Provisional Programme

Day 1
Wednesday 24 July

Morning

Opening address
New technology to keep industry competitive - The role of the professional
institutions.

Fieldbus
Is this the way ahead for future control systems?
What is the message for user and supplier?

Making Industry Competitive

PITT Crews: A Path to Improved Bottom Line Performance: 
	Bill Fitzgerald - Fisher Controls
Summary:
The easiest costs to identify are acquisition costs, so much effort
is aimed at addressing these.  In the end, a tremendous amount of energy 
is expended on a very small portion of the total life cycle costs associated
with a given component, while the total return on investment for that 
component is ignored almost completely.  A number of forward-thinking 
customers have recently concluded that this situation needs to change 
if they want to optimise their operations to gain competitive advantage in
a very demanding world-wide market.  The approach goes by a number of 
different names depending on the location but it will be referred to as 
the "PITT Crew" approach, standing for Performance Improvement Through Team 
work.  This paradigm shift enables both partners to maximise the impact of
new technology, and examples of this technology leverage are featured in 
case studies.

Industry Panel
What has made their industries competitive and what further improvements 
need to be made; organisational, technical, financial, educational . . . 
Discussion with questions and contributions from the delegates.

Afternoon
Modern Instrumentation

Advances in Electromagnetic Flowmeters : 
Dr Ray Keech-Development Manager - Flow Products, ABB Kent-Taylor Ltd.
Summary: 
Recent advances in Electromagnetic Flowmeters are such that, for 
conductive fluids, commercially available meters now offer superior
performances to virtually all other methods of metering flow.  With
the real cost to the user being driven down, and their robustness,
buriability, submersibility, relative immunity to disturbances and
blockage, and their inherent long-term stability they are becoming
the preferred solution to conductive fluid flow metering.

High Accuracy Radar Level Gauging for all Tank Types : 
Johan Sandberg - Saab Marine Electronics AB.
Summary: 
In the seventies, the first radar level gauging systems were design
ed for marine tankers, replacing the older mechanical systems.  Over
the years the method has been adapted to the requirements of the
refining industry and now high accuracy radar gauging is available
for all tank types and has been approved for custody transfer in many
countries.

The absence of moving parts, allows this radar technology to provide
reliable gauging with virtually zero maintenance.  Improved accuracy
is available using newly developed signal processing methods which,
among other improvements, provide an interferometer mode that allows
0.1mm accuracy to be reached.

A New Breed of Industrial Recorder: 
Brian Cole - Penny & Giles Instrumentation Ltd UK.
Summary: 
For years the process industries have used a variety of paper-based
recorders. These by their nature relied on mechanical printing
systems which were costly to maintain as many recorders were located
in harsh conditions on the factory/plant floor.

Also, the heavy running costs with regard to accessories such as pens
and scaled paper pushed industries more and more to
microprocessor-based paperless systems with the ability to
communicate with computer systems thereby initiating the biggest
advance in the recorder market this decade.

Instrument Calibration for ISO 9000: Henrik Nystrand - Beamex - Finland
Summary: 
Awareness of the importance of environmental protection, productivity
and quality standards has become a major factor in industrial plants
today. The massive acceptance of international quality systems,
especially the ISO9000 series of quality standards, has made
calibration a very important task in industrial plants.

The process instruments of today call for accurate calibration, which
requires efficient calibrators and collection of the documentation
requirements for ISO 9000.  A calibration system that fulfils the
requirements for the ISO 9000 is presented.

Day 2
Thursday 25 July


Morning
Plenary Session

Whatever has happened to measurement & control?  Where will the
training come from?  Delegates will be able to express their concerns
about the directions that the industry is taking and where those who
will be meeting the new challenges will come from.

New Technologies 1:  Combined Heating & Power Generation

Control of CHP Plant: Integrated Engine and Boiler Controls: BM Durdle 
Summary:  
The need for increased efficiency in the use of fossil fuels, and
awareness of the environmental effects of emissions from boiler or
fired electricity generators, has made the use of combined systems
generating both heat and electricity attractive.
  
At the same time, relaxation of regulations for on-site generation
has made it easier for comparatively small users to consider
generating their own heat and electricity from a combined plant.

The paper first sets out different combinations of CHP systems that
the author has worked on - these include fired and unfired boiler
plant, with and without auxiliary air supplies, and also both gas
turbine and diesel-driven alternators. The control problems (both
safety and regulatory) for these systems are then outlined.  Methods
for overcoming these problems are then described, with examples based
on actual cases.

Advances in Automation Systems for Cogeneration Power Plants in New Zealand:  
David Biggs and Harootyun Habib - Design Power NZ Ltd.

Summary: 
Cogeneration power plants have evolved over the past few decades into
complex and highly integrated systems.  This has provided control
engineers with more difficult and challenging control problems.
Modern automation for cogeneration power plants includes a number of
leading technologies.

This paper deals with an overview of some contemporary challenges in
integrating the control systems for different configurations of
cogeneration plants. Major technical issues related to the
development of such control technologies are also discussed.

Two specific case studies of topping and bottoming cycle cogeneration
plants are used to illustrate the scope of the problems and
challenges.  Current and future trends in integrating the
cogeneration power-plant control infrastructure are also discussed.

Behaviour Based Fuzzy Inverted Pendulum: 
Han Xiong Li - Auckland University
Summary:
The inverted pendulum is a non-linear unstable system, consisting of
a horizontal movable cart and a rotatable cart.  While at first sight
it might appear to be a trivial object it nevertheless represents an
important class of systems that include such physical situations as
rocket launch and helicopter hover.  As such, it is a useful tool for
examining control strategies.  These, typically, have been state
variable control approaches requiring a mathematical model of the
system.  Here. by observing its behaviour, the inverted pendulum is
balanced using a fuzzy logic controller.  Designing such a controller
consists of building a rule base (made up from observation of the
system behaviour) and a data base. The new methodology is to design
the rule base linguistically and tune the datebase numerically.  The
rule base is simplified by separation into two parts, the pole
balancing and the carriage centering.  Practical demonstrations show
that with fuzzy control the inverted pendulum is more robust than for
state variable control.

Afternoon
Computer software for control

Real-time Simulations in a SCADA Environment: 
Huub Bakker - Massey University 
Summary: 
SCADA systems have found great favour for industrial
control/monitoring operations in recent years due to their low cost
and reliability.  Their major limitation, in the eyes of control
system engineers, has been the difficulty in incorporating complex
real-time simulations and/or control schemes.
  
This paper deals with a method for automatically generating
background simulation/control tasks directly from a development
environment which can access the SCADA database in real-time.
  
The method uses the Matlab/Simulink™ simulation environment in
conjunction with the Real-Time Workshop, which can build a real-time
simulation task directly from the Simulink model.  The background
tasks are compiled for the Window 95/Window NT platform.

OPC-OLE for Process Control: Chris Hill - Intellution - Singapore
Summary: 
OLE for Process Control (OPC) is a standard set of interfaces,
properties, and methods that extend Microsoft's OLE (Object Linking
and Embedding) and COM (Component Object Model) technologies for use
in process control applications. The objective of OPC is to provide
greater interoperability between applications, field systems/devices,
and business/office applications. OPC supports the vision of
providing all plant users with unprecedented access to plant
information and process improvement applications. Ultimately OPC will
allow different process devices, as well as different software
applications written in different languages and running on different
platforms, to interoperate with one another and with Microsoft Office
and BackOffice products.

The Changing Role of the Industrial PC: 
Hamish Kempthorne - Kempthorne Automation Limited
Summary: 
For many years the PC was considered unsuitable for use on the
factory floor. As demands for good supervisory control increased, the
PC found its way into high-end applications, and the most
conservative sites - but a PLC was always in control of the process.
The US car industry turned that upside down with its vision for the
control system for the future.  They picture a controller that
integrates discrete PLC logic with point to point motion control and
even CNC profiling - all on the same processor. They want industrial
I/O racks that will take modules from any supplier.  They expect
improved programming tools without upgrading their CPUs, and faster
CPUs without changing their I/O or software.  Industrial PCs are the
preferred platform and flow chart languages are the preferred
programming tool. This paper discusses changes we can expect in
control equipment, programming tools, and industrial I/O. It
investigates the organisations that are driving the changes, their
reasons, and the technical and political difficulties that frustrate
them.

Safety Issues

Are You Earthed?: Athol Gibson - Oberton Industries Ltd
Summary: 
System earthing arrangements: Incoming mains equipotential bonding,
multiple substations, magnetic loops, distribution boards.
Lightening protection: Structural steel and bonding, electrical motor
connections, mechanical connections of driven equipment to structural
steel, multiple earth paths. Extra low voltage systems: 24V ac,
common connection point for earths, 24V dc, common or negative?

Communications cabling: Electrostatic and electromagnetic shielding,
aware of what earthing system is being used and why, earthing spare
cores, voltage stress, subsequent component failure, fibre optic
cabling. UPS: Neutral and earthing arrangements, power supplied in
PLCs etc. Harmonics: VSDs etc., neutral current.

Surge protection: Barriers.  Real life situations:  Dairy factory
standards over 20 years:earthing arrangements, Meltecca board, casein
bin room floor, switchboard fire.

Safety Related Control Systems: Controlling the Design Process: B M Durdle

Summary: 
The requirements of the Health and Safety in Employment Act place
formal requirements on designers, employers, and others in the
development of safety equipment to be able to demonstrate that the
equipment concerned in fact performs as required.
  
In order to demonstrate this, a formal design procedure is needed,
with documentation of decisions made.  Ideally, the final design must
be audited against an initial statement of requirements setting out
the safety needs of the plant or system to be protected.  In this
paper, a suitable audit trail is set out.

This identifies the particular responsibilities of the various
parties involved in the design of the safety system.  The bulk of the
paper focuses on the information that should be included in a
Functional Specification of the safety system – the objective being
to define a suitable format that can be used as a 'template' by those
involved in safety system design.