Process manufacturers benefit from the value Endress+Hauser and Rockwell Automation collaboration brings to the table

Rockwell Automation 26/01/2010

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To provide manufacturers with comprehensive process automation solutions, Endress+Hauser, Inc. and Rockwell Automation have strengthened their strategic alliance. Collaborating since 2004, they draw from core competencies of both companies to produce solutions that are greater than the sum of the two independent parts: scalable, engineered solutions that include measurement, automation, services and software applications.

“Rockwell Automation is a valued partner to Endress+Hauser,” says Garry Cusick, system solutions manager with Endress+Hauser. “We believe Rockwell Automation offers best-in-class automation solutions. When used in combination with the best-in-class instrumentation of Endress+Hauser, this offers our customers real advantages. “within Endress+Hauser, we say that one – Rockwell Automation – plus one – Endress+Hauser – working together is greater than two, because we are two independent companies that combine deep knowledge to help customers with their measurement, automation and control challenges. The customer wins,” Cusick explains.

Broad Process Experience
Endress+Hauser, Inc. (www.endress.com/rockwell) is a Swiss-based, family-owned global provider of process field instrumentation and plant-asset management solutions for industrial process engineering. The company’s goal is to help customers optimize their processes for economic efficiency, safety and environmental protection.
Its network of 80 companies in 39 countries employs more than 7,800 employees in production, sales and services. The company is a Rockwell Automation Strategic Alliance Partner and EncompassTM Product Partner in the Rockwell Automation Partner NetworkTM.

Founded in 1953 by Swiss engineer Georg H. Endress and German banker Ludwig Hauser, the company started its activities by selling an electronic (capacitive) level sensor imported from England. The company has grown from an instrumentation specialist to a provider of complete solutions. It offers a range of measurement products, including level, flow, pressure, temperature, analytical and complete engineered solutions designed to help customers acquire, transmit, control and record process information needed to manage operations in a safe, reliable and profitable manner.
This comprehensive experience combines with the Rockwell Automation focus on plant control solutions for process industries, featuring the PlantPAx™ process automation system, in addition to its extensive knowledge about drives, high-speed motion, safety and discrete automation in process plants.

“This level of collaboration is unprecedented, even from companies that manufacture field devices and control systems,” says Cusick. “The digital field devices are pre-tested and integrated to the control system. Who else does this? Customers can review our device integration tools before engaging with either company and see how the time required to engineer a system is reduced to a matter of minutes.”

What Does the Alliance Do?
As a result, the collaboration helps customers to reduce integration cost throughout engineering, commissioning and start-up and eliminate risk typically associated with bus integration.

For example, users get advanced diagnostics to reduce maintenance, improve plant-floor system visibility and optimize plant assets. “Problems can be identified in real time right at the workstation,” Cusick explains. “This means corrective action can be taken that much faster.” He says this is possible because Rockwell Automation and Endress+Hauser have worked together on preconfigured blocks, which Rockwell Automation calls Add-On Instructions, that provide a two-way data exchange between the faceplates and the controller. The predesigned faceplates offer visualization of the Endress+Hauser field instruments connected to the control system.

Building a Robust System
The Strategic Alliance also provides preferred integration (www.rockwellautomation.com/go/ehra) between Endress+Hauser process instruments and the Rockwell Automation PlantPAx process automation system to supply robust system solutions.

Rockwell Automation pre-tests many third-party manufactured HART, FOUNDATION Fieldbus and Profibus field devices in a test laboratory for compatibility with the Integrated Architecture-based plant automation system. Each field device is connected to the PlantPAx process system and subjected to interoperability testing procedures similar to operating procedures in the user’s plant.

Results of each field test are provided in a test report for integration planning purposes.

For Endress+Hauser field devices, an additional step provides an Integration Document for each tested instrument. The Integration Document provides information on installation, configuration, start-up, and operation of the integrated system. This helps minimize risk, ease integration and optimize system performance.

How Companies Are Benefiting
Manufacturers across a range of industries are taking advantage of the collaboration’s value.

For example, the two companies recently helped renewable energy customers Archer Daniels Midland, Integrity Biofuels and Renewable Energies Group meet demanding timelines on the control systems implementation for their biodiesel facilities.

The energy companies received a system that optimizes output, resources and assets using Endress+Hauser level, flow, pressure and temperature instruments in conjunction with the Rockwell Automation PlantPAx process automation system.

PZ cussons, a consumer products company, chose a joint solution from the companies. “The total solution supplied by Rockwell Automation and Endress+Hauser has had a significant impact on the control system, providing the required production volumes with seamless integration of the field,” says Andy Ellams, PZ Cussons process development manager.

Food manufacturer red Gold turned to Rockwell Automation and Endress+Hauser to develop a control system for a “cook room” used to make tomato products such as ketchup and canned tomatoes. Incorporating Endress+Hauser instruments with the Rockwell Automation process control system, Red Gold was able to take advantage of a common software architecture and local supply.
Green Planet farms, another innovative food processor, also relied upon the integration between the companies to create a patented process (see page 19 for details).

How can you access the best-in-class solutions that result from this strategic alliance? Contact either company by phone or Web site and start the conversation about the measurement, control or automation challenges you are facing, says Cusick.

“Better yet, let’s talk about your goals. Perhaps you want to improve your product quality, reduce waste, improve repeatability. Endress+Hauser’s core competence is measurement, and we know it is impossible to control what you don’t measure,” Cusick says. “Rockwell Automation offers the best-in-class automation solutions. it’s easy to do business with Endress+Hauser and Rockwell Automation.”

Endress+Hauser & Rockwell Automation Alliance
www.rockwellautomation.com/go/p-eh
Rockwell Automation & Endress+ Hauser Device Integration Tools
www.rockwellautomation.co/go/tjintegration
Rockwell Automation PartnerNetwork
www.rockwellautomation.com/partners