to put a new server in the rack, transfer data using CDBA, do a warm batch restart and be back up in an hour with no loss to the batch.

This sounds like a great presentation to catch if you need a way to formalize your system backup and recovery effort.

I know that sometimes these posts can get fairly deep technically. Being Friday, here's one I hope you won't find so deep. It's about an email I received from one of our very senior SureService engineers, Randy Pratt, who was recently out working with an offshore oil and gas producer. These stories are especially near and dear since this is the industry I worked in as a systems engineer to begin my career.

For those that have never been out to an offshore platform, it's a whole 'nother world of steel, pipes and equipment. Typically, you whisk in and whisk out on a helicopter to take care of the business that needs tending to. For Randy, that meant doing a Premier Service visit where he spent several days with the systems engineers and technicians looking at all maintenance aspects of their DeltaV system. This visit also provided the opportunity for Randy to answer questions and share his experience gained over the years.

Now after a few days out on the platform, Randy was ready to head back. Unfortunately, the expected "whisk out" part was not possible. A hydraulic pump on the helicopter failed during the pre-flight checks. The good news is that it was discovered while the helicopter was on the helipad and not while in flight back to the main island, a trip of 80 kilometers or 50 miles.

Randy got to experience the other way to get off of an offshore platform, via boat. Back when I did this in the mid 1980s in the Gulf of Mexico, we typically used a rope swing from the platform's boat landing out to the crew boat. When there were swells in the Gulf, you had to be pretty good at timing your swing to make sure the boat was on the way up. It was a little tricky to go from a stationary platform to a moving landing target.

It's gotten a little more high-tech in the decades that have passed. Randy got to be "frogged" which means being lowered in a personnel transfer capsule by crane down to the boat below.

Randy concluded his adventure with a three-hour boat ride back to mainland, followed by more conventional means of transportation back to Austin.

I just wanted to share this interesting working slice of life for those of you not in the industry.

Update: I just received an email letting me know that the pictures which I upload to Flickr were being blocked by this person's IT organization... *&%$#&*. I like using Flickr because it thumbnails the photos, allows me to tag them, and creates the HTML code for me to paste into these posts.

Please let me know whether these pictures are being blocked at your site. Here's the three pictures:

I'm also curious if any other social media sites are being blocked (YouTube, LinkedIn, FaceBook, Del.icio.us, Twitter, etc.)

Update 2: At ControlGlobal.com, Walt Boyes picks up on business uses for social media sites like YouTube and Flickr. See his example of the U.S. Chemical Safety Board's YouTube Channel, if you can.

If you can't see this channel which shows video analysis of plant safety incidents, you now have a great argument on the need for your IT organization to unblock this site.

Update 3: Thank you Gary Mintchell for adding visibility to the plight of process manufacturers with "Mordoch, The Preventer of IT Service" departments who are blocking YouTube and other social media sites. Let's get a Groundswell going here!

Successfully executing a project with safety instrumented systems requires trained and competent project team members. They must be versed in the safety lifecycle as required by international safety standards--primarily IEC 61508 and IEC 61511 (ISA 84.01 in the U.S.) for the process industries.

To address this safety expertise requirement, TÜV and exida along with the support of other global safety experts created the Certified Functional Safety Expert (CFSE) concept. Its mission is:

...to ensure that personnel performing SIS lifecycle activities are competent as required by the IEC 61508, 61511, and 62061 [machinery safety] standards.

Currently there are two levels of certification, CFSE and CFSP (Certified Functional Safety Professional). The difference is mainly in practicing experience--ten years for CFSEs versus two years for CFSPs. The CFSE.ORG website describes the difference:

The CFSE is the higher level certification and is aimed at professionals who actively lead, coordinate and review the more complex and demanding activities in the Safety Lifecycle in leadership positions including SIL selection and SIL verification.

The CFSP is targeted at professionals who need a thorough understanding of the Safety Lifecycle activities at the execution level without necessarily leading, coordinating or reviewing the more complex and demanding activities.

CFSE.ORG reports that there are currently over 200 CFSEs and CFSPs in practice worldwide. The certification process is not easy. Those trying to take the test are warned:

...the certificate exams are extremely rigorous and often demand significant preparation in order to achieve the 80% passing grade for both exams. With this in mind, the Governance Board strongly recommends that all candidates develop an in-depth study plan to properly prepare for the examinations. The topics covered in the different exams and sample Process Applications Exam questions provided in the Specialties and General Information pull-down menus may be helpful in developing an effective study plan.

In view of the comprehensive nature of the exams, the Governance Board recommends that candidates put in at least 40 self study hours as part of their preparation for the CFSE/CFSP exams.

I bring all this up because I received a note from one of my colleagues in Calgary in our Hydrocarbon and Energy industry center. The news is that they have some newly minted CFSEs--David Goerzen and Ajmal Siddiq. Congratulations on your achievement!

I went out to the CFSE.ORG site and did a search on the 15 pages of CFSEs/CFSPs. As of today, November 27, 2007, I counted 38 Emerson CFSEs and 8 CFSPs. This is more than 20% of all the certified safety professionals in the world. The percentage is higher if you exclude the machinery safety professionals.

The organizational roles of these safety professionals run the gamut including projects, support, technology, sales and marketing. These organizations work with process manufacturers at various stages of the safety lifecycle to help meet their risk reduction goals.

When engineering a project with Foundation fieldbus, one element to consider is the electrical loading on each segment. I received an email the other day asking:

...to find required formulas to calculate FOUNDATION FIELD BUS loading... I am using [brand X] product and I have come across a web site that you can provide information. If you have those formulas... it would be nice if you could share them.

I also did some Googling around, and saw a few things, but did not see our Emerson Segment Design Tool listed in the search results, at least not in the first few pages. The segment design tool development team released version 5 of this tool in September, just before the Emerson Exchange meeting.

Here's a bit about what this calculator tool does:
The Segment Design Tool is a Windows 98/NT/W2K/XP compatible program designed to provide a general guide for reducing the time required to engineer a Foundation fieldbus H1 segment for the DeltaV system, Ovation system and the Rosemount 3420 Fieldbus Interface. The Segment Design Tool checks the segment layout utilizing the Fieldbus Foundation's guidelines governing cable lengths, power consumption and proper segment termination. This tool now supports a variety of hazardous area protection techniques, including FISCO, FNICO and Entity Concept for Intrinsic Safety.

One of Emerson's Fieldbus consultants, Dan Daugherty, whom you may recall from earlier posts, helped me find the URL for this tool. He also added this bit of wisdom that I passed back to the person who originally emailed me:

My advice for people who can't find an exact match in the Segment Design Tool's component library for their cable or other components is to find something close and then use enough design margin that it won't matter if it isn't exact.

I'll also pass along that the segment design tool team invites comments and questions. Feel free to take them up on their offer, or leave a comment on this post, and I'll pass it along to the team.

While at the recent ISA Expo 2007, I had the chance to listen to Emerson's Jonas Berge's presentation on software for automation. Jonas is an active member in the ISA SP104 committee. This committee is responsible for advancing the Electronic Device Description Language (EDDL) standard.

A few years back he wrote a book, Software for Automation: Architecture, Integration, and Security. His presentation covered some of the ideas from the book. Specifically, he discussed these key points:

• Select technologies for software architecture
• Justify investment to management
• Where and how to deploy DCOM vs. Web
• Where each OPC flavor is used and how
• Integrate with business and coexist with legacy
• Troubleshoot DCOM and OPC
• Apply software and make the PC rugged
• Engineer and document software
• Backup, administer, and optimize
• Make it robust, safe, secure, and 21 CFR Part 11 compliant

The body of knowledge that an automation professional must understand to perform their job effectively continues to expand. As Jonas describes, the software architecture is as important to design as the hardware architecture. Information flows from devices connected from digital busses all the way through the automation systems to enterprise-level software applications.

Security concerns must be addressed and be part of this design. Cyber-security is an area of specialization unto itself and you can follow many of the issues and advancements at the Digital Bond and Unfettered blogs.

Jonas describes setup of networks and OPC, ODBC, and web services communications across networks and tips for troubleshooting these. One everything is functioning properly, methods of management and administration including backup and restore procedures are covered.

Jonas highlights the fact that this is a lot to plan and get right. If you find yourself overwhelmed and too busy to become an expert in this area, you are not alone. Many process manufacturers are working with their automation suppliers versed in this level of expertise to help on the project front-end and to help maintain these software packages and integration methods through their useful lifecycle. One example is Emerson's SureService support services.

An RSS search feed pointed to a Process and Control Today news item about the opening on a new Emerson European flow center. This center provides comparison, selection, final assembly, configuration, calibration, testing, support and training for quite a range of Emerson Process management flow brands including Micro Motion, Rosemount, and Brooks Instrument. The flow technologies include Coriolis, magnetic flow, vortex, thermal mass flow, and variable area meters.

The center was built to help process manufacturers primarily in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. With so many technologies, each have their advantages in different applications, it was important to have a common area where manufacturers could work with product and application experts to properly select and configure the best solution for the application.

I caught up with Emerson's Henk Verweerd who shared some highlights with me. The center, located between Arnhem and Utrecht in the Netherlands, supports seven languages, employs 275 people, and covers over 9000 square meters of floor space. In addition to the technical and application support, the team performs project and order management, repair management, and creation of documentation for projects and required regulatory agencies.

With the trend toward project modularization to decrease project schedules, the team helps instrument integrated systems for railcar, ship and truck loading/unloading, pipeline/LPG/LNG/gas metering, and proving Coriolis meters. The flow center includes four mini-plants fully instrumented with Foundation fieldbus devices to provide hand-on training for flow meters and applications, including the diagnostics these devices can provide to the automation systems.

Henk mentioned that the whole reason for the facility was to bring together experts from the various product lines to be able to work with manufacturers and quickly arrive at the best solution. It also helps provide better service, support, and input for future product improvements.

Process manufacturing professionals, like those in many industries, live increasingly in information overload. The situation is exacerbated by the expectation of doing more often with fewer resources, especially in world areas like North America and Western Europe with their well established markets.

Automation professionals charged with the responsibilities of maintaining and modernizing their automation systems must keep pace with ongoing changes in the operating systems, automation software, and device drivers, not to mention any operating system security updates and patches. These responsibilities have grown as newer systems have been built on commercially available technologies like Ethernet, Windows operating systems, and open, interoperable communications standards specific to process manufacturers like OPC, HART, Foundation fieldbus, etc.

We received a clear message from our DeltaV system customers around the globe that it was very difficult to keep up with all the changes and sort out what was applicable to them, given their current versions of hardware and software.

To meet this need for more focused, relevant information particular to their systems, our SureService team created Guardian Support, which links the system administrators to the DeltaV experts at Emerson and to the extended community of system administrators throughout the company's global enterprise.

I spoke with Randy Pratt, a Product Engineering Application Specialist on our SureService support team. Randy is another one of the veterans around here, well known by many Emerson customers. I like the team's guiding motto that Randy shared with me, "We make the system you've got even better."

Guardian basically collects and provides a snapshot of all the version information in a DeltaV system, from the operating systems in the workstations, controllers, and I/O devices.

It filters the information system administrators receive to just what they have in their system, so that the information is focused and relevant. This information may include operating system security updates, patches, knowledge base articles, hardware warranty information, and more.

Randy added that the flip side of the coin is that Emerson support experts have access to this same information to rapidly solve any issues that may arise over the life of the system. This can save quite a bit of time when working through an issue by knowing all the versions without having ask, or dig around for it.

It also helps the system administrators better plan lifecycle issues associated with the underlying technologies. Commercially available technologies rapidly evolve. A recent example is the parallel port we've known and loved on our PCs have been going away as USB ports take over. The more advance notice that Guardian Support can provide, the better these changes can be planned and scheduled.