Yokogawa Releases Plant Resource Manager (PRM®) R3.30

Amersfoort, The Netherlands - 26 February , 2016

Yokogawa Electric Corporation today announced the release of its Plant Resource Manager (PRM®) software tool version R3.30. Available from February 29th, version 3.30 represents a major upgrade of Yokogawa’s system for the centralized management of large amounts of data from plant monitoring and control devices and manufacturing equipment. 

PRM R3.30 upgrades include an improved management function for HART® and enhancements to the navigation function. HART is a field network communications protocol developed by the HART Communication Foundation. The latest version of this protocol is HART7, but PRM R3.30 will also support HART5 and HART6 which are still in wide use. 

Manufacturers are constantly looking for ways to improve maintenance efficiency by using software tools like PRM that can centrally manage large amounts of maintenance and other types of data from plant monitoring and control devices and manufacturing equipment. Maintenance personnel use such data to reduce plant downtime and enhance safety by proactively spotting and responding to device failures. 

To optimize plant operations, it is essential not only to keep devices in good working order but also to have up-to-date information on device status, and to keep records on all maintenance work that is performed. Such information is most useful if operators of control and safety instrumented systems can view it on screen at their human interface stations (HIS). 

PRM R3.30 has new features to facilitate the collection of information from field devices for use in decision support activities that help optimize device maintenance and plant operations. 

Summary of Enhancements
1.    Quick access to HART device status information
PRM V3.30 can now obtain start-up, stop, failure, and other status information from Yokogawa HART7 compliant devices in almost real time via the N-IO (Network-IO) field input/output (IO) device that was developed for use with the latest version (R4.01) of Yokogawa’s ProSafe®-RS safety instrumented system (released to the market in November 2015). For 3rd-party HART5, 6, and 7 compliant devices, PRM V3.30 can collect information at 1 minute intervals, which represents a ten-fold increase in maximum frequency over previous versions of PRM. 

2. Intuitive display of device information 
Icons indicating the importance of individual devices are now displayed in the device status window of the navigation screen. If a problem occurs somewhere in the plant, operators can use this information and the self-diagnostic information displayed for the devices to make a quick, priority-based response. 

3. Targeted issuance of alarms
PRM has a maintenance alarm function that issues alarms for display at Yokogawa CENTUM® series integrated production control system HISs. Previously, alarms were issued to all HISs. This latest version of PRM makes it possible to specify which HIS should receive alarms from a specific device, meaning that alarms are only issued to individual operators who are responsible for the specified device. 

About Plant Resource Manager (PRM)
PRM is a software package that centrally manages large amounts of status and maintenance information from plant monitoring and control devices and manufacturing equipment. PRM users can monitor the status of their devices and perform online diagnosis via a network. In addition, PRM centrally manages maintenance information, including device ledgers, in a database, and supplies maintenance information for plant field devices and equipment to maintenance personnel. 

PRM is widely deployed in industries such as oil and gas, petrochemicals, chemicals, iron and steel, pulp and paper, electric power, and wastewater treatment to support the maintenance of field devices in plants and the operation of plants. 

About Yokogawa
Yokogawa's global network of 88 companies spans 56 countries. Founded in 1915, the US$3.5 billion company engages in cutting-edge research and innovation. Yokogawa is active in the industrial automation and control (IA), test and measurement, and aviation and other businesses segments. The IA segment plays a vital role in a wide range of industries including oil, chemicals, natural gas, power, iron and steel, pulp and paper, pharmaceuticals, and food. For more information about Yokogawa, please visit www.yokogawa.com.