Honeywell showcased sustainability as the overriding theme for its annual gathering of process industry customers in the Americas - but the meaning went far beyond the environmental aspect typically associated with the term. Themed “Sustain.Ability.” the 2012 Honeywell Users Group (HUG) Americas Symposium informed attendees on how the latest advancements in process automation and controls can help manufacturers sustain their performance and lifecycles to maximize plant safety, reliability and efficiency.
The biggest such advancement unveiled at the event - held June 10-15 in Phoenix and traditionally the company's largest customer gathering in the world - involved Honeywell's flagship offering, Experion Process Knowledge System (PKS). The event's 1100 attendees got a first-hand look at the next generation of Experion, which includes major advancements that can help significantly improve plant production by up to 13 percent, dramatically reduce operator-related safety incidents and lower the total of cost of ownership by up to 30 percent. The latest release also saves thousands of hours of engineering time during late-stage design changes.
“Every plant faces a multitude of competing priorities that challenge their ability to operate in a sustainable manner,” said Jason Urso, Chief Technology Officer of Honeywell Process Solutions. “The goal of this year's Honeywell Users Group conference was to show attendees how they can manage priorities to achieve - and more importantly, sustain - better process and business performance. The latest version of Experion embodies that concept.”
The HUG 2012 program consisted of five days of customer-driven sessions and presentations, as well as demonstrations of the latest Honeywell technologies designed for the process industries. Industry-specific tracks included oil & gas, refining, chemicals, mining and pulp & paper, and covered topics such as plant modernization, control system migration, oil & gas measurement and simulation.
Other notable conference highlights included:
• Honeywell announced Industrial IT Solutions, the company's team of global experts dedicated to providing cyber-security services for industrial facilities.
• A live demonstration of a new 3D simulation solution Honeywell is developing that combines visualization technology with its UniSim® Operations simulation tool. The solution will provide a holistic virtual environment that plants can use to efficiently design, analyze and verify plant operations.
• A roundtable discussion on the state of the process industry workforce. Dr. Karen Panetta, an IEEE Fellow and engineering professor renowned for her efforts to attract more women to Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) fields, moderated this general session discussion, which included a Honeywell customer, industry observers and the winner of the 2012 Americas UniSim Design Challenge student competition.
• A first-hand look at Honeywell's new Intuition™ Executive collaboration software - The software allows manufacturers to analyze and visualize data across their entire enterprises to better respond to volatile energy costs, complex regulatory changes and real-world safety challenges.
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