This latest safety and security-certified technology meets stringent demands for protection, risk reduction and asset availability in high-hazard industries. Schneider Electric, a global specialist in energy management and automation, has released its Tricon® CX compact system for safety and critical control applications where safe operations are critical and reliable operation is paramount. A certified ISA Secure system, the high-integrity and highly available Tricon CX ensures operational integrity, protecting against inherent risk and hazards, as well as external threats such as cyber-attack.

“Safety and security have always been a top concern for our industrial clients, but now new threats, such as cyber-attack, have challenged the traditional approaches they have taken to protect and secure their people, property, communities and the environment,” said Mike Chmilewski, Vice President, process systems offer management, Schneider Electric process automation business. “Therefore, our clients demand the highest levels of safety and security to keep them safe and ensure the systems they rely on are immune to external threats. Our high-performance, future-proof Tricon CX safety system does just that. With more performance and capability, it can help clients maximise productivity, reliability and security while minimising risks and the likelihood of business interruption. It’s another example of why Schneider Electric is uniquely positioned to power the big ideas our clients need to solve their most critical issues.”

The latest addition to Schneider Electric’s Triconex line of safety-instrumented systems, the Tricon CX is smaller, faster, lighter and more powerful than previous safety solutions. Its advanced functionality enables online upgrades without operational interruption. Additionally, the compact design allows for a number of new features including:

• Reduced form factor by 50%
• 67% reduction in weight Lower power consumption
• Advanced monitoring and control capabilities, including:
• Supervised DI/DO with advanced line-performance diagnostics
• Fast analogue inputs with integrated HART
• 1 ms SOE digital input
• Choice of direct termination or external termination panel
• 300% increase in controller tag capacity
• Five times increase in peer-to-peer performance
• ISA Secure EDSA level 1
• New automated test and verification of safety logic.

“The Tricon CX safety system will enhance Schneider Electric’s current safety portfolio, and ARC believes its increased capabilities will enable new and existing customers to expand existing systems, replace obsolete systems or implement new systems,” said Larry O’Brien, Vice President, process automation, ARC Advisory Group. “Its ability to handle upgrades without interrupting the operation should give users confidence in their ability to continue to draw additional value from their investments down the road.”

Through its Triconex brand, Schneider Electric offers industry-leading safety and critical control solutions for managing risks in hazardous environments. Triconex solutions enable safer operations by maximising compliance to mandated safety regulations and minimising both unscheduled downtime and the likelihood of business interruptions. The systems improve operational efficiency, helping clients achieve gains in production availability, asset uptime and ROI. Based on industry-leading Triple Modular Redundancy technology, Triconex solutions are also easy to operate and maintain, and they provide a higher total value of ownership over competitive offers.

In more news, Schneider Electric has acquired LimeWare, a provider of system analysis and auditing software for Schneider Electric’s Foxboro Evo™ process automation and I/A Series® distributed control systems. The acquisition provides foxray software to help customers pinpoint and address critical industry challenges.

“Acquiring LimeWare and its foxray software is an integral part of our strategy to help our customers   improve their operational integrity and operational insight, while future-proofing their operations,” said Gary Freburger, President of Schneider Electric’s process automation business. “With additional investment in our flagship process automation offerings, we have even more power to address critical challenges around safety, reliability and efficiency. The ability to more easily tackle pain points, while driving value across the entire process automation chain, is one of the big ideas we are discussing with our customers in Dallas this week, and it remains a major differentiator for our process automation business.”

LimeWare was founded in 2006 and is headquartered in Porto Alegre, Brazil. Its foxray system management software complements the robust functionality of Schneider Electric’s Foxboro Evo and I/A Series process automation systems. The solution offers additional capability for configuration management, alarm management, operator action analysis and overall documentation. It includes:

• Change tracking with a complete change management workflow process
• Graphics visualisation of the control block loops
• Integrity checks to solve all DCS configuration issues
• Scheduled reports
• Alarms and operator action management and tracking
• I/O and FBM spare reserve and tracking
• An advance query engine that can quickly fetch any DCS information.

“foxray software is the go-to tool for working with our control system database on a daily basis,” said Scott McWaters, Process Control Engineer, Hunt Refining. “From easily locating and reserving spare I/O to improved troubleshooting and insight with the ‘where used’ function, system health reporting, operator action reports, alarm history, inhibited alarm tracking and many other functions, foxray has greatly increased our efficiency. The software has been instrumental in our recent alarm rationalization efforts, and the alarm shelving tool will be used to help cut down on the number of call outs to our on-call engineers for nuisance alarm silencing. This contributes to our overall confidence in the integrity of our operation.”