GE Fanuc Intelligent Platforms , a unit of GE Enterprise Solutions, today announced the opening of its Engineering Center of Excellence (CoE) for Oil & Gas and Safety in Luton, UK. The centre represents an expansion of the company’s commitment to the Oil & Gas industry allowing GE Fanuc to test and provide complete solutions based on GE’s best of breed products.
“Customers in the Oil & Gas and Safety industries are looking for a combination of products in a validated solution associated with domain expertise,” said Marcel Van Helten, Market Director Infrastructure. “This is now available from a single location. The close cooperation between customers, engineering and marketing will drive better solutions to provide our customers with the ability to gain a sustainable advantage.”
The CoE will regularly host customer innovation sessions to improve the technical relationship between users and GE Fanuc’s combined engineering and technical marketing teams. It will be focused around process control solutions for the general process safety market, and specifically solutions aimed at the Oil & Gas industry including off shore production asset upgrades and optimization, solutions for offshore production vessels, onshore upstream and midstream applications. Areas of expertise will be IEC61508, communications, integration of intelligent instrumentation, and operational optimization.
GE Fanuc currently offers a full range of process solutions that meet the needs of the Oil & Gas industry. These hardware and software solutions will form the basis of the work done by the CoE:
- Proficy Process Systems with PAC8000 controllers will provide customers with a rugged DCS system with unmatched flexibility and an ability to tailor a control solution to their specific application requirements. With a broad process control function block library, peer-to-peer communications between controllers, the ability to handle program and I/O changes on the fly, HART pass through, redundancy, and extreme environmental specifications, the PAC8000 controllers provide the ideal platform for a contemporary DCS solution for Oil & Gas customers.
- PAC8000 Controllers, PAC8000 RTU, and the PACSystems process controllers provide for tight control loop response and have a broad process control function block library available. They are open controllers allowing customers the flexibility to create their own ideal process solutions.
- PAC8000 SafetyNet is approved by TUV Rhineland for emergency shut down, fire and gas and Burner Management applications. It has recently been certified to allow a single controller to manage both safety and process control applications. SafetyNet provides safety features that, without further engineering, allow the user to focus on developing the safety application.
- GE Fanuc also provides a wide range of safety and process I/O modules including high-density digital and analog modules all with extended temperature range that are well suited for the harsh and extreme environments of Oil & Gas industries. This range of I/O modules offers customers great flexibility when using PAC8000 systems.
“Providing an integrated approach leveraging our broad control product portfolio combined with our software solutions, like the newly-released Proficy Workflow, GE Intelligent Platforms can deliver solutions to reduce CAPEX investments and reduce ongoing operational expense,” continued Van Helten. “The CoE will allow us to work more closely with our system integrators, OEMs and end users.”