DISTRIBUTED CONTROL SYSTEM

A DCS (Distributed Control System) is a distributed control system intended for use in the automation of industrial processes. Its main function is to oversee and control the operation of facilities and machinery in real time, such as food factories, chemical plants, refineries,… Its main features are the distribution of control components in such a way that decision-making and control are spread over different locations, scalability and modularity allowing perfect expansion according to the growing needs of the plant, integration of multiple types of equipment (sensors, actuators, HMI, PLCs…), real-time control, redundancy,…

With the ever-increasing complexity of industrial plants, advanced standardisation is also becoming increasingly necessary to enable cost-efficient development, maintenance and expansion. That is why two world leaders in industrial automation, Schneider Electric and Siemens, have developed their integrated automation systems to manage the entire life cycle of a modern control system. On the one hand, Siemens has the SIMATIC PCS 7 process control system and on the other hand Schneider has the EcoStruxure Process Expert for the AVEVA System Platform.

SIMATIC PCS7 from Siemens. This platform, mainly based on the use of software equivalent to step7 for S7-400 PLC engineering and WinCC for Scada monitoring and control, provides high performance features such as flexibility and scalability, homogeneous data and communication and configuration management. It is an open system based on internationally established technologies and industry standards, redundancy at all levels, extensive fieldbus integration, flexible solutions for batch processes…

Again, EcoStruxure Process Expert (EPE) for AVEVA System Platform is Schneider’s integrated automation system, which enables users to achieve operational efficiencies through design engineering to meet the demands of modern production. It also provides an asset-centric, object-oriented automation platform to implement system-wide standards in a digital ecosystem based on Modicon controllers and the AVEVA System Platform.