RECORD numbers attended Yokogawa’s three-day user conference in Melbourne in late May. The event was held against a background of Yokogawa’s new Vigilance campaign, which aims to increase brand awareness by emphasising reliability and quality.
Three informative keynote addresses were presented: Mike Smith from Shell Australia on “The Future of the Refining Industry in Australia”; Kiyokazu Ishii, vice president of Yokogawa Electric Corporation (YEC) on “The Future for Automation Companies”; and Wayne Matthews of YMX on “Evolution of MES/OES - Data to Information”.
One of the key topics at the conference was the first introduction of Release R3.05 for Centum CS3000 to Australian users, featuring a new control network called Vnet/IP, a dual protocol system combining traditional Vnet and standard TCP/IP over GB Ethernet.
Another important and popular session was Optimising Operations, where another new Yokogawa product, AAASuite software, was released. AAASuite allows users to automatically reduce and optimise alarm occurrences, thereby leading to safer operation and increased efficiency.
The conference maximised content through the use of parallel sessions, so that users could select the areas that were most of interest to them. There was a combination of user papers and Yokogawa overseas, local sales, engineering and service presentations. Also, a number of popular tutorials were scheduled to enable users to take real knowledge back to their individual plants.
User group chairman Martin Johnson of Goodman Fielder commented, “I find the interaction with a number of companies in different stages of systems migration very useful in setting our own strategies.”
User group committee member Ron Mastus of Provecta Process Automation said, “The user conference not only provides an opportunity to hear the latest developments of Yokogawa’s systems, but also to provide feedback directly to the systems developers to help guide future developments.”
Three parallel site visits were initiated in order to give as many users as possible the chance to visit local user sites, due to restrictions on numbers that could attend each individual site. Shell Geelong Refinery, Ecogen Newport Power Station, and Coogee Methanol Plant hosted such visits.
At the end of the conference, it appeared that users had few gripes about Yokogawa technology, with satisfaction expressed regarding reliability, performance and support. Furthermore, group discussions provided Yokogawa with feedback as to how the company could improve its technology to suit local requirements.