SCADA upgrade!

Yokogawa Electric Corporation has released version R9.04 of the FAST/TOOLS web-based SCADA system. The product of more than 30 years of innovation in the oil & gas, petrochemical, and power industries, this platform-independent process management software is relied on by innovative industrial automation users worldwide and sets the standard for operational excellence.

The FAST/TOOLS web-based SCADA system enables remote engineering and maintenance, and allows the deployment, and real-time management of process applications via secure web-based services, thereby increasing overall equipment efficiency (OEE) and return on assets (ROA).
Remote plant management (RPM) is driving down operating costs and improving the sharing and exchange of information. With the proliferation of decision support and collaboration centres, data from a variety of sources can now be accessed and shared globally, allowing continuous application development and management. With this new version of Yokogawa's FAST/TOOLS SCADA system, a number of new functions are provided that make it easier to work with such services. By providing continual access to process and maintenance information from all sources, this will enhance efficiency by reducing cycle times and eliminating the need for the exchange of paper documents.

Main features of the new system include operation recording and playback, E-mail notification and alarm reporting, advanced trending capabilities, and a FOUNDATION fieldbus faceplate library.
With this new release, it is now possible to record HMI displays in real time. Functioning much like a flight recorder, this enables the synchronised playback of screens with alarms and events as well as process and trend data, and includes all mouse tracks and relevant keyboard strokes. The recorded video data can be used for cause-and-effect analysis, operator training, and simulation to increase overall safety, security, and regulatory compliance. This adds a significant new dimension to the capabilities of this software, which already includes audit trailing and diagnostics functions.

In addition to its standard EEMUA 191 compliant alarm management functionality, this software now enables alarm notification messages to be e-mailed in real time to users who have subscribed to this service. This call-out function makes it easy to define when, where, and to whom notifications should be sent. The alarm management function now also enables the export of alarm & event notifications to programs such as MS-Excel for alarm analysis.

The comprehensive trending capabilities of FAST/TOOLS have been extended with functionality that shows whether a signal is off-line. In addition, automatic and/or manual data backfill can now be used to display recovered data, allowing operators to confirm at a glance the integrity of the trended signals. X-Y plots have also been added to the rich trending library, allowing two-dimensional views of important process characteristics.

The extensive faceplate and symbol library has been enhanced with FOUNDATION fieldbus faceplates that may be used together with Yokogawa's STARDOM (FCN/FCJ) autonomous controllers for increased flexibility in distributed applications. Faceplates are automatically assigned to the control logic based on the controller function blocks and are ready to use when deployed in the system environment. This allows for seamless integration of FOUNDATION fieldbus device messages and data, setting a new standard for operational excellence.

Main target markets include oil and gas upstream/midstream, petrochemicals, chemicals, renewable energy, power, pulp and paper, pharmaceuticals, food, iron and steel, waste, and water and wastewater treatment, for applications such as remote process control, asset management, data collection, and storage in widely distributed applications.