ARC Advisory Group's Collaborative Process Automation Systems (CPAS) vision goes beyond applying new technologies to include best practices for managing the lifecycles of process automation systems. The CPAS lifecycle management perspective starts with the early stages of the automation project through supplier selection, front-end engineering and design (FEED), installation, commissioning, startup, through the operational phase of the plant or facility.
The newest edition of CPAS (version 3.0) includes new approaches to automation projects, for which we've included some details in this report. New technologies such as configurable and characterizable I/O can greatly reduce installed project cost and better accommodate late changes to the project, as well as providing a smaller footprint. Technologies, such as fieldbus, can provide similar advantages. Other new technologies, such as virtualization and the cloud, can reduce engineering times and provide a true path to concurrent engineering.
