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ISA100.11a devices deployed at Arkema plant

An ISA - International Society of Automation product story

Edited by the Processingtalk editorial team Oct 8, 2009

The ISA100 Wireless Compliance Institute has deployed, tested and approved ISA100.11a-standard devices in a multi-vendor installation of the technology at Arkema's plant in Crosby, Texas.

The objective of the installation is to demonstrate interoperability among multiple vendor devices using the ISA100.11a technology.

The system has been operating at Arkema since 19 September 2009, 10 days after the ISA100.11a standard was ratified.

The parallel development of stacks, transmitters and compliance tools, while the ISA100.11a standard was being finalised by ISA, made it possible to install a working, interoperable, multi-vendor system achieving user benefits in record time.

Suppliers participating in the Arkema site installation include Gastronics, Honeywell, Nivis, Wilson Mohr, Wireless Access Solutions (formally Gooch Engineering) and Yokogawa.

Sensors from additional WCI supplier members will be added to the ISA100.11a network from October 2009 as part of the WCI-facilitated Arkema user deployments.

Jay Werb, WCI technology director, said: 'The transmitters installed at Arkema have been tested and approved for ISA100.11a compliance using the Wireless Compliance Institute's device interoperability test kit [ITK].

'The ITK is a hardware/software tool using XML scripts, which emulate the operation of an ISA100.11a system manager in a transparent and vendor-independent manner.

'The ITK is being packaged for commercial release in early 2010,' he added.

There were various applications at the site for the ISA100.11a standard, including temperature, pressure, contact closure, valve positioning, gas detection and corrosion detection.

Arkema in Crosby adopted the single coherent architecture that is scalable to cover all of these applications, plus many more, with high reliability across the site.

The entire site is currently covered by two backbone connections and sensor meshing.

The mesh handles re-routing in real time.

Provisioning and commissioning is interoperable as a result of work carried out by WCI to provide support services and tools.

Arkema's Crosby site produces liquid organic peroxides for everyday-use products, such as automotive components, food packaging, health and beauty aides and cleaning products.