Interphex 2005: Honeywell debuts vertically designed hardware, enhanced Experion platform

New York, NY—Honeywell introduced its Experion Process Knowledge System (PKS) R300 at a dinner following the first day of Interphex 2005, April 26-28, at the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center.

By Control Engineering Staff April 27, 2005

New York, NY— Honeywell introduced its Experion Process Knowledge System (PKS) R300 at a dinner following the first day of Interphex 2005 , April 26-28, at the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center. Experion R300 features a redesign of Honeywell’s automation and control platform hardware, while its Experion portion includes new embedded cyber-security technology to help prevent denial of service attacks and message flooding at the control level.

Experion R300 also has an automated backup-and-restore capability, which Honeywell says none of its competitors have in their control systems. In addition, to improve system uptime, R300 includes an integrated solution that automates complex procedures to improve user efficiency.

On the hardware side, Experion R300 introduces the company’s Series C optionally redundant process input-output (I/O) family. Honeywell says Series C I/O uses a new vertical design to deliver wiring, maintenance, and cost savings, mostly because competing systems are 5% to 75% larger. Series C’s vertical design also allows users to save on total control room construction costs, which can be as much as $750 per sq ft. Besides its I/O capabilities, Series C’s vertical-packing concept extends to the controller and the Fieldbus Interface Module, which gives both a smaller, higher-performance package.

“One look at the new Experion controller and I/O design and you know it’s the most efficient, logical approach to module design—and that there’s nothing else like it on the market,” says Jack Bolick, Honeywell Process Solutions’ president. “We recently compared Experion R300 to older technology at a customer site, and found that we can increase flexibility and functionality and reduce the customer’s footprint by 34%, which is a very significant savings. This new control hardware extends the benefits of the platform to our process knowledge system that has already proven itself at facilities worldwide.”

Specifically, Experion R300’s platform provides the following incremental features:

An additional cyber security layer to Experion’s high-security network architecture, Experion Control Firewall, to further protect the controller network against message flooding and denial of service attacks.

A new Backup and Restore automated system provides automated disaster recovery, which allows users to recover and restore their failed nodes in less than one hour, which is far less than the days of downtime that sometimes occur when manual backup procedures are used. This is significant because each hour a production line is down can cost as much as $25,000 in some applications.

A new Experion Series C innovative I/O form factor that makes wiring installation and maintenance easier, helps reduce energy costs, and delivers maximum performance in minimum space.

Enhanced procedural operations are available to reduce shutdown and start-up incidents by capturing and implementing best work practices. Traditionally, this knowledge is only needed occasionally, so it’s either easily forgotten, or it’s disappearing at companies facing increasing retirements and transitioning workforces. Honeywell adds that

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Control Engineering Daily News DeskJim Montague, news editorjmontague@reedbusiness.com