DCS comparioson.....

Excuse me if you don't want DCS issues on this forum. If so ....Phil, how about "DCS.net"? I am sure there are so many people out there who are waithing for someting like this to start .

BTW my concern is.....

Recently I worked on Yokogawa CS 3000. I have following coments to make about.No offens intended.

1. The Scalability of the system is great, the configuration time is fast enough but the good part ends here.
2. Documentation is very poor. No context specific help available.You have to scroll labourously through the pdf files.Bookmarks are little help.
3.No sample project availabel. Not even first demo project as most of the DCS manufacturer bundle it with help documentation.
4.The system lacks obvious features like you can't read the controler configuration by simly hooking the Workstation to FCU. You need to manually select the controller.
5. The programming flexibility is very less.You need to program only in a designated way using sebol. You can't even customize the HIS toolbar that appears on top of the screen. The graphics give a look of Windows 95 system.

I worked on ABB & DeltaV and found them really user friendly.

I wonder if others are having differnt views, certainly would like to hear about.

IS DCS not allowed to be discussed on this forum ?

And if so why ?

I just guessed it so. The search on this forum won't return significant results if the keyword has anything to do with any DCS except age old question ' Comaprison between DCS and PLC '.

I have extensive Foxboro I/A experience, it's a Unix based system with a very steep learning curve. It is also very powerful, but is slow compared to a PLC. Majority of the programming is done via Function Blocks, and can be continuous or sequential type control. There is structured text programming, the language feels like a cross between Pascal and C. Digital I/O modules can run simple ladder in the module itself, about the same capabilites as a Pico controller.
The screen is configurable to almost anything you want. Since it is unix based, you can do almost anything anywhere, from one machine via remote logins and scripting.
In unix the network is the machine.
Foxboro has recently comeout with a Windoze box that can sit on the same network, this allowed them to develop a much more user friendly interface, I haven't used it, but others say it's great. The Windows machine is used to configure your unix server and I/O.

That being said, a couple of buddies have Delta V systems, just looking at them casually, they appear to be the most user friendly system I've seen.

Ken

I've had a few years working with Foxborough I/A as well as ABB's Bailey System 6 / Symphony and I must say I much preferred the ABB systems to the Foxborough one.

Having said that, this may be the old issue of being most comfortable with what you know best. I cut my Process Control teeth on KENT K90s (worked intensively with them from early 70's to late '80s and still have occasional contact with them). When ABB discontinued the KENT systems in the mid-80's many of the best ideas were already being incorporated in the other ABB systems, so maybe that's why I feel more at home there.

I've never actually worked with Delta-V systems, but from what I've seen of them, they look quite nice too.