14 August 2012
A new solution within itsDOC4000 suite it is said to provide a unified and efficient way to manage change, security and compliance across plant control and safety systems while improving reliability through risk mitigation.“The requirement for a formalised Management of Change (MOC) process is a major trend in the process automation industry,” said Jon Lippin, vice president-general manager of Lifecycle Solutions & Service for Honeywell Process Solutions. “Improper changes to automation systems can negatively impact a plant’s safety, availability and compliance, and ultimately its business results. iMOC meets this need by collecting relevant data within a process plant, giving it context, and presenting the information to personnel where and when they need it. It is thus a key loss prevention tool for any company seeking to avoid future losses resulting from configuration changes to a process automation system.”iMOC is believed to be the only such solution specifically designed for industrial automation. It provides help for supervisory personnel with access to modify critical plant systems, including distributed control systems, safety systems, programmable logic controllers, field instrumentation databases, and advanced solutions, enabling many key improvements that can affect business results.For example, by effectively managing changes and approvals, MOC is said to help protect against the threat of cyber attacks and safety hazards. It also enables improved handling of critical issues, including undocumented changes; enhanced regulatory compliance; reductions in error-prone manual MOC tasks and unauthorised changes that increase risk.It is designed to automatically detect all automation changes, reconcile MOC cases to changes in the automation system, and automatically generate reports of un-reconciled changes, all at 45% less cost than could be expected through manual methods.Thorough documentation of all changes made to the system is said to enable fast root cause analysis, ensuring business continuity, and saving many days of investigation and reducing potentially significant financial impact on production.The use of automated documentation capabilities are also said to be able to reduce project costs by as much as 15%.
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