Ken, After reading your response I looked at the reasons my customers sites have been upgrading and fundamentally they boil down to two reasons: 1) Expansion driven (plant and/or control growth). Upgrades are done to support a specific plant expansion or to improve the infrastructure now to support future planned or projected growth. The switched network and CP upgrades I've been doing and planning fall under this category. 2) Maintenance driven (reliability, supportability). Upgrades are done to replace high maintenance items or those at or near the end of their life. The B box replacements fall mostly under this category. For those with 20 year old systems waiting for the justification to rip it all out -- that justification may be a long time coming. As long as we can upgrade components when they start to fail, and add current generation components for planned expansion, that justification shouldn't be necessary. At plants with the 20 year old system, everything may well work about as well today as when it went in, although maintenance and production costs related to component failure might be starting to creep up. While the system does what it was designed to it is likely to have limited connectivity with other systems, is probably not easily expandible, and it's nearly impossible to implement optimizing/supervisory control. How many projects have been passed up because the system was at or past it's design limits and couldn't support incremental expansion or modernization? How has this affected their profitability in comparison with their competitors? Regards, Kevin FitzGerrell Systems Engineer Foxboro New Zealand ------------------------------------ Tel: +64 (9) 573 7690 Fax: +64 (9) 573 7691 "Ken Heywood" <kheywood@xxxxxxx To: <foxboro@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> om> cc: Sent by: Subject: Re: [foxboro] Can't figure out a way to justify it. foxboro-bounce@fr eelists.org 12/01/2005 02:23 PM Please respond to foxboro Everyone has a lot of great technical reasons that justify chosing I/A Series over some other brand. Technology is wonderful, but where is the return? The justification comes when you walk into your boss' office and say you want to spend $2.3 million to replace the existing control system. The boss will say "Show me the money." Are you making production targets? Yes? Will the $2.3 million be paid back in 12 months? Maybe? How much more money can we make with this upgrade? Dunno? I have lots of customers still running control systems vastly older than I/A who are still waiting for the justification to rip it all out. -----Original Message----- From: Kevin FitzGerrell [mailto:fitzgerrell@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] Sent: Tue 1/11/2005 8:13 PM To: foxboro@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Cc: Subject: Re: [foxboro] Can't figure out a way to justify it. I can share the key points driving upgrades at some of the sites I work with. Outside of upgrading overloaded CPs, the biggest reasons for recent major upgrades have been: 1) Switched networks allow for 8 segments on nodebus. For sites that already have 3 segment nodebus, this allows for easy extension of the existing system to new plant areas without a CLAN. 2) Modbus/Profibus fbms on CP60 are much more attractive than Integrator 30 solutions. 3) B/B1 boxes are experiencing increasing incidence of component failure (ram, NVRAM, floppys, HD, CD, Power Supplies) and don't run current version of FoxView. Examples: Site 1 --------------------- Before recent upgrades: AP51E, WP51Es and WP51Ds. MG30s and MG30Bs. CP30FTs and CP40BFT. Three segment nodebus with FONBEs. I/A version 6.1. Previous upgrades: Had upgraded with Y2K money from earlier workstations to the 51Es, and added 51Ds later as more operator stations were desired. Had upgraded an overloaded CP30 to a 40B. Recent upgrades: Upgraded to high speed switched network (NCNIs, P92 XP AW, Fiber switches) -- driving factor was to add additional Nodebus segments without going to a CLAN. Upgraded overloaded CP30FT to CP60FT -- driving factor was critical nature of overloaded CP and desire to use Modbus FBMs to integrate additional data from Triconex and Modicon PLCs. Upgraded from 6.1 to 6.5.1/7.1 -- necessary to support the two items above. Single most important reason for upgrade was the ability to have up to 8 Nodebus segments on a network without a CLAN. Considerations -- plant downtime where significant upgrades can be done doesn't come often. Desire is to bring system current during that downtime to allow for ongoing addition of current generation equipment when necessary. Site 2 -------------------- Before recent upgrades: AP51As, WP51As, WP51Bs, WP51Ds, a couple WP20s. CP30s, CP40s, CP40Bs. Three networks, two of them with CLANs. 2 and 3 segment nodebuses. Previous upgrades: Large numbers of CP10s merged into CP40s/40Bs -- driving factors were overloading in CP10s, extra engineering maintaining ring route (implemented to overcome resource limitations of CP10s). Recent upgrades: AP51As upgraded to AW51Es, WP20s eliminated -- driving factors were poor A box perfomance and extra engineering maintaining graphics on WP20s. Also considered increasing component failure on A boxes. CP30s and some CP40s merged into CP60s -- driving factors were overloading due to ongoing project work, also considered memory related reboots of CP30 and CP40 modules. Choice of CP60 over CP40B because of support of larger number of FBMs and integration via Profibus/Modbus FBMs. 200 series FBMs seen as easier to add in recovered cabinet space when new I/O is needed. CP40s to CP40FTs -- driving factor was reliability. Used modules made available by mergers above. Upgrade to switched network -- driving factor was desire to eliminate CLANs in each network. CLANs had become overloaded due to increase in control strategies involving multiple previously independent plant areas. 51B1 to 51F upgrades -- driving factors include poor performance of the 51B1 boxes and increasing component failure (ram, NVRAM, floppys, HD, CD, Power Supplies). Upgrade in software from 4.3 -> 6.2.1 -- driving factor was CP60s. Upgrade in software from 6.2.1 -> 6.5/6.5.1/7.1 -- driving factors were switched network and Modbus FBM support. Future upgrades: Merge seperate networks to single plant network with ATS and V8.1 I/A -- driving factor is growth of control strategies across previously independent plants. CPxx -> CP270 -- driving factor is serial and ethernet FBMS -- Critical protocols seen as Modbus Slave, DH+, OPC, Control Logix. Site 3 -------------------- Currently: AW51B, WP51B, Micro I/A with 100 series I/O, Single Ethernet network. Considered future upgrades: 51B -> 51F -- driving factor is component failure and repairability status of B boxes. Micro I/A -> CP60/CP270 -- driving factor is repairability status of Micro I/A controllers. Site 4 ------------------- Currently: AP51B, WP51Bs, CP30s, CP40s, MG30s, MB+, 3 segment nodebus with FONBEs Recent upgrade: 110mhz AP51B -> 170mhz AP51B, increase in RAM -- short term fix for AP overloading. Planned upgrades: Upgrade to switched network -- driving factor is increased network performance and reliability. AP51B -> AP51F -- driving factor is AP performance and increasing component failure in B boxes. I/A 6.2.1 -> I/A 6.5.1/7.1 -- to support above items and allow for Modbus FBMs. Considerations -- plant downtime where significant upgrades can be done doesn't come often. Desire is to bring system current during that downtime to allow for ongoing addition of current generation equipment when necessary. -------------------- Please feel free to contact me for more details. Regards, Kevin FitzGerrell Systems Engineer Foxboro New Zealand ------------------------------------ Tel: +64 (9) 573 7690 Fax: +64 (9) 573 7691 Quoting "Johnson, Alex (Foxboro)" <ajohnson@xxxxxxxxxxx>: > I wish I had the key to offering something that would drive > replacements. > > So, what would justify an upgrade in the minds of you folks - short of > the > "rip it out because we have a new system and won't support our existing > one" > that some vendors use. > > > I'd really appreciate your thoughts on what would drive the brownfield > sites > to upgrade. > > > Regards, > > Alex Johnson > Invensys Process Systems > Invensys Systems, Inc. > 10707 Haddington > Houston, TX 77043 > 713.722.2859 (voice) > 713.722.2700 (switchboard) > 713.932.0222 (fax) > ajohnson@xxxxxxxxxxx > > > > > ______________________________________________________________________ > _ > This mailing list is neither sponsored nor endorsed by Invensys Process > Systems (formerly The Foxboro Company). Use the info you obtain here at > your own risks. Read http://www.thecassandraproject.org/disclaimer.html > > foxboro mailing list: //www.freelists.org/list/foxboro > to subscribe: mailto:foxboro-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx?subject=join > to unsubscribe: mailto:foxboro-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx?subject=leave > > _______________________________________________________________________ This mailing list is neither sponsored nor endorsed by Invensys Process Systems (formerly The Foxboro Company). Use the info you obtain here at your own risks. Read http://www.thecassandraproject.org/disclaimer.html foxboro mailing list: //www.freelists.org/list/foxboro to subscribe: mailto:foxboro-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx?subject=join to unsubscribe: mailto:foxboro-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx?subject=leave -- No attachments (even text) are allowed -- -- Type: application/ms-tnef -- File: winmail.dat _______________________________________________________________________ This mailing list is neither sponsored nor endorsed by Invensys Process Systems (formerly The Foxboro Company). Use the info you obtain here at your own risks. Read http://www.thecassandraproject.org/disclaimer.html foxboro mailing list: //www.freelists.org/list/foxboro to subscribe: mailto:foxboro-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx?subject=join to unsubscribe: mailto:foxboro-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx?subject=leave _______________________________________________________________________ This mailing list is neither sponsored nor endorsed by Invensys Process Systems (formerly The Foxboro Company). Use the info you obtain here at your own risks. Read http://www.thecassandraproject.org/disclaimer.html foxboro mailing list: //www.freelists.org/list/foxboro to subscribe: mailto:foxboro-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx?subject=join to unsubscribe: mailto:foxboro-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx?subject=leave