Emerson Process Management, a leader in automation technology and services, said it designs its technologies using the most advanced techniques for a safer wireless usage.

Wireless is the next inflection point in the process industries, and hesitant adopters should realise that they should leverage this innovation now if they do not want to fall further behind the curve, said a statement.

Wireless technologies connect people worldwide irrespective of time and place. In the process industries, the same technologies are used by organisations to improve their operations, particularly in the areas of maintenance, security, and health safety and environmental (HSE) performance.

Wireless is now implemented in thousands of industrial facilities across the world. An important event that caused this widespread adoption was the creation of a multi-vendor, interoperable industry standard.

The international standard IEC62591 or WirelessHART is the first standard developed specifically to meet the needs of the process industries. It was established by the HART Communication Foundation (HCF) in collaboration with end-users, process equipment vendors, and engineering and communication experts, said the statement.

WirelessHART was ratified in September 2007 by the HCF and approved by the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) in 2010, it said.

Organisations are now moving to wider and more complex wireless implementation.

In the oil and gas sector, for instance, pump and steam trap monitoring used to be a lengthy and expensive process involving physical inspection and laborious data collection in distant field and plant locations. With wireless technologies, operators can now obtain equipment health information remotely.

Numerous organisations have also started to implement plant-wide tracking applications to address workforce productivity, security, and HSE performance. These tracking applications offer varying degrees of location accuracy depending on budget and business needs.

For standard tracking, plant operators use wifi Active Radio-Frequency Identification (RFID) access badges to ensure that people are allowed or restricted to enter specific plant areas according to their roles, and that the movement of assets from one plant area to another is monitored in real time.

The concern of security in using wireless is now being addressed by business like Emerson, that design technologies with multi-tiered, always-on security systems. – TradeArabia News Service