Control.com - Nerds in Control

Dear all,

I am working as instrumentation design engineer. Does anybody have the DCS comparison matrix with the following points? Please send it to my e-mail id: a_nana05 @ yahoo. co. in.

I need ABB 800A and Emerson DeltaV comparison, that is enough.

(1) System effectiveness
(2) Technical performance
(3) Capability
(4) Availability
(5) Support effectiveness
(6) Reliability
(7) Maintainability
(8) Safety
(9) Accessibility
(10) Software configuration
(11) Quality
(12) Software enhancement

That's a fairly large request for a forum thread!!!

To put it simply, and I have had experience with both systems, I would go for DeltaV every time.

Try spending a few minutes Googling each ABB 800 and DeltaV, this should provide most of the comparative data you require. Just beware, most of it will be Sales spiel!

And other people would choose the opposite, fribby.

What I recommend, when people ask me what the best DCS is, is to spend time in the pre-design phase getting all the vendors on the short list to give you customers to talk to, and really go interview them in depth...ask them how they do certain things, how difficult it is to do the things you want to do, and what they really think.

Clearly no vendor is going to give you an angry customer to talk to, but many will give you HONEST customers, who will tell you what the bear did in the woods, complete.

If you want the best DCS you can get, specify the functions in detail that you want, and get detailed proposals on how they'll handle each function. If they don't want to do that, there are other vendors.

If you don't know exactly what you want, you will get exactly what you are sold.

Walt

Walt Boyes
Editor in Chief Control and Controlglobal.com www.controlglobal.com
Mailto:wboyes@putman.net Read my blog SoundOFF!! At www.controlglobal.com/soundoff

I would suggest that if you are going to compare two particular DCS systems you need to list all the specific requirements for your installation. e.g.

- Redundant controllers (do you need it, to what level)
- I/O (what configurations are required e.g. Fieldbus, Profibus)
- System size (how big is your system, I/O counts, PID loops)
- Engineering work flow, online configuration, change management (how do you work with the control system)
- HMI (update rates, integration with other systems using OPC, historian requirements)
- Integration with business systems (SAP, OSI PI, etc.)

If you have specific requirements for your DCS you can ask the vendors questions like "Which other sites have this DCS system version that are the same size as our installation?", "What problems did they encounter?" or "We need to communicate with our other control system XYZ, how can you implement this with your system?"

All too often people don't know what they want, and end up being railroaded by the sales people into thinking that they need all the other stuff that isn't actually ever going to be used. I still haven't worked on a DCS that has fully utilised all of its features and capabilities.

If you are only interested in the engineering side of things, it might be worth doing the basic system courses for both systems. These courses are good because you get a good overview and you get to play with the system. The courses are always a good chance to network with other users as well, they will be happy to tell you what they think is "wrong" or "good" with the system. On the course try to break it, configure it the wrong way and see what happens, pull controllers out on the run and experiment.

Every system has its good and bad points, having used both DeltaV and 800xA they both have strengths and weaknesses. What your job is, is to work out if you can match your NEEDS with the system STRENGTHS. Don't choose a system that almost does everything, but does the most important thing badly.

Chris Jennings

Another option is to appoint a consultant for the
project who is familiar with all the DCS.

We can provide you this service. We are basically
process control people & implement DCS projects
as indicated by WBOYES - editor.

We also stress on architecture for requirement.

jari
iconcnl@vsnl.net

Dear Narayan,

The simple answer to your question lies in two facts:

a) How much locally a DCS vendor is present in your area.

b) If vendor is a Sales team or a Solution Provider team.

Two different vendors of same DCS Brand & Model in two different parts of this world may be opposite in service & solution provision.

Moreover a good Solution Provider Sales Engineer may cover all the ambiguities of his product.

Hope you got the point & will research your local DCS solution provider market.

Regards,

A PLC Programmer
Pakistan

Almost all DCS providers can supply your requirements very well, but the real question is: can do it his local office?

This is the most important question that you must have. All DCS systems have the ability to develop your requirements but the secret is who is making the configuration of the DCS to cover your application and how is the future support can you get about the application implemented. Not all developers can implement in a easy way your aplication and therefore in the future, you can get some problems to implement additions and modifications

Look for a very good local technical support, and so you can sleep more time.

Hernan