Emerson’s new DeltaV

Emerson’s DeltaV has always been a solid, consistent system that has worked in the automation industry for years.
But Emerson now believes the new DeltaV S series platform is a game changer or something they refer to as being able to conquer complexity.
With plants getting larger and more complex and the technology becoming more intense and accelerating, systems need to be easy to operate and very intuitive.
“It is almost the perfect storm with plants getting larger and more complex,” said Steve Sonnenberg, president of Emerson Process Management at the Emerson Global Users Exchange in Orlando, Fla. “With 40% of the workforce at retirement age next year in the industry and with the economy, it has increased this percentage with employee reductions.”
This new release focuses on Emerson’s commitment to end users. “The people issue is getting more important moving forward,” Sonnenberg said.
During these difficult times it is easy to hide under a rock and wait until things blow over, but Sonnenberg said they have been consistently working on research and development to come out of this recession hitting the ground running.
“You can become too focused on your products, but then you can become blind to opportunities on how customers do their jobs,” said Peter Zornio, chief technology officer at Emerson Process.
This new DeltaV S series includes enhancements to all of the systems’ I/O processing, operator displays, asset management, batch capability and system security, Zornio said. The idea behind these new capabilities is to reduce user project complexity, eliminate needless work, and speed system commissioning. This is a simple case of time is money.
Some of the advances in the new system are I/O on demand and electronic marshalling.
With I/O on demand, users decide what type of I/O they want, whether it is wireless, Foundation Fieldbus, HART, AI, AO, DI, DO, DP, T/C, or RTD, Zornio said.
They decide when they want the I/O, whether for late project changes, during start-up, during operation, or temporary installations; and where they want the I/O, whether in a rack room, remote locations, hazardous areas, safety systems, or harsh environments.
Electronic marshalling can eliminate up to two-thirds of the wiring and connections needed by conventional marshalling cabinets.
The new technology that goes with the S-series, called single channel CHARacterization ModuleS (CHARMS), eliminates the need for users to wire I/O to specific controller I/O cards.
This provides single channel integrity and flexibility down to the channel level.
Being flexible is also one other aspect of this new offering. Traditional project engineering requires major time and cost in changing rack-room I/O wiring and terminations as engineers refine the design during project execution and construction, electronic marshalling makes changes easy and eliminates re-wiring. The user can land the field wires, place a new CHARM and electronically marshal it wherever needed. No more need to rewire which would be a costly delay, Zornio said.
“We have made some major step changes in how a project can be done,” Zornio said.