Executive overview
Process plants today need to secure greater asset utilisation to meet the demands in terms of productivity and quality, while enabling flexible production to supply richer product mix in a profitable and demand-chain oriented manner.

They need to optimise safety and availability at the same time in order to meet both social and business requirements. Choosing the right technology and the right partner to achieve these objectives is another challenge in itself.
Yokogawa’s vision with VigilantPlant is to create an environment where plant personnel and operators are well informed, alert, and ready to take action.
Imminent abnormal events are detected well before they become a problem, and the role of the operator can be transformed from reacting to problems to making intelligent decisions about the process to optimize plant and business performance, where the role of the operator is transformed into that of a knowledge worker that spends more time optimising production rather than reacting to emergent problems in the plant.
The “See” aspect consists of the visualisation of plant performance date through plant wide data transparency and information integration to reduce blind spots.
The “Know” aspect provides users with the ability to make fast and intelligent decisions about production with analysis and decision support tools to synthesize plant information and human knowledge.
The “Act” phase consists of tools to optimise plant performance that provide effective guidance to the appropriate plant personnel, from operations to management.
These three Primary Components of VigilantPlant represent Visibility, Predictability, and Action, which Leads to Operational Excellence (OpX).
The core building blocks of the VigilantPlant solution fit well into the model of Operational Excellence that consists of a continuous improvement cycle of measurement, control, and optimization. The key enablers are already in place; which is digital plant network, advanced diagnostics and maintenance, prediction technology, integrated safety solutions, robust platforms and quality services.
VigilantPlant’s operational excellence (OpX) was developed based on its offerings that allow users to place Yokogawa’s capabilities in context with a real economic value proposition and business goal rather than simply evaluating features and functionality. The model is based on three primary facets - asset excellence, production excellence, and safety excellence. Each of these facets corresponds to suites of product and service offerings under the VigilantPlant umbrella. Combined, these three facets create a path of lifecycle excellence, continuous improvement, and sustainability.
a)  VigilantPlant Path to asset excellence
 VigilantPlant philosophy of See, Know, and Act fits well within the context of Plant Asset Management (PAM) .The Asset Excellence portfolio focuses on asset availability and utilization, because visibility into asset information is vital, knowledge of impending abnormal conditions or mechanical failure is imperative, and most important is the ability to take corrective action. Yokogawa’s PAM-related applications, provide the needed visualization into plant asset conditions. The Asset Excellence portfolio consists of offering such as Plant Resource Manager (PRM), FieldMate, and Foundation fieldbus solutions.
b) VigilantPlant Path to production excellence
 Yokogawa has a wide range of production management and MES solutions ranging from plant information management systems (PIMS) and advanced process control (APC) to operator assistance solutions. The company’s goal with VigilantPlant is to consolidate these offerings under a single unified umbrella. Yokogawa’s VigilantPlant model of See, Know, and Act fits into the Collaborative Production Management (CPM) marketplace, which consists of the three-step process of planning, informing, and optimisation.
 The production excellence offerings focus on operational agility and adaptability, and include Yokogawa’s suite of Exa production management offerings and related services, as well as Yokogawa’s core system offerings under CENTUM CS 3000 and Stardom
c)  VigilantPlant Path to Safety Excellence
 A significant component in the VigilantPlant scope of offerings is Yokogawa’s new approach to safety systems and safety instrumented systems (SISs). Safety Excellence offerings are focused on health, safety, and environmental concerns and are exemplified in Yokogawa’s new safety system offerings, as well as software that is designed to prevent abnormal situations. Yokogawa’s new approach to safety systems addresses the company’s belief that safety systems still lack much of the advanced functionality found in DCSs, such as a unified architecture, integrated HMI, and integrated alarming capabilities, all of which provide the business value proposition of reduced unplanned downtime, lowered total cost of ownership, and increased return on assets.
 The Safety Excellence portion was launched with the introduction of the ProSafe-RS safety system, AAASuite alarm management offering, and other aspects of the company’s safety strategy. These components were designed to maximizing both availability and safety at the same time, The unified human machine interface arms the operators with an all-in-one interface to both control loops and safety loops, improving visibility of abnormal situations. Meanwhile, the asset manager can easily diagnose asset conditions, using an integrated asset management system that covers both control loop assets and safety loop assets. 
Yokogawa moves from production
management to knowledge
management
Yokogawa’s production management solutions take advantage of the convergence of business, automation, and demographic workforce changes that will provide a catalyst for a new era of manufacturing.
Until recently, a company’s success relied heavily upon individual knowledge scattered throughout its organization. To sustain competitive advantage organisations must leverage their knowledge base in conjunction with preparing for the Next Generation of Manufacturing.
Knowledge Management (KM) builds on the data collection aspect of production management that provides an understanding gained through experience, study, or association.
KM embodies the creation, capture, and reuse of knowledge, and enables improvements of both human and physical assets where the analysis and transformation of production data into the appropriate business context results in reduced operating costs and improved product quality.
Yokogawa is still a technology
company at heart
Yokogawa’s products and applications are not just focused on automation, and the company is taking steps to increase synergies between its automation business and its businesses in test and measurement, medical imaging, and other businesses.
One of the key aspects of Yokogawa’s 90th anniversary celebration was an emerging technology showcase called Gateway to the Future that showed many of Yokogawa’s products that are still in the R&D phase, such as wireless process sensors, IPv6 chips for field instrumentation, chemical micro-reactors, aircraft instrument displays, and even genetic diagnostics systems.
It was unusual for a company to reveal so many new technologies that will probably not be commercially available for at least a couple of years and was a revealing look at Yokogawa’s future direction in automation and all other areas of its business.
With the Vigilance and VigilantPlant strategies firmly in place, Yokogawa has expanded its mission even further. At the company’s 90th anniversary celebration in Tokyo in October of 2005, Yokogawa CEO Isao Uchida reiterated the message of the company to become the number one global supplier to the automation marketplace by 2010.
In summary, Yokogawa’s strategy with VigilantPlant is to partner with customers by driving profitable growth through operational excellence.