Company Announcement - Yokogawa South Africa (Pty) Ltd released the Centum® VP R6.01, an enhanced version of the company’s flagship integrated distributed control system, this morning. R6.01 marks the first step in the development of an all-new Centum VP that will play a central role in Yokogawa’s VigilantPlant® strategy for the Industrial Automation business.

Manufacturers today need a high degree of certainty and confidence to achieve timely production, and flexibility to make changes in product and material specifications. This enables them to effectively respond to intense global competition and major market shifts.
Yokogawa’s Managing Director, Johan Louw, says, “The adaptive evolution of the new Centum VP focuses on addressing customers’ needs to keep up with the fast pace of change in the business landscape and technology while delivering maximum return on assets and the lowest total cost of ownership.”

This first R6-level release of the Centum VP system represents much more than conventional functional improvements. R6 brings together smart engineering, advanced operation, system agility, and sustainable plant. Louw continues, “With R6, plant operators can be assured of an optimum engineering environment that spans the entire plant lifecycle, from plant design and the engineering and installation of systems and devices to the start-up of production, maintenance, and renovation. In addition, it is designed to meet the most stringent industry requirements for safe and reliable plant operations and environmental protection.” R6.01 features an exciting expansion of Yokogawa’s lineup of I/O devices and introduces crucial new control system components. Combined with an intuitive engineering environment, it dramatically reduces the time required to configure and install a control system.

The new features include:

• N-IO (Network-IO): A field I/O device with a versatile I/O module that can handle multiple types of I/O signals. The N-IO, a new Centum VP field I/O device, fulfills the functions of universal I/O and a signal conditioner, enabling configurable software and flexible I/O assignment. It has an I/O module that accommodates multiple I/O signal types, accepts up to 16 I/O points, and allows specification of an individual signal type for each point.

• FieldMateTM Validator: A software tool that is used with N-IO devices to check field device wiring and verify that the device operates correctly.
• Automation Design Suite (AD Suite): A first-of-its-kind integrated engineering environment that goes beyond traditional DCS engineering functionality. AD Suite is an integrated platform that ingenuously facilitates project execution, system integration, and site execution, bringing certainty and confidence through all project phases and the start-up, operation, maintenance, expansion/upgrade, and extension stages of the plant lifecycle.

Ongoing Development
Since the release of the CENTUM integrated production control system in 1975, Yokogawa has continually strived to improve this platform by incorporating the latest technologies. In 2008, Yokogawa released CENTUM VP, the latest generation of this series. To date, more than 25,000 CENTUM series systems have been delivered around the world.

*1 A German developer and manufacturer of industrial sensors, process interface solutions, and explosion protection equipment.
*2 A UK-based company that, as part of the Eaton Corporation’s Crouse-Hinds business, manufactures and develops system infrastructure products and explosion protection equipment for harsh and hazardous areas within the process industries.