Smart Enclosures with Smart IO/Technologies; Cost Effective, Flexible & Maintenance Friendly

Abstract

Global economy is facing a recession, and there is wide fluctuation in energy demand. This fact is forcing the projects to become more cost competitive while reducing the project schedule. Projects in Oil & Gas sectors have increased dramatically in scale and complexity, whereas there is hardly any additional time allocated to complete these projects. Automation hardware & software has come under more pressure due to the dependency on design data from other disciplines. With increased complexity, input data continue to change throughout the project design cycle. Addressing these concerns has become a major challenge for control system design engineers. This is where the Smart enclosures, in combination with the new IO technologies like foundation fieldbus, remote IO, smart IOs etc., become handy to control system engineers. The automation industry has evolved itself and is continuously upgrading the systems to mitigate the cost, allocate design bandwidth along with the management of last-minute changes. This paper will mainly discuss about the various issues and concerns faced by control system design engineers. It will mainly focus on how smart enclosures with smart IO/new technology provides a cost-effective solution, flexibility and ease of maintenance while also addressing the main challenges discussed above. The paper will briefly discuss the main problems faced during various faces of the project and how smart enclosures with new technologies address each of these issues. This paper will also analyze examples of how these advancements help in reducing the footprint, cost & schedules. The authors will also provide the details of the available options in the market and will share their experience on the projects using the smart enclosures and how it addressed the typical problems faced during the project life cycle.