Under the contract, PAS engineers will assess the performance of alarm management systems and control loops, and develop improvement plans for each individual plant.

PAS will also install its PlantState Suite software at all sites, which will provide comprehensive alarm management and control performance functionality to facilitate the assessment, and improve the performance, of their systems. Upon completion of the project, Scottish Power will continue to utilise PlantState Suite to monitor and sustain the improvements.

PAS president Chris Lyden (right) writing in PAS blog, is an enthusiast of MIT technology and its approach to super capacitors (close to commercialsation). "They covered the plates of a capacitor with millions of tiny filaments called nano-tubes (left) ...collectively they dramatically increase the effective surface area of the capacitor’s plates, allowing them to store more energy in smaller footprint.....These technologies are very likely to create substantial increased demand for our Integrity software.

"The concept of Automation Genome, mapping,"  Lyden writes, "is in a very real sense the result of years of growth in measurements and applications. The essence of the concept is that the building blocks of modern automation systems (i.e. points, parameters, registers, bits, display elements, etc.) are the electronic analogue to DNA and genes in organic life forms.

"However, unlike organic life forms whose genomes morph slowly over very long periods of time, automation genomes morph daily as loops are tuned, alarms are disabled, and parameters are changed. Also unlike the genomes of organic life forms, automation genomes often share “genetic material” (parameters) with other, foreign automation systems (species) creating an inter-related, collective genome - the sum of the parameters of all interoperating systems.

"Changes in the genome of one system often propagate to the other inter-connected systems, creating configuration mismatches. For example, a change to a register in a safety instrumented system would likely create mismatches on several graphic displays, the DCS control logic, and the historian too. So, as the level of interconnectivity between installed systems, the number of integrated measurements and, the number of applications all increase, the automation genome of the plant becomes incredibly complex. Mapping and managing this dynamic complexity becomes untenable for mere mortals.

"PAS’ Integrity software claims to be the answer to this problem, as the only product in the market that maps dissimilar genomes into a common, collective genome. As the number of measurements and genome complexity increases, the market demand for Integrity will increase with them. That is why we care about nano-tube super-capacitors.

“In choosing PAS software and services, Scottish Power has taken a significant step in further advancing their leadership in Process safety, reliability, and performance.”  says Lyden. “We are proud to be their partner in this endeavour.”

“Scottish Power selected the PAS alarm management and control loop performance solutions after an exhaustive assessment of available technologies in the market,” said Suzanne Mackay, Scottish Power Project Manager. “We believe that these technologies will best help us avoid abnormal operating situations, significantly improve the situation awareness of our plant operators, and provide better control of our plants "