The work on an interface to perfect Open Plant/Comos integration has been in full swing for a year now. How close are we to seeing the results? –We thought it was time to ask the question, and so at this year’s Hanover Fair we caught up with Anne-Marie Walters, Global Marketing Director at Bentley Industrial Process & Operations.

How do you live up to the promise of Operational Excellence? That was the theme for Yokogawa’s fourth EMEA user conference, which took place in Barcelona/Spain in September this year.

The world's biggest plant for neodymium polybutadiene rubber (Nd-PBR) takes the next step: Lanxess announced its € 200 million project to be well underway. Groundbreaking could be celebrated in September, CEO Heitmann said.

The chemical park management company Currenta is a joint venture which was set up by Bayer and Lanxess. The company launched the A++ Efficiency Class climate protection program in April 2008. Currenta manages it’s “chempark” with sites in Leverkusen, Dormagen and Krefeld-Uerdingen, and it sees the program as an opportunity to substantially reduce carbon dioxide emissions. PROCESS asked Dr. Klaus Schäfer, Chairman of the Executive Board at Currenta, about some of the details.

Valve actuator automation is a typical field bus application. Personnel in the control room must be able to operate valves at any time to keep the systems running, prevent supply interruptions and avoid serious accidents. The communications link between the control system and the actuators on the valves must be extremely reliable.