ENGINEERING WORKSTATION AS A TRAINING TOOL FOR PROCESS-CONTROL DESIGN AND IMPLEMENTATION

This paper describes the total role of a PC-based Engineering Workstation (EWS) in designing and implementing the control functions. The plant is controlled, monitored, and managed by a microprocessor-based distributed control system that interfaces with EWS. The steps and procedures of the work for design using EWS are described. EWS is also used as a personal computer, and many off-line calculations are performed. The plant for the demonstrated case is a chiller system. The role of EWS as a significant training tool for control design and implementation, which received wide acceptance and has user appeal, has been demonstrated. The main advantages of EWS have been: (1) the ability to configure and edit all control system configurations before installation is complete, (2) to have on-site permanent drawings of control logics at any time, (3) to integrate various control symbols and load them onto control modules by operator-friendly software, and (4) to monitor the process operation for diagnosis and troubleshooting as a support to the user. In the body of the paper all hardware and software of the EWS are fully described along with the control logic diagrams in drawing format and CRT displays. © 1990.