Integrated Fieldbus Architecture Demonstrated
Here's a report of my trip up to Lima yesterday. During my time as a sales engineer, that plant was one of my customers. I actually sold a couple of PLCs in the plant. When I changed careers in 1990, my background was a combination of discrete manufacturing and computers. John Rezebek (who worked at the oil refinery on the same site at the time) took the time to teach a process control rookie the basics of process requirements and the pain points of the engineers in that field. A couple of engineers in the chemicals plant furthered my education over the next several years. I was glad to go back and visit.
I'm not taking sides in the "fieldbus wars," except for one--I do think that the appropriate application of fieldbus technology is a great thing both for reducing up front project costs and for reducing downstream maintenance and upgrade costs. Kudos to the team for getting this system up and running (then demonstrating in front of a bunch of cynical editors).
John Rezebek, lead controls engineer for the International Specialty Products (ISP) plant in Lima, Ohio, demonstrated a newly commissioned system on the 1,4-butanediol (BDO or B1D) plant. The system used Foundation Fieldbus H1, high speed Ethernet (HSE) and Flexible Function Block technology. Called a "truly hybrid system" by Rezebek, the system was installed on a filter purge system incorporating analog control, discrete input/output and control distributed to the lowest level where practical.
Charlie Gasparetti, BDO manager, reported the Lima plant realized savings not only in construction costs, but also in the types of facilities and equipment needed for the project. Rezebek said the project came in well under budget, but that a reliable baseline was not determined before the project so that total actual dollars saved attributable to the Fieldbus part alone could be determined. Management is convinced that sufficient savings were obtained to look for future installations of the technology according to Gasparetti.
John Berra, chairman of the Fieldbus Foundation and president of Emerson Process Management of Austin, Texas, called the demonstration a milestone of progress from the beginnings of the vision 11 years ago through the installation of about 500,000 Foundation Fieldbus enabled devices. Success of Foundation Fieldbus, according to Berra, was a tribute to the commitment of many supplier companies, both large and small, as well as to the commitment of many end user companies, such as ISP.
The Foundation touts "Freedom to Choose" and "Power to Integrate" as its themes. Speaking as an engineer who must keep a plant running profitably, Rezebek left no doubt that he believes in both the power to choose-from among various suppliers- and the power of integrating products from those suppliers without going through tremendous programming pain.
Member companies involved in the demonstration included: ABB, Emerson Process Management, Fieldbus Center at Lee College, Hawke, Hirschmann, Honeywell, Invensys, MTL/Relcom, Pepperl+Fuchs, Phoenix Contact, Rockwell Automation, Smar, Softing, StoneL, TopWorx, Turck, Yamatake, Yokogawa and Westlock.
The project was initiated when the BDO plant was owned by BP Amoco Chemical Company. Subsequently, BP Amoco spun off its chemical business in a new company, Innovene, and sold its BDO operations to ISP. ISP management continued the project. 1,4butanediol is a chemical building block for other specialty chemical products used in pharmaceutical, personal care, food, beverage, coatings and other applications.
11:04:36 AM 
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