Controls News 13
38
Focus issue:
Cost-benefit of lean technology for operators
Hospital Amsterdam
Primary facility at the AMC hospital with «veteran» Saia®PCD4
and Saia®PCD2 in the control panel.
Aerial view:
AMC Hospital Amsterdam
Academic Medical Centre Amsterdam
The AMC is a facility housing 8000 staff and 1000
beds. The integrated teaching and conference
facility can house up to 15000 people simultaneous-
ly at the hospital site. This really is a massive building,
and a complex one, because it is a teaching hospital.
Building automation is provided using 320 Saia® PCD
automation stations with some 18000 I/O points.
Systems from JCI, Honeywell and Siemens are also
installed in individual sections of the building. When
the 15-year-old Saia® PCD systems were modernized
with the newgeneration comprisingweb and IT tech-
nology, the operator was very pleasantly surprised at
how quick, cheap and secure the transition was from
«
old» Saia® PCDs to the newest-generation devices.
It was something he had never experienced with
competitors. As a result, the facilities that had equip-
ment from other manufacturers were updated with
new Saia® PCD3 automation stations and Saia®Web
panels. Thus even these facilities of the AMC have a
good life cycle and are open to whatever the future
brings.
Statement by the operator and management on the
technology of AMC University Hospital Amsterdam:
Video auf YouTube: web code en1336a
Application report of CN12: web code en1336b
What is the purpose of a long life cycle
and a high degree of portability?
Is the extra effort justifiable? In abstract terms, a
longer life cycle enables a product to be used for a
long time without problems, and to be adjusted or
extended at any time to meet new requirements. The
initial investment and the acquired expertise can be
used for a long time and therefore increase profit-
ability.
Portability means that the application software, and
the investment in development and expertise, can
be used not only for one product line, but for all of
the manufacturer’s devices. There are no functional
boundaries or barriers between small, medium and
large devices. Only the computing power, expand-
ability, and the number of I/Os will be different due
to construction.
Hundreds of Saia-Burgess customers have taken
advantage of the possibility of porting existing ap-
plication software from «old» automation devices to
new generation ones when modernizing Ethernet-
capable controllers. Below are two good illustrations
from our practice:
Tom Emke, Technical Manager of AMC Hospital Amsterdam
The AMC building The AMC building automation system offers
many functions, including peak shaving for electricity and gas
consumption.
