Loop Controllers Product Focus Study October 2003

Executive Summary

• electronic multiple-loop controllers, with an average of 21 being used.

• Respondents required the highest number of I/O channels in PC-based controllers, with an average of 19 for this type of controller. For analog inputs, PC-based controllers remained the most required, with an average of 19 being needed. Results also suggest that both PCbased controllers and electronic single-loop controllers required an average of 15 I/O channels in analog outputs. In both discrete inputs and discrete outputs, PC-based controllers also required the most I/O channels.

• Eighty-nine percent of respondents stated they use 4-20 mA with controllers to field instrumentation. Seventy-one percent reported using Ethernet with controllers to enterprise systems.

• Thirty percent of respondents purchased stand-alone loop controllers [or other devices to provide that function] from Rockwell Automation/Allen-Bradley in the past 12 months. Twenty-four percent have purchased from Honeywell.

• was how they selected a stand-alone loop controller. 

• One-fifth of respondents check daily if their stand-alone Loop Controllers are running in open or closed loop.

• Over half of the respondents say that with most loop controllers, they program and configure on the loop controller itself. Thirty-eight percent usually program and configure by connecting to the device locally.

Loop Controllers Product Focus Study

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