Rockwell Automation, has bought the Irish process engineering specialist, ProsCon Holdings, for an undisclosed sum. ProsCon, with headquarters in Cork and an office in Dublin, serves customers in the pharmaceutical and biotechnology markets. The previously privately owned company, whose areas of expertise include process technology, control systems and information technology,.will join Rockwell`s global solutions team
In a separate development that emphasizes Rockwell`s growing involvement in the process sector, the company is offering to help process manufacturers to replace their ageing DCSs (distributed control systems) with its Logix control platform. It claims this will boost their productivity, lower their costs, and give them easier access to parts and service
According to Terry Gebert, vice-president and general manager of Rockwell Automation`s Manufacturing and Process Solutions business, the ProsCon acquisition "along with other recent acquisitions of Propack Data, Datasweep and Caribbean Integration Engineers extends Rockwell Automation`s solid foundation and strong domain expertise for global process and information solutions in the life sciences industry, including the rapidly accelerating biotechnology field.
"This acquisition is a vital step in increasing our global solutions delivery capability to life sciences and process automation customers in Ireland and the rest of the world," adds Bob Honor, Rockwell`s vice-president of life sciences. "The ProsCon team`s expertise gives us critical mass and increased presence in Ireland — one of the fastest-growing life sciences markets — as well as in Europe, one of the largest life science markets in the world".
In offering process users a migration path to its Logix platform, Rockwell says it is responding to a gap in the market created by many DCS suppliers no longer supporting their systems. The programme will provide manufacturers with a phased approach that eliminates many of the costs, risks and complexities involved with migrating DCS systems, while providing them with a single platform for integrating process and discrete applications.
Phase one of the migration involves replacing existing HMIs with Rockwell Software`s FactoryTalk HMI products. In phase two, the old process controllers are replaced by Logix controllers, while allowing customers to re-use their existing I/O modules. In phase three, the old I/O infrastructure can be replaced by Logix-based I/O.
Rockwell has developed field termination cables that allow old I/O to be removed without having to remove the field wiring, thus cutting the costs and risks associated with replacing I/O.
Initially, Rockwell is targeting Honeywell, ABB and Fisher Provox DCS installations, and plans to extend the programme to include Westinghouse, Moore, Yokagowa, and other DCS systems.
