January 19, 2007—Emerson Process Management announced that the engineering tools within the Ovation expert control system have been enhanced with audit trail capabilities. This feature automatically tracks engineering changes made to the Ovation system, providing utilities with a better way to manage system security, and troubleshoot and quickly identify the root cause of abnormal conditions that can impact operational performance or result in loss of generation, notes the company.
The Ovation system is a key technology that powers Emerson’s PlantWeb digital plant architecture.
Ovation’s audit trail capability is particularly timely in light of the North American Electric Reliability Council’s (NERC) Critical Infrastructure Protection (CIP) standards, says Emerson. These standards, which were adopted in 2006, require the power industry to identify and protect critical cyber assets related to the reliable operation of bulk electric systems. The audit trail feature helps power generators address NERC requirements for auditable records of control system changes.
Through this tracking feature, all actions that modify the configuration or performance of the Ovation control system are automatically monitored and logged into a database. These actions may include loading, clearing, reconfiguring and rebooting Ovation drops; database import operations; as well as changes to the configuration of system process data, custom graphics and/or control sheets.
The audit trail capability within Ovation is flexible and user friendly. Engineering changes can be viewed, filtered and sorted several ways: by person, date, location or by the nature of the change, itself. Furthermore, the active auditing level can be custom configured and adjusted (high, medium or low) to provide the desired degree of granularity.
This self-documenting capability eliminates the need for maintaining paper records. It also removes the possibility of human error/omission, as well as gaps in information that could occur when long-time plant personnel retire, taking with them years of knowledge about control system modifications.
For more information, visit the Emerson Web site.
