Fisher-Rosemount acquires MDC

Fisher-Rosemount Div. of Emerson Electric Co. (St. Louis, MO) has acquired MDC Technology Ltd. (Teesside, UK), a supplier of real-time process optimization, monitoring, control, and information management software and services.

The move comes one year after Fisher-Rosemount signed a deal to incorporate MDC's process optimization software in it own DeltaV process control and automation software.

The partnership positioned Fisher-Rosemount to compete against such major providers of optimization technology as Honeywell, Aspen Technology, ABB, Hyprotech, Simsci (Foxboro).

The MDC acquisition further cements Fisher-Rosemount's move from its core control systems business into products that help companies better utilize their assets through performance monitoring and optimization.

MDC's technology, says Emerson Process Group XVP and business leader John Berra, provides "business and plant-wide real-time optimization, and model-based performance monitoring of equipment ranging from compressors and turbines to heat exchangers and pumps."

MDC products
MDC products work with control systems from many suppliers. Fisher-Rosemount hopes to deliver a clearer picture of real-time plant operations by integrating MDC products with its PlantWeb Fieldbus-compliant intelligent device diagnostics, asset management tools, and scalable systems technology.

MDC's key products include:

• RTO+ (Real-Time Optimization). RTO+ helps operators to optimize economic performance through plant modeling, data reconciliation, performance monitoring, real-time optimization (open and closed loop), what-if studies, multiple time period coordinated optimization, and mixed integer equipment selection optimization. MDC says RTO+ typically increases profits by 3-5%.

• IPM+ (Intelligent Performance Monitoring). IPM+ lets engineers model process equipment or process units, then compare results with actual operations. Unexpected deviations alert operators to potential problems.

• MSPC+ (Multivariable Statistical Process Control). MSPC+ delivers true multivariable statistical process control. Unlike statistical process control (SPC), MSPC+ analyzes interactions among large numbers of process variables. By extracting and condensing key process information, it focuses attention on the source of potential process upsets.

MDC is also a licensed distributor and service provider for OSI Software's PI data historian and SMOC, a dynamic multivariable process model-based predictive optimizing controller in use at more than 400 refining, petrochemical, chemical, and gas processing plants.

The company recently had major product wins at BASF and Samsung Fine Chemicals.

MDC will maintain its development and support headquarters in Teesside, UK. Its specialists will become part of a new organization working to extend and integrate MDC's technology across Fisher-Rosemount's product lines.

For more information: David H. Ochoa, Marketing Director, Advanced Control, Fisher-Rosemount Systems, Inc., 8301 Cameron Rd., Austin, TX 78754. Phone: 512-834-7659. Fax: 512-832-3220.

Or: MDC Technology Ltd., Startforth Rd., Riverside Park, Teesside TS2 1PT, UK. Phone: +44-1642-773000. Fax: +44-1642-773077.

By Alan S. Brown
Managing Editor, Chemical Online
abrown@vertical.net

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