Rockwell Automation releases PlantPAx 5.0
US-based Rockwell Automation has released the PlantPAx 5.0 distributed control system (DCS), which it said will reduce overall costs for plant operations by boosting productivity, improving profitability and reducing risk for operations.
PlantPAx 5.0, the company said, features functions that are already native to process controllers and cyber-secured architectures, which helps to improve system availability as well as facility workflows. It is available for utilisation plant-wide and is scalable.
“This release introduces new process controllers and extends the [Rockwell] Logix family with…processing power and capacity to reduce the complexity of PlantPAx architectures; this footprint reduction reduces total cost of ownership … throughout the life cycle,” the company said.
It also offers greater project consistency, including an extended ability to view underlying control logic in a safe, secured way. It has TÜV certification for cybersecurity to the international standard for ISA-99/IEC 62443-3-3. PlantPAx 5.0 features purpose-built frameworks that easily connect live and historical data from the DCS into reporting and analytical tools.
This allows extended experiences, such as Augmented Reality, and easy integration with scalable analytics packages, such as soft sensors, anomaly detection and model predictive controls. Global process director Jim Winter said that the new release’s intuitive workflows and use of cybersecurity standards will help operational teams design, deploy and support a DCS infrastructure and reduce time to market. It also will help plants to recover a profit faster.
