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C. PLCs in process control Thus far, PLCs have not been used extensively for continuous process control .Will this continue? The feeling that I39。is that PLCs will be used in the process industry but not necessarily for process control. Several vendors obviously betting that the opposite will happen have introduced PLCs optimized for process application .Rich Ryan, manger, mercial marketing, Allenbradley Programmable Controls Div., cites PLCs39。re appropriate. one, he says, is where the size of the process control system that39。t justify DCS[distributed control system].With the starting price tags of chose products being relatively high, a programmable controller makes sense for small, low loop count application .The second is where you have to integrate the loop closely with the sequential logical .Batch controllers are prime example ,where the sequence and maintaining the process variable are intertwined so closely that the benefits of having a programmable controller to do the sequential logical outweighs some of the disadvantages of not having a distributed control system. Bill Barkovitz, president of Triconex, predicts that all future controllers that e out in the process control system business will embrace a lot of more PLC technology and a lot more PLC functionality than they ever did before . Communications and MAP Communications are vital to an individual automation cell and to be automated factory as a whole. We39。t appear immediately .Says Larry Komarek: Right now, MAP is still a moving target for the manufacturers, a specification that is not final .Presently, for example. people are introducing products to meet the . products will be obsolete when the new standard for is introduced. Because of this, many PLC vendors are holding off on full MAP implementations. Omron, for example, has an ongoing MAPpatibility program。s Industrial Division ,reports tha