Product stability and reliability become new challenges in the instrumentation industry

by baoyunx3 on 2012-02-11 09:52:11

In recent years, with the development of industrial automation and instrumentation, China's level of industrial production has greatly improved. The development of automation not only saves labor costs for enterprises but also enhances economic benefits. It also plays an indispensable role in public environments and urbanization processes. However, at the same time, the issue of "industrial disasters" has entered the public eye with the popularization of automation. For example, the world-famous ten major industrial disasters include the "Bhopal gas tragedy in India," the "Exxon Valdez oil spill," and the "Chernobyl nuclear power plant explosion." Recent accidents in China, such as the Shanghai subway accident, high-speed rail accident, and ConocoPhillips oil spill, have sounded the alarm for us.

In September, due to a signal equipment failure, manual scheduling was initiated on Shanghai Metro Line 10, leading to a rear-end collision between two trains at 2:51 PM, resulting in 271 injured passengers, with 61 requiring hospital treatment.

As people question industrial safety, they also raise new doubts about the stability and reliability of the products used. Instrumentation, as an inseparable part of the automation industry, is encountering similar issues. Among these, functional safety technology and safety instruments are newly developed technologies internationally aimed at preventing abnormal accidents in industrial facilities that could endanger personal and equipment safety. This technology and related instrument products have already garnered significant attention from users. Large-scale petrochemical engineering projects in China have already stipulated that a functional safety assessment must be conducted beforehand. Accidents involving sudden incidents in China's industrial facilities occur frequently, making research into safety instrument technology highly significant.

Key products in this field include: control systems achieving overall safety level SIL3, temperature transmitters, pressure/differential pressure transmitters, electric actuators/valve positioners' development and application. It also includes research on evaluation techniques and methods for safety instrument systems and the development of evaluation tools.

Regrettably, most products in China's instrumentation industry belong to mid-to-low technical levels, and key indicators such as reliability and stability have yet to fully meet requirements. Taking testing instruments as an example, high-end and large-scale instruments almost entirely depend on imports, while foreign companies occupy more than 60% of the domestic mid-range product market and many critical components.

Recently, during an interview with Mr. Zhu Yubo, General Manager of Shanghai Automation Instrumentation Co., Ltd. and Chairman of the Shanghai Instrumentation Industry Association, he mentioned the gap between domestic and foreign products stating that China’s products do not lag behind technologically, but rather crucially lack stability and reliability. Foreign products tend to be relatively stable when used, without significant fluctuations, giving users peace of mind. Domestic products, however, fall short in terms of stability and reliability, leading to the situation within the industry where "products receive praise but lack sales."

From this, it can be seen that although there is not a significant gap in technical specifications compared to foreign counterparts, the problems of stability and reliability have not been fundamentally resolved, becoming a serious obstacle constraining the development of China's testing instrument industry. However, stability and reliability require long-term accumulation, necessitating support from multiple aspects. First, standardized process control is needed, which incurs higher costs and personnel requirements, but currently, manufacturers are not large enough in scale. Second, a complete supply chain system is required. Finally, core technologies are essential; many core technologies of instrument manufacturers, including software and hardware, are purchased from abroad and then undergo secondary development, making it difficult to ensure that a single bug does not affect the stability of the instrument. Therefore, this will be a new challenge for China's instrumentation industry.