OPC And Process Safety

I was following a discussion on LinkedIn and got introduced to the idea of using OPC* to integrate process safety tools, which are applications that run on computers, into the process control system.  Doing this, it is suggested, can increase the safety by adding a layer of protection using the process monitoring capabilities of these process safety systems.

The discussion that triggered these thoughts are in the Automation & Control Engineering group in LinkedIn.  A group membership is required to view the link.  http://www.linkedin.com/groupItem?view=&gid=1967039&type=member&item=23665249&qid=592ebd60-813d-4518-a59d-b4555aa10b00&goback=%2Egmp_1967039

Fabienne Salimi posted this discussion.  She has quite a bit to say about Process Safety.  For information about her other articles see her LinkedIn profile at http://www.linkedin.com/profile?viewProfile=&key=4259181&authToken=xDGA&authType=name&trk=anet_mfeed_profile&goback=%2Egmp_1967039

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* OPC stands for Object Linking and Embedding For Process Control.  OPC is a widely accepted communications standard for communicating between PLC’s, applications running on PC’s, and other intelligent devices in real time.