Foxboro offers up a "control-room makeover"
By Staff -- Manufacturing Business Technology, 9/1/2005 6:00:00 AM
Reality television is making its debut in the plant automation world, as Foxboro, an Invensys company, has embarked on a search for the North American control room most in need of a total makeover of its design and equipment.
The makeover will include a mixture of components from partners—including professional control-room design, a conceptual design solution walk-through video, and a new operator console—as well as a Foxboro workstation, monitor upgrades, and appropriate Invensys engineering, alarm management, and training services. The total estimated value: $350,000.
"The control room is the critical operations nerve center in a process plant," says Paul Steinitz, marketing director for the Foxboro Automation unit of Invensys Process Systems. "Here, the operators routinely make decisions that impact plant safety, availability, and performance. With this in mind, it's surprising how many control rooms are so obviously in need of an upgrade, either because the ergonomics are poor, the environment is not conducive to good decision-making, the control system is obsolete, the alarm subsystem needs to be rationalized, or a combination of these problems."
The prize will go to the company that makes the most compelling case for how closely it fits the "most-in-need" profile.
"While we're certainly trying to have some fun by launching this reality tv-inspired 'makeover' campaign, we also hope to draw attention to the criticality of the situation and encourage North America's brownfield process plants to take the necessary steps to upgrade their control rooms," concludes Steinitz.
