An example project that illustrates the scalability of Acquire™ and Profile™
This is a pipeline data acquisition and control system operating nationally over several States. The system is broken down into regions, each region has up to eight sites with each site having one to four metering stations deployed for custody transfer measurement and control.
The requirement for local, regional and national access to the system compounds the complexity.
Clearly, this is a large system. If this were implemented with conventional technology it would require a vast amount of custom software engineering at the HMI/Supervisoryand and communications level. This approach will carry the overhead time, cost, support and reliability associated with custom software.
An Acquire™ solution can be deployed rapidly without software resource.
Site Topology
Each site has skid-mounted instrumentation connected to a flow computer, in this instance an Omni 6000. The flow computer provides the custody metering integrity for the metering station(s). The Omni 6000 communicates with an Acquire™ server over a local Ethernet network. The metering stations have differing flow meter technologies and meter prover/master meter configurations.
A single Acquire™ server can handle up to four metering stations providing a graphical interface to allowing local access to the station data, status and alarms. Control of the station(s) is achieved through Intuitive interactive mimic diagrams through the local HMI screen and keyboard. Local printing of reports and alarms is an option.
All data from the site Acquire™ server is made available on a regional private network through a router. This Intranet carries secure, real time data for distribution to the regional and national centres.
Region Topology
A region may contain up to eight sites each with multiple metering stations.
Operations and management in the regional control room responsible for dispatching product and controlling the process have secure, real time access to the data from the site Acquire™ servers(s). The level of access is controlled by access privileges assigned to personnel on an individual or group basis. The regional control room HMI’s are browser based and communicate with the site Acquire™ servers via the private network.
Personnel with remote access privileges can access the regional network, allowing clients, auditors, technicians to gain access to specific data and functionality using conventional web browsers to access the private network.
System printers located in the regional control centre can print reports and events from the site located Acquire™ servers.
National Topology
A national control centre has a Profile™ server scanning the sites in the regions maintaining a national perspective on the operations in the Profile™ database. From the national centre an operator can focus on an individual site Acquire™ server with privilege controlled access to specific data and functions. Reports can be generated in the Profile™ server and printed in on the centre printers or handed off too other systems within the company.
The navigation around this large network is simplified by the use of interactive maps representing the geographical locations of regions, and sites.
Specified alarms raised at a site are reported by exception to the national control centre where the event is logged.
Acquire™ and Profile™ are purpose designed solutions for custody transfer measurement and control systems. Designed to work native with all the major flow computers used in the industry… Out of the box!
No custom software – Acquire™ and Profile™ will largely auto configure with innovative drag and drop graphical editors that streamline the detail… Out of the box!
Reduced technical risk – Acquire™ and Profile™ are solution generators not application generators. No reliance on custom software = less technical risk. These systems work… Out of the box!
Reduced cost of ownership – Systems are configured in hours not weeks or months reducing the cost of deployment… Out of the box!
Reduced cost of support – conventional systems require a relationship with the, often itinerant, software engineer that configured it. Acquire™ and Profile™ can be configured, commissioned, extended, and supported by any competent instrument engineer without software knowledge… Out of the box!
