MatrikonOPC User Group - Cologne Session Abstracts

Below is a brief overview of confirmed sessions and tracks for the Cologne MatrikonOPC User Group Conference. Additional speakers and sessions are currently being confirmed, and will be posted shortly, with the schedule and time specific agenda. If you are interested in submitting a speaker abstract, please click here.

Jason Fletcher

Leveraging OPC A & E Across the Enterprise
Many companies use OPC A&E to feed their HMI systems and alert operators. But OPC A&E can be used across the enterprise to help with many other initiatives. Find out how this technology can help improve Operator Effectiveness, optimize Maintenance work orders, help with bad instrument identification, and much more.

Dan Hebert

Align Your Career and Your Company with Process Automation Trends
Dan Hebert, PE of Putman Media shows you how process automation trends will affect your industry and your career. This presentation will give you specific information on what you and your company can do to align with trends and ride the wave to success. This humorous and interactive presentation will feature extensive discussion among participants and the presented. This will not be a lecture, but instead a lively interchange of ideas.

Speaker Bio
Mr. Hebert has 28 years of experience in the process control industries. His particular areas of expertise are control systems, instrumentation, and systems integration.

Mr. Hebert worked for 22 years as an end user, as a systems integrator, and as an employee of a major engineering and construction firm. His employment duties included executive management, plant operations, control systems programming, detailed design, project management, line management, and sales. He has been in the trenches and he knows what it takes to make a process automation project succeed.

Mr. Hebert is a Senior Technical Editor for CONTROL magazine and also contributes to other Putman process industry publications. His position gives him unique visibility of the entire universe of process automation solutions providers.

Mr. Hebert has a PE in Control Systems and is a patent holder for a closed-loop control system. He holds a BSEE and an MBA and is a member of ISA. He is also a member of Beta Gamma Sigma, the MBA honor society, and of Eta Kappa Nu, the engineering honor society. Google Dan Hebert,PE for more information.

Timo Klingenmeier

Total Plant Messaging Built on Standard Interfaces

Case Study: A Large German Oil Refinery, OPC Interfaces Helping to Build a State-of-the-Art Alarm Management Solution

Darek Kominek

Introduction to OPC
This vendor independent presentation provides a quick introductory overview to OPC Technology. The Introduction to OPC Session explains the vision of OPC, examines a case study, and provides more information about the various OPC specifications. After this presentation you will understand the basics of OPC and the knowledge required to begin integrating OPC into your current system.

Speaker Bio
Darek Kominek: B.Sc. Eng. CompE, is an OPC Specialist and Instructor of all MatrikonOPC Workshops and Online Training Courses. Darek is responsible for MatrikonOPC's Training unit which is comprised of over 100 hands-on workshops around the world. Since 1997, Darek has been providing design and architecture assistance for OPC solutions, as well as taken part in the development of OPC Software.

Sean Leonard

OPC – From Today and Into the Future
To say that OPC is widely adopted is an understatement. When companies like yours demand OPC as the standard for interfacing with any type of industrial system it sends a clear message: OPC implementations are mature and adoption is universal. What are the next problems that OPC will solve in our organizations?

Arne Manthey

Process Data Integration in SAP using OPC
One of the major challenges in business applications is the reliable real or near-time capture of process data (e.g. time and material consumption, temperatures, weights). The quality of many high-level and decision-relevant key performance indicators depends on this. SAP offers a standard OPC interface (SAP ODA) for data access and alarms & events. Other standard functionality like SAP manufacturing for process industries (PP-PI) makes use of this interface allowing a simple implementation. The following scenarios will be shown in the presentation: Weighing system and integration with a process control system using only SAP and OPC.

Eric Murphy

OPC In Mission Critical Applications
OPC can be used reliably and effectively in mission-critical applications. This includes any operation that cannot tolerate intervention, compromise or shutdown during the performance of its critical function. With the proper architecture, any standard OPC solution can be made robust enough to meet these demands.

Ramifications of Improperly Set-up Security
Is your OPC security implemented properly? Providing secure communications is a balance of security and interoperability. How an OPC solution is architected and implemented has significant impact on the usability of a system, and serious ramifications if not done correctly.

Mariusz Postol

Loosely coupled OPC client used to animate GIS
In Lodz (Poland) three power plants (totally 2,5GW) supply a municipal-wide heat distribution network with hot water and produce electric power in cogeneration. Controlling of load distribution allows to meet optimal quality index and, finally, to maximize profits, but it faces a big challenge of reliable remote control systems engineering. The presentation addresses the structure design providing safe bidirectional communication between widely spread control nodes. Generally, the structure design needs functions distribution and communication channels allocation first. It is shown how a reliable solution can be achieved using OPC to provide feedback in a closed loop control system.

An OPC-compliant server that provides multi-protocol, multi-medium and multi-channel redundant access to process data with a unique scan on demand algorithm is used as an engine to manage the process data transfer. We need multi-protocol, because it is reasonable to avoid the heterogeneous system requirement in large-scale automation systems. The possibility to use many media increases flexibility and allows optimal selection of the physical layer for isolated islands of automation and provides a migration path if any selection becomes not optimal. Redundancy is crucial, especially for closed systems where damage risk is highly probable. The data transfer always costs, but unnecessary transfer can be avoided using the presented algorithm.

OPC technology generally provides connectivity between the process control and process management levels, but we need to transfer data between devices to close the control loop in the presented system.

OPC connectivity in the feedback of a municipal-wide heating closed control
In industrial process control and management IT systems we must deal with real-time data acquisition in data service tier to provide information to the end user by the presentation service just in time. Numerous management level systems (including GIS) process solely archival and inventory data. It makes them off-line and difficult to be used in any process control application where SCADA systems prevail, which conversely cannot be used to manage and localize process resources. The drawback of using both systems simultaneously is how to keep synchronizing the process models in both of them, especially for large-scale distributed systems.

A case study of three power plants (totally 2,5GW) supplying a municipal-wide heat distribution network (~8000 nodes) with hot water and producing electric power in cogeneration is presented.

The presentation shows that adding the OPC connectivity to a GIS system addresses both issues, i.e. easily localizes the value of process variables on thy map while moving, zooming and layer changing.

The challenge is how to inject an OPC client into the data service tier, which is a component obfuscated from the user’s standpoint. To overcome this, we have to use primitive data import mechanisms and available built-in graphical tools as the only option. A fully configurable OPC client is added as a separate component. It provides very simple XML services to supply real-time process data. The presentation proves that the solution has many other advantages apart from allowing to avoid internal GIS source code development and can be easily used in other applications.

Speaker Bio
Mariusz Postol has 25+ years of experience in managing of projects in communication and process automation and 40+ technical publications. Since 1992 he has been CEO of CAS - a solution provider – where he leads most projects. As an active OPC Foundation member he is directly involved in standard evolution and new products development. As the assistant professor of the Technical University of Lódz, he is involved in research projects and teaching of students.

Amin Rawji

Opening Address
President and CEO of Matrikon Inc., will open the conference and provide a high level overview of Matrikon Inc.

Speaker Bio
Amin Rawji is the President and CEO of Matrikon Inc., North America’s leading provider of solutions for integrated industrial intelligence. Amin has been instrumental in shaping Matrikon’s transition from a small, local systems integrator to a premier, global solutions provider. Amin has over 15 years of industrial IT software development, marketing and business development experience. He is committed to continuous innovation and proven technology vision; seen by expanding a suite of products from niche applications to large footprint products and ultimately to an integrated product suite. Amin established Matrikon’s strategic direction and guides progress to achieving specific growth objectives.

Dan Robb

Working with Poor Implementation of Cyber Security
In today's competitive market, manufacturing and operations companies must improve the timeliness and effectiveness of their production decisions to stay competitive. This often involves the integration of real-time production systems with business applications using OPC to streamline the flow of information. However, security issues with Windows & Internet-connected business networks have caused significant reliability issues for operations systems. Some of the primary causes of lost production leading to financial loss are incorrectly configured firewalls, viruses and un-installed or outdated system patches. To effectively address security; people, processes and technology must be considered. This presentation attempts to address security challenges by identifying vulnerabilities, applying pacesetter best-practices and sharing experiences and solutions.

Rogerio dos Santos

Keys for Growth-- OPC, SCADAs and Networks
Keys for Growth-- OPC, SCADAs and Networks as Key Tools in System Design Three key elements enable the creation of compatible, robust architecture systems: . OPC - (Openness, Productivity, and Connectivity) . SCADAs (Supervisory Control And Data Acquisition) . Networks Using these elements in concert with best-of-breed technologies can transform your resources into verifiable results when they include an optimum combination of people, processes, and assets. For example, a conventional manufacturing solution using a PLC (Programmable Logic Controller) or a DCS (Distributed Control System) only manages physical elements. The SCADA on the other hand is the link between Man and the Process humans are tasked with managing. Furthermore, networks provide the physical means to acquire, transmit and send to distributed storage (databases) at any distance from the actual event. OPC permits designers to choose solutions from a host of vendors because the OPC standard provides access to a variety of process and management systems. These systems can then help provide process control optimization, business performance optimization, historical data analysis, maintenance and asset management, among many other benefits. With a choice of the best packages for a given application, designers can develop a system that is optimized for each specific goal. And the SCADA and even the HMI (Human Machine Interface) can be liberated from the process hardware to become the visual link for accessing distributed databases through a common Web browser.

Speaker Bio
Rogerio dos Santos has over 12 years of experience in industrial automation with a wealth of experience in product development, project management, application development and engineering for many diverse industries including automotive, oil & gas, and utility. He holds a PhD. in System Engineering, a Masters in Cognitive Science and bachelors in Electric Engineering from various Universities in U.S. France and Brazil.