Schneider Electric Releases New Measurable Operational Profitability Improvement Features in its EcoStruxure Foxboro DCS

Schneider Electric has released new features in its EcoStruxure Foxboro DCS, the company's flagship distributed control system.

EcoStruxure is Schneider Electric's IoT-enabled, open and interoperable system architecture and platform used across connected products, edge control, apps, analytics and services. The EcoStruxure architecture helps enable scalable design and operation of connected systems with cybersecurity built in at each layer.

Historically, distributed control systems have been designed to control the efficiency and safety of the process, without being able to measure and control certain operating variables, such as profitability, in real time. The EcoStruxure Foxboro DCS, which marks the evolution of the Foxboro Evo control system, provides a scalable, open and interoperable system designed to help increase the business value process controllers can generate, primarily by making the real-time profitability of the operation more visible.

With patented, customizable real-time accounting (RTA) models built in, the EcoStruxure Foxboro DCS not only allows industrial workforces to evaluate the real-time financial performance of an industrial operation directly at the equipment asset level, it also empowers them to more easily identify the impact their actions and decisions have on the profitability of the operations they control. The RTA models can be manipulated and adapted to suit a variety of industrial operations across multiple segments, enabling a wide range of customers to leverage more value from their existing systems.

Real-time Accounting Empowers Real-time Business Control
Along with the RTA models, the continuously current EcoStruxure Foxboro DCS features higher capacity, higher availability control processors; more powerful, fit-for-purpose I/O; more intuitive, role-based engineering tools; and enterprise-wide analytical tools and capabilities. Additionally, its hardened cybersecure design and secure integration with the company's Triconex safety systems help protect the facility's critical assets and allow for continuous production. Moreover, its automated, enterprise-wide, real-time condition monitoring and predictive maintenance capabilities help to minimize unplanned shutdowns, maximize uptime and lower maintenance costs by, according to Schneider Electric, 30 percent or more.

EcoStruxure Foxboro DCS works in tandem with EcoStruxure Profit Advisor, Schneider Electric's new software solution that applies the company's RTA models to help the industrial workforce diagnose and analyze the profitability of processes throughout the plant. Whereas EcoStruxure Profit Advisor connects to process historians to mine both historical and real-time data, the EcoStruxure Foxboro DCS takes the next step by building the algorithms into the process controllers themselves, thereby extending real-time accounting capabilities to more points in the process.

Craig Resnick, ARC Advisory Group, commented, "With the growth and emergence of advanced digital technology—driven by the Industrial Internet of Things—the ability to recoup full, measurable ROI is there, if the right technology is applied. Schneider Electric's EcoStruxure platform is an example of that technology.

"With its embedded accounting models and other IIoT capabilities, the EcoStruxure Foxboro DCS has the potential to measure and control critical cost and value points in the industrial process. That could open the door for end users to shift from managing their business month to month using traditional reporting structures and tools to actually controlling it in real-time."

Keywords: Real-Time Accounting Models, Industrial Enterprise, Industrial Internet of Things, Analytical Tools, Hardened Cybersecure Design, ARC Advisory Group.