October 2009 Editor's Picks: Products from Emerson and Minitab

Emerson Process Management
Wireless solution enables full redundancy
Emerson Process Management (Austin, TX) now offers full redundancy for Smart Wireless monitoring and control through its DeltaV S-series digital automation system. The enhancements include redundant wireless input–output cards and redundant Smart Wireless remote links. Users can now create a hot backup scheme by installing two remote links in the same space. If the first link fails, the system switches to the second link almost instantaneously. The second link sends data to the control system, thus ensuring the consistent presence of one reliable link. This configuration virtually eliminates data loss resulting from failures.

The DeltaV digital automation system provides process-control and predictive maintenance to enable accurate control decisions. The product also includes a complete set of control algorithms and batching software that allows operators to run processes such as biopharmaceutical batch applications. The DeltaV system offers complete audit trails.

Minitab
Software enables value-stream mapping
Minitab (State College, PA) offers version 3.2 of its Quality Companion software for managing and executing quality-improvement projects. The software now includes a tool for value-stream mapping (VSM) that helps users find inefficiencies and eliminate waste. The VSM tool facilitates the tracking of variables such as cycle time, lead time, and work-in-progress time and automatically performs timeline calculations to help improve manufacturing, supply-chain, and product-development processes. In addition, the software lets users add custom data and enables data sharing during a project.

Quality Companion has built-in roadmaps to which users can directly add the tools they need. Users also can design their own roadmaps. Project charters, failure mode and effects analysis, fishbone diagrams, and process maps can be created in the software and stored within a roadmap. When a project is complete, users can archive all of their data in a single file that includes records of all actions taken during the project.