Honeywell (NYSE: HON) Process Solutions (HPS) today announced the introduction of its Experion® Local Control Network (LCN) solution. This new offering enables the incremental upgrade of the company’s legacy TotalPlant™ Solution (TPS) control system to allow for a secure, seamless integration with Experion® PKS. With Experion LCN, Honeywell is providing a path for continuous innovation to customers around the world. Industrial facilities can gradually move their legacy control system forward to become part of a new, modern solution while leveraging existing automation assets. HPS made the announcement at its annual Honeywell Users Group symposium taking place this week in The Hague, Netherlands.
Today, users of TPS are dealing with compliance issues related to new safety regulations, as well as with increasing system support challenges. As every industrial organization is under pressure to reduce costs while improving performance, plants running outdated control systems need to avoid obsolescence by employing the latest automation technology. The Experion LCN solution provides users with standards-based functionality, regulatory support capabilities, and integrated operations from the field through the plant to the business level.
“Honeywell continues to enable customers to take advantage of state-of-the-art technology while protecting and evolving their decades of investments in controls, graphics, and procedures,” said Jason Urso, chief technology officer of HPS. “Industrial operations concerned with updating their TPS system can now seamlessly upgrade to the Experion LCN solution which delivers numerous operational and business benefits in addition to a significant system life extension.”
Honeywell’s on-process incremental upgrade to Experion LCN modernizes the control system infrastructure and enables deployment of the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT). Existing control strategies, field terminations, applications, history and graphics can be retained, allowing users to focus on high-value improvements.
Using Honeywell’s proven Experion Fault Tolerant Ethernet (FTE) infrastructure, the new Experion LCN bridge connects Experion to Classic Coax LCN. Once this connection is established, the LCN coax connection can be removed one LCN node at a time. Instead of a hardware connection for every Experion TPS node, only one redundant Experion LCN bridge pair is needed to enable virtualization.
Honeywell’s TPS modernization solution minimizes operating disruptions and maintains overall consistency, as well as delivers significant lifecycle advantages. After modernization, the control system can have a common Human Machine Interface (HMI) and unified physical control network, enabling control devices to easily integrate/expand with the latest generation of Experion PKS controllers and safety systems. The advanced control solutions and new functions within Experion PKS controllers can additionally improve the effectiveness of plant operations.
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