Chemical Engineering May 2023 - 40

TABLE 5. COPA QUICKSTART SOFTWARE COMPONENTS
Supplier
Software Component
Inductive Automation
Inductive Automation
CPLANE.ai
Canonical & Intel
CODESYS
CPLANE.ai & Intel
Canonical & CPLANE.ai
CSI & Yokogawa
CODESYS, SMAR & CSI
ASRock, VECOW, Supermicro
Pheonix Contact & Stahl
Pheonix Contact & Stahl
VP Process & CSI
Historian
HMI & Alarms
Systems Management
Viruualization & OS
IDE
Orchestration
Sofware services
Model Predictive Control
61131 Regulatory Control
Redfish
OPC UA & Redfish
4-20 mA <-> OPC UA
Simulation
and orchestrating software intensive
systems-of-systems. O-PAS Part 5
specifies standards for computing
system management. Being drafted
now for the next O-PAS release is
Part 9 that is applying another wellestablished
IT standard for managing
software complexity that, to this
author's knowledge, is significantly
more sophisticated and powerful
than anything that has been used to
date in OT service.
Second, much of the work being
done by the systems integrators and
suppliers involved in the prototyping
projects listed in Table 3 is addressing
ease-of-use and cohesiveness of
the software environment. This work
is likely to improve interfaces of the
modular components and result in
systems-integration methods and
licensable technologies to mitigate
the risks of software complexity.
Observation 6. New entrants to the
industrial control system business
ecosystem are emerging and earning
contracts from end-user companies
for OPA products, systems and
services. One such new entrant, a
group of companies called the Coalition
for Open Process Automation,
is discussed in the next section
of this article.
Observation 7. End-user companies
are starting to issue Requests
for Proposals
(RFP) that require
respondents
to address
current
capability and
plans to supply
O-PASconformant
products
or
O-PAS-based
systems. The
author's company
has received
three
such RFPs in
the past 10
months.
Example: COPA QuickStart
" If we could buy an OPA system we
would, " and " how do we get started
with OPA? " are paraphrases of comments
and questions that the author
has heard from end-user companies
over the last couple of years. To address
these questions, CPLANE.ai
and Collaborative Systems Integration
organized a group of companies,
named the Coalition for Open
Process Automation (COPA), to bring
to market an OPA entry-point that is
significantly less expensive and resource-intensive
than the test-bed
projects listed Table 3.
The fourteen companies in the Coalition
for Open Process Automation
are listed in Table 4. All are members
of the OPA Forum. Important
to note: COPA is independent of the
non-commercial OPA Forum. Collectively,
the COPA companies span all
the OPA business ecosystem stakeholder
roles except for the end user.
In November 2021, the coalition
launched COPA QuickStart, a smallscale
functional control system and
structured
training
program.
The
COPA QuickStart system consists of
one portable cabinet shown with the
hardware component breakdown
shown in Figure 3. The COPA QuickStart
software components are listed
in Table 5.
The structured training program
curriculum starts with an introduction
and demonstration that is targeted
for a broad audience (engineering
and management), and then
moves on to a course of lectures
and hands-on labs teaching content
- particularly what's different with
OPA - that spans the lifecycle of a
control system.
In teaching the course, we learned
that it is difficult for attendees to understand
Open Process Automation
from a linear reading of the O-PAS
standards documents. Therefore,
we increased the emphasis on telling
the OPA story from a narrative based
on the OPA quality attributes documented
in the OPA Business Guide
that focuses on the " what problems
are you solving " questions. Furthermore,
we learned that each cohort of
attendees has differing degrees of interest
in hands-on labs. Accordingly,
we adapt the course as we teach it to
accommodate the attendees' needs.
Now, 18 months after the launch
of QuickStart, the COPA companies
have adapted and expanded the original
QuickStart concept into the following
three offerings based on feedback
from the end-user community:
* Original QuickStart system and
training
* Training-only
* Projects for small-scale, on-production
O-PAS based systems
Concluding remarks
The fifth release of the O-PAS standard,
Version 2.1 Final, was published
in February 2023. Multiple
companies have expressed opinions
that O-PAS V2.1 Final is now sufficiently
specific and complete enough
to be the basis for product designs.
The OPA business ecosystem is
coalescing and strengthening such
that multiple, simultaneous OPA
prototyping projects are underway
in North America, Europe and Asia
Pacific. At least nine end-user companies
have done or are doing OPA
prototyping projects.
The first wave of independent certification
of products for conformance
to the O-PAS standard is starting up
now and is expected to be operational
in mid-2023.
FIGURE 4. Shown here is an outline of the COPA QuickStart training curriculum
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