Intelligent instruments making plant progress, ABB survey reveals 09 August 2012

Nearly half (46.5%) of the control systems on UK plants are up to 10 years old, with more than one third (39.5%) between 11 and 20 years old.

That's among key findings of a survey by ABB into the use of process instrumentation, which also reveals that on just over half (51%) of the plants, 10—20 % of the instrumentation installed is now equipped with HART, Fieldbus or Profibus digital intelligence.

Interestingly, the split for greater adoption of intelligent instrumentation is evenly split, with just under one fifth (16.3%) stating that they are running either 21—40%, 41—60% or greater than 60% smart transmitters.

Even more interestingly, while a little over half (56.8%) of the respondents said they use this intelligence, 43.2% do not.

Of those that do use it, more than 77% employ their smart transmitters to assist with instrument maintenance, while half (54.5%) also use them to improve plant optimisation and the same proportion uses them for early event warning.

Meanwhile, two thirds have implemented them to drive preventive maintenance (63.6%) and the same number are harnessing them for environmental compliance.

In terms of instrumentation they are likely to use in the future, HART (running over 4—20mA) still heads the list at 38.7%, followed by Profibus and wireless (both 22.6%), Foundation Fieldbus (9.7%) and Ethernet IP on 6.5%.

Further, more than three quarters (77%) envisage significant further investment in plant instrumentation to meet health and safety legislation, while over 70% say they also intend to invest to meet environmental compliance obligations but also to improve process efficiency.

Additionally, over 60% intend investing in instrumentation to cut energy consumption, but only one tenth of that (6.5%) would use it for business management information.

As for safety system certification, surprisingly, only 67.6% say their ESD (emergency shutdown) systems are certified by bodies such as TUV or Exida, and only 64.9% have certified their fire and gas and associated instrumentation systems.

Brian Tinham

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