On March 1, Yokogawa Electric Corporation launched its new network-based control system, STARDOM, that embodies a Network-based Control System (NCS), the new, unique concept of industrial automation systems proposed by Yokogawa. Yokogawa intends to lead the industrial automation systems market with its Distributed Control Systems (DCSs, product names: CENTUM CS 3000/1000 R3) and this new NCS (STARDOM), an open-archtecture system networking various distributed devices. The first delivery of the products is planed at the end of April, 2002

To survive intensifying global competition, it has become a crucial task for the manufacturing industry to build a manufacturing system that can meet the requirements of lower costs and quick response to ever-changing demands. In line with this, Yokogawa has been striving to intensify the link of its DCS with the production management systems and to network field connections.

On the other hand, control systems need to be advanced in markets that have not been prime targets for DCSs. Such markets include control and monitoring of oil and gas wells distributed in a wide area, wide-area co-generation control and monitoring, and semiconductor manufacturing equipment and food-products manufacturing processes where autonomous control is required at individual processes or equipment. An unsophisticated control system consisting of a PC and programmable logic controllers (PLCs) have proven unreliable in many aspects including engineering efficiency, system expandability, and long-term stable supply of parts and components. These issues - and others - have prevented this means of control from being an acceptable solution.
This allowed Yokogawa to discover a new niche market, positioned between the DCS market and PC plus PLC market, for a product with both flexible system configurations and necessary and sufficient reliability. For this reason, the company proposed the NCS and developed STARDOM.

"These days, the functionality required for a industrial control system varies largely," according to Akira Nagashima, Director and Executive Vice President of the Industrial Automation Systems Div. "It has become crucial to directly link the business operation to manufacturing, and enable seamless information communications with management information systems in order for a more efficient enterprise business operation. Yokogawa's DCSs - the CENTUM CS 3000 and CENTUM CS 3000 R3 - embody advanced and highly reliable controllability and affinity for management information systems. Nonetheless, the need for a new control system is increasing in realms DCSs cannot cover. Yokogawa, which boasts top-level technologies and proven achievements for plant control systems, has constantly aspired to innovate technologies in these realms, and under the new Yokogawa-proposed concept called NCS, new products have been developed for these new markets. We are now able to offer solutions for every kind of industrial automation system."

STARDOM Overview
The STARDOM network-based control system is a series of products that materializes a NCS. An NCS allows users to choose the optimum components for application from the provided components grouped by function, such as those for control, operations, or monitoring, and links them using leading-edge network technologies. This allows the use of COTS(Commercial Off the Shelf) and thus offers the configuration of an open and efficient industrial automation system with flexible expandability and upgradability.
STARDOM actualizes an NCS by: (1) offering highly reliable controllers performing autonomous control as the core of a system; (2) linking integrated and scalable control, operation, and monitoring software featuring web-based human interface functionality with the autonomous controllers, via high-speed connections to the Internet to build a system; and (3) offering Application Portfolios that enable effortless implementation of advanced functions and users to apply their know-how in a secure manner.
STARDOM allows decentralization and autonomy of control functions, integration of data, messages, and events, and features a web-based human interface based on internet technologies. It may well be the first system that makes the most of the internet world in the sphere of control.

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