Honeywell Experion PKS Release Improves Plant Safety and Reliability

Honeywell has released an enhanced version of its Experion Process Knowledge System (PKS) that allows plant operators to carefully coordinate process control, safety shutdown and fire and gas mitigation steps.

In addition to the safety instrumented system (SIS) integration, Honeywell says that Experion helps improve plant operations through embedded simulation capabilities used for comprehensive operator training and control, display and procedure validation. The system also introduces new integrated batch functionality that can significantly increase production as well as reliability for chemical and life sciences companies.

"Experion was originally designed to streamline overall operations, and this latest version expands upon that principle by eliminating the need for intermediate devices to relay important information to the nerve center of the plant," said Harsh Chitale, vice president of strategy and global marketing for Honeywell Process Solutions. "This release is the most efficient system of its kind, and that efficiency translates to safer, more reliable and more profitable plants."

Through integration with the company's newest Safety Manager platform, Experion provides crucial safety and fire and gas information, such as pre-shutdown alerts, directly to operators using a common display. This allows Experion to provide operators with plant-wide SIS point data, diagnostics and system information, as well as alarms and events, operator displays and sequence-of-event information. It also reduces overall system and maintenance costs by reducing the amount of installed field sensor equipment.

Additionally, Experion features embedded integration capability with Honeywell's UniSim simulation tool and can be used to train operators on processes before they are implemented in a plant. Another key capability of Experion is an alarm shelving utility that allows operators to better manage and prioritize alarms on their displays. Experion also provides a Process Control Data Interface, which uses universally accepted MODBUS TCP protocol to control devices such as remote terminal units, terminal servers, analyzers and scales.