Configuring and Calibrating HART Instruments for top steel producers in Europe
Customer Type: Steel manufacturer
Industry: Manufacturing
Application: Configuring and calibrating HART Instruments
Solution: Druck’s DPI 620 Genii advanced modular calibrator and HART communicator
Druck’s customer is one of Europe's leading steel producers, with operations and commercial presence across the globe.
Steel plants use field devices to analyse, record and control their production processes.
These devices must be “smart,” meaning they have diagnostic functionalities and a way to communicate the information, typically via HART or a Fieldbus network.
Highway addressable remote transfer (HART) is an industry standard which is used to send and receive information between smart devices and control systems and is the most used communication standard in the field today.
The HART communicators allow technicians in the field to check configurations and diagnostics of these devices and adjust as necessary.
The two capabilities that are required to accurately service HART instruments are: (1) precision analogue source and measurement capability and (2) digital communication capability. Previously this required technicians to use separate tools, a calibrator and a communicator.
Druck’s customer needed to upgrade their unsupported Emerson HART 275 communicator due to obsolescence and required a state-of-the-art approach that combined a calibrator and HART communicator within a single device, allowing them to quickly and effectively service their HART instruments whilst bringing them up to the required specification.
Emerson, a competitor, suggested their AMS Trex communicator, however the customer realised that the Trex was simply a communicator and not a calibrator. Emerson’s pricing policy also meant there was no remaining money in the customer’s budget to purchase the calibration equipment, which was also a key requirement of their maintenance programme.
Following a detailed review of the customer’s technical requirements and their calibration and test equipment, the Druck team recommended the upgrade of their pre-existing Emerson HART 275 communicators to Druck’s DPI 620 Genii advanced modular calibrator and HART communicator.
Druck’s DPI 620 Genii combines an advanced multi-function calibrator and HART/Fieldbus communicator with world-class pressure generation and measurement capabilities, providing the customer ultimate control over their calibrations and measurements.
The DPI 620G allows the customer to configure all of the HART parameters of their instruments, providing reliable data, as well as smart control solutions.
The introduction of Druck’s DPI 620 Genii multifunction calibrator provided the customer with a single product solution to calibrate and communicate their different primary measurement HART process instrumentation on site.
Other benefits were as follows:
- Lower cost of ownership: a single product to maintain in terms of annual recalibration costs
- Savings in cost: free lifetime HART Device Driver and firmware upgrades
- Reduced set up time and inventory: less equipment to carry around site and to set up
- Expandable concept: the DPI620G and pressure base are easily expandable should their pressure range requirements change. This is achieved by purchasing an additional suitable PM620 pressure module or Druck’s TERPS PM for industry leading precision, high accuracy measurement and calibration.