Powering Collaboration - Control Global · managers manage business outcomes. Maintenance...

PoweringCollaboration

Conference Highlights from the 2017 Emerson Global Users ExchangeOctober 2-6 | Minneapolis, USA

In Partnership with CONTROL, a Putman Media Publication

2

TABLE OF CONTENTSPeople are the future of automation 3

A stronger final control foundation 5

5 digital transformation competencies 6

Petronas Fits LNG Plant on 365-meter Ship 8

BP takes measure of wireless, clamp-on temperature sensor 10

Evonik project lighthouse shines light on asset health 12

DeltaV to improve operations with digital twin, HTML5 HMI 13

Coriolis meters increase safety, eliminate tasks at LyondellBasell 15

Progress on predicting control valve vibration failures 17

Immersive training facility gets workers up to speed 19

Saudi Aramco Shell refinery jumps two quartiles in reliability performance 20

MarkWest Energy finds rational approach to cybersecurity 22

Plantweb ecosystem conquers new digital worlds 25

Innovation boosts safety at Chevron 27

Monsanto’s model for global reliability 29

Triple-offset valve hits safety, uptime home run 30

How to upskill next-generation workers 32

Anadarko Petroleum minimizes operator rounds with wireless 34

Hybrid lasers stabilize spectrometers for emissions monitoring 35

Uranium mill tames alarms with DeltaV Analyze 37

Suncor saves millions on spare parts 39

Domain expertise-based training fast-tracks process engineers 41

Below-grade CNG station cuts risk by $1.3 million 43

Emerson Marks 10 Years of Wireless Innovation 45

CESMII effort to advance industrial digitalization 46

Turn digitalization dreams into a plan for success with defined ROI 48

3

PEOPLE ARE THE FUTURE OF AUTOMATION To move beyond the incremental gains of automation to the transformational power of digitalization, we need a fresh per-spective and a new kind of worker.Paul Studebaker

“Today, gains are smaller, expectations are higher and efficiency is no longer the path to the top quartile. We’re coming to the end of leadership by cutting costs.” Emerson’s Mike Train discussed the potential of digitalization to transform organizational performance.

As artificial intelligence rises and automation seems to be taking over many of our tasks, some people question the future of work and

the importance of human intervention. But the role of the automation professional is secure so long as we’re willing to change. And it’s for the better.

“Around the world, in different cultures and orga-nizations, automation professionals are taxed to not only deliver results today and next week, but also look to the future to define a path for continued competi-tive success and payback,” said Mike Train, executive president, Emerson Automation Solutions, to attend-ees of his opening keynote session at the 2017 Emerson Global Users Exchange, October 2 in Minneapolis. “Top quartile” facilities need game-changing automa-tion strategies.

Today, 65% of projects greater than $1 billion fail to meet cost and schedule goals. “If they did, it would save industry $435 billion annu-ally,” Train said. Emerson’s Project Cer-tainty approach helps by reducing cost and complexity, and accommodating change. “Now, we’re supporting it with the Project Certainty Workshop,” to help users under-stand the products and methodology, he said. “Response has been terrific.”

Cloud-based engineering and collabora-tion, digital technology including the digi-

tal twin, and more modernized plants are lowering the total cost of ownership and generating value through-out the plant lifecycle. But in working to implement new methods, users are “staring down decades of es-tablished project methods,” he said. The Project Cer-tainty Workshop helps by providing the tools to over-come that inertia.

On to operationsNext, “We’re taking on the $1 trillion annual losses due to suboptimal operations,” Train said. Emerson sees the opportunity to gain two weeks of production, reduce safety incidents by two-thirds, reduce operating costs by 20%, lower emissions by 30% and provide 4% higher availability.

Emerson’s Plantweb digital ecosystem lets users be certain of return on investment (ROI) by allowing ex-

4

perts to help make smart decisions based on information coming through a secure Internet-of-Things (IoT) infra-structure. Train said, “We are deeply investing to main-tain your security” with Secure First Mile connectivity between operational systems, IT and the cloud to enable connected services, remote monitoring and support.

“The Plantweb digital ecosystem is an important in-vestment for Emerson Automation Solutions,” Train said. “We’re doubling down on all industries in our commitment to our automation portfolio.”

People make it happenTechnology is an enabler, but it doesn’t do the job by itself. “We’re building a culture of collaboration, com-mitment and shared objectives to help you achieve busi-ness results, solve your problems and get you into the top quartile,” Train said.

Indeed, as companies take on big goals with great technology—and performance rolls in—many are ask-ing, “What about the people?” Will automation and robots take their jobs? What becomes of them? Are we on the doorstep of dystopia?

Not at all. Like the streetsweepers of the late 1800s who cleaned up after the horse-driven transportation sys-tem of the time and then found new work in the emerg-ing automobile industry, today’s long-haul truck drivers will become transportation pilots, guiding automated rigs onto off-ramps and into service centers and delivery docks from the comfort an office near their homes.

As the number of ATMs rose, the population of bank tellers has increased, not decreased, as banks opened more branches to be closer to their customers, and tell-ers shifted from dispensing cash to advising clients on their financial needs.

“Technology has always changed lives, so far, mainly by doing more with less and improving efficiency,” Train said. It’s been a big success, but now those ef-ficiency gains are becoming smaller and harder to get. “Today, gains are smaller, expectations are higher and efficiency is no longer the path to the top quartile.

We’re coming to the end of leadership by cutting costs.“We need transformative digital technology—to re-

invest in people.”The more profitable you are, the more you can invest

in the power of data and human intelligence. Control operators become production optimizers. Operations managers manage business outcomes. Maintenance technicians become asset doctors and wellness advi-sors. Production supervisors get 24/7 visibility and their personal lives back, as they no longer need to make those trips to the plant at 2 am.

Progress is being driven by advanced technologies including analytics, mobility, augmented reality and remote services. “These technologies are available to everyone. Why will some companies succeed while others lag? It’s about how companies manage change.”

Technology alone won’t get you there. It’s about how you leverage the technology to have people making good decisions and taking the right actions. “So, we’re develop-ing the new digital worker, to give people the skills and knowledge through education and training,” Train said.

Companies complain about how tough it is to find qualified people. “We need to invest in technical trade schools like Sowela Technical Community College [in Lake Charles, Louisiana]. Emerson partners with more than 350 such facilities around the world,” Train said. “We want to raise awareness and help make manufac-turing a rewarding career path, because what’s good for manufacturing is good for our economies.”

Automation is the central nervous system for safety, reliability and profit, as well as production. “Each of you, personally, is the champion for change in your organization,” Train said. “Cultural change is hard to drive. When you do it, automation professionals be-come business leaders.

“There are hundreds of ways to start small and make a great impact. We offer you roadmaps and the eyes, brains and muscles of automation. Use them.”

For more information, visit emersonexchange365.com

https://emersonexchange365.com/

5

“Final control is the muscle to change what physically flows through the pipes in users’ applications, helps operators perform effi-

ciently and effectively, and keeps them out of trouble,” said Terry Buzbee, group president, final control, Em-erson Automation Solutions. “Final control helps users achieve business impacts. The right valve is foundational to our Operational Certainty efforts.”

During his keynote address on Oct. 2, the opening day of the Emerson Global Users Exchange in Minneapolis, Buzbee added that final control’s mission is to reliably and safely protect people, assets, surrounding communities and local environments, but these attributes can aid per-formance as well. “The first step in protection is contain-ment, but beyond that, its intelligence can help improve performance and product quality,” explained Buzbee. “A leaky valve can cause off-spec product, decrease through-put and increase costs. You can’t do advanced control without tight regulatory control. So, final control product choice will affect users’ product quality and costs.”

Wider, comprehensive capabilitiesBuzbee reported that Emerson added a significant piece to its final control portfolio puzzle when it completed its $3 billion acquisition of Pentair’s valve control technolo-gies and brands in May 2017. “Our existing final control division consisted of Fisher control valves and regulators and the Bettis actuators we’ve had for 20 years,” said Buz-

bee. “Three years ago, we acquired Virgo, which gave us ball valves for the oil and gas industries. With Pentair, we took on the rest of the pressure management area, includ-ing its Anderson Greenwood and Crosby pressure-relief valves for all industries, including heavy power and re-fining. We also took on its isolation solutions, including KTM ball valves and Keystone devices. “

Consequently, Emerson’s final control portfolio and brands now consists of:

Control—Fisher and Sempell;Actuation—Bettis and Biffi;Isolation—Clarkson, Keystone, KTM, Vanessa and

Virgo;Pressure management—Anderson Greenwood,

Crosby, Enardo, Fisher, Kunkle and Yarway.

Emerson’s Terry Buzbee discussed the company’s substantial final control capabilities, which were significantly strengthened with the recent acquisition of the Pentair Valve & Controls business.

A STRONGER FINAL CONTROL FOUNDATIONEmerson added a significant piece to its final control portfolio puzzle when it completed its $3 billion acquisition of Pentair’s valve control technologies and brands in May 2017.Jim Montague

6

“Emerson has always been strong in control valves and digital instrumentation, but combining isolation valves with actuators and digital valves lets us provide our cus-tomers with the whole package,” added Buzbee. “We all know how critical safety systems are in any plant, but they’re often bundles of components that aren’t certified as a whole. Our portfolio enables us to deliver complete solutions that are fully certified.”

Deeper, more varied solutionsBeyond its expansion into new technical realms, Emer-son is developing a variety of other enhanced capabil-ities in its final control products, such as a test proto-col for it pressure-relief valves and feedback functions to aid maintenance. “For example, our new Walkdown app runs on tablet PCs, which makes maintenance turn-arounds much easier, saves a lot of time, and gives us great equipment accuracy,” said Buzbee.

In one notable case, Emerson recently combined a Roxar multi-phase flowmeter with a Fisher multi-port valve on a test-separation skid for an oil and gas applica-tion. “This solution allows us to put multiple pipes to-gether, which reduced the piping needed overall, and made the whole system much smaller and lighter,” added Buzbee. “This saved the customer 60% on piping, im-

proved engineering, and saved about $3.5 million.”Buzbee added that an external set of technical ad-

vances emerging to help the final control field is additive manufacturing—or industrial 3D printing—which is en-abling suppliers to produce stronger, less costly compo-nents, and deliver them much faster. “Traditionally, parts are cast and machined or welded, but it’s costly, uses a ton of energy, and it’s time-consuming,” he added. “Ad-ditive manufacturing lets us print with powdered metal right from a CAD file, which eliminates waste, saves en-ergy, and produce products that are laser perfect and have better material characteristics. In fact, we can print a ball valve for a 1,000-psi application that’s stronger than the cast version.”

In addition, the company’s new Cavitrol Hex cavita-tion-reducing flow conditioner is totally 3D printed. Its six-sided tubes are more durable than the welded Cavit-rol it replaces. “The old welded Cavitrol took months to build and was less durable,” Buzbee said. “The new one takes one day or one week to build, depending on size, and it’s more durable. In the future, users are going to see more 3D printing facilities nearer to their sites for easier response and quicker deliveries.”


5 DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION COMPETENCIES Technology can help transform tasks that are dull, dirty, dangerous and distant to work that is engaging, clean, safe and desirable.Jim Montague

The greatest innovations, from the wheel to the In-ternet, can’t deliver their benefits if no one picks them up and uses them. Unfortunately, chipping

away at human habits and breaking through resistance is far more difficult than creating those new inventions in the first place.

Undeterred by these obstacles, Emerson Automation

Solutions is following up on its recent launches of Project Certainty, Operational Certainty and the Plantweb digital ecosystem to help users to address the human and social shifts they and their personnel will need to make to adopt and benefit from all of these new technical solutions.

“We asked our customers, and they’re saying maybe it’s not the technology. They’re asking whether they have


7

the people and culture needed to create and sus-tain change,” said Mike Train, executive presi-dent, Emerson Automation Solutions. “Recent performance gains are smaller, and competition is getting tougher, but we’re learning that you can’t ‘efficiency’ your way to top-quartile per-formance. Top performers invest in people and technology because only people can make the right decisions to achieve the right outcomes. People are the key.”

Top-quartile behaviorsEmerson’s leaders reported they’re ready to help custom-ers to encourage their staffs to adopt the best practices and behaviors of today’s top-quartile performers, which will be needed to implement more useful technologies in the future. Emerson Chief Technology Officer Pe-ter Zornio detailed these efforts at the 2017 Emerson Global Users Exchange this week in Minneapolis.

“A ton of technology is available, but we must also focus on what it takes to bring that technology to life and how to embed those changes in the culture of an organization to benefit it and its members,” said Zornio. “We did some research and found that the behaviors of top-quartile per-formers include linking collaboration strategies to busi-ness objectives and metrics; demanding a culture of ac-countability; embedding expertise in work processes and applications; and optimizing with real-time data.”

Zornio added that process-control users and organiza-tions performed a similar digitalization of their applica-tions when they implemented early, digital, closed-loop process controls in the 1970s-’80s. “They got help put-ting in sensors to collect real-time data, run it through control algorithms to create outputs, move valves and start pumps and repeat the process in a closed loop,” he explained. “However, these same methods can now be used for reliability, energy consumption, safety and all

the other applications that haven’t used real-time data and codified performance before.”

Zornio added that today’s digital transformation can automate much of the routine busywork that employees had to do before and free them to perform more creative tasks that make better use of their critical-thinking skills. “They can go from the dull, dirty, dangerous and distant jobs to those that are engaged, clean, safe and desirable,” said Zornio. “This doesn’t eliminate jobs. It upgrades jobs to more value-added, intellectual tasks.”

Zornio reported that Emerson has identified five es-sential competencies that process-industry organizations and their people will need to make to benefit in the era of digital transformation.

Automated workflow eliminates repetitive tasks and streamlines standard operations to focus personnel on exceptions and opportunities that require human inter-vention. Emerson solutions in this area include AMS ARES, DeltaV SaaS, DeltaV Logbooks and Smart Commissioning.

Decision support leverages analytics and embedded expertise to provide actionable insights that reduce com-plexity and enable faster decision-making and higher quality. Emerson solutions for it include DeltaV Live, digital twin, Plantweb Advisor and Plantweb Insight.

Workforce upskilling consists of approaches that em-power workers to acquire knowledge or experience faster

“A ton of technology is available, but we must also focus on what it takes to bring that technology to life.” Emerson’s Peter Zornio on the importance of behaviors and cultural change in realizing digital transformation.

8

and more effectively to support higher-level and collab-orative decision-making. Emerson expertise in this area include remote expert assistance, operator training sim-ulators, interactive plant environment and the Control Performance Academy.

Mobility involves secure, on-demand access to infor-mation and expertise, regardless of location, enabling collaborative workflows through shared, relevant infor-mation. Emerson’s solutions here include AMS ARES Asset View, AMS Trex and DeltaV Mobile.

Change management combines strategies, processes, tools and expertise in the right combination to simplify and accelerate the institutionalization of operational best prac-tices. Emerson solutions for it include its Operational Cer-tainty Consulting Group, “Jumpstart” Engagement Pro-gram and Emerson Change Management Methodology.

“Once routine tasks are automated, decision support provides analysis and workflow tools,” added Zornio. “Upskilling gives people access to all of today’s exper-tise on demand, while mobility sends that expertise to wherever they need it. However, change management is going to be the hardest because it will require organiza-tions and their members to not only make changes, but stick with them over the long term. Research shows that 47% of companies report that company culture is the big-

gest challenge to their operational efficiency program. To help our customers tackle this problem, we’re establish-ing our Operational Certainty Consulting Group to help them get through this change-management journey. Emerson is ready to help with all aspects of these efforts.”

Zornio added that jumpstarting digital transformation also consists of five primary activities, including:

Alignment—developing stakeholder readiness with goal alignment, culture, operations and infrastructure;

Justification—building the business case and opportu-nity prioritization with performance benchmarks, work-flow and return on investment (ROI) analyses;

Design—delivering architecture and functional speci-fications with infrastructure, gap and solution analyses for management of change;

Deployment—performing program implementation of processes with deliverables, work streams and resource plans; and,

Sustainability—enabling program management with key-performance-indicator (KPI) tracking and scaling up as needed.

“We’re here to help for the long haul, and we have the deep domain expertise to make it happen,” said Zornio.


How do you squeeze an entire liquefied natural gas (LNG) plant onto an ocean-going vessel? Before Petronas and Emerson Automation So-

lutions collaborated to commission the PFLNG Satu, no one knew. It had never been done before.

Now we know that digital technology—along with ap-propriate project execution methodologies—can make it

happen with certainty.Petroliam Nasional Berhad (Petronas) is a $46 billion

Malaysian oil and gas company founded in 1974. It con-structed its 2.5-sq-km LNG plant in Korea. “That’s a very big area,” said Petronas FLNG instrument manager Ha-run Ab Rashid, who co-presented the story at the 2017 Emerson Global Users Exchange in Minneapolis. “The

PETRONAS FITS LNG PLANT ON 365-METER SHIPMike Bacidore


9

ship is 365 meters in length, about the size of four Amer-ican football fields. The plant will have a 20-year life of producing 1.2 million tonnes of LNG per annum.”

Aboard the PFLNG Satu, gas is extracted from the wellhead through the turret and then processed on-board. The gas is liquefied at -160 °C, shrinking the vol-ume by 600 times, because it needs to be transported on LNG carriers. The LNG is then stored in 177,000 cubic-meter membrane-type cargo tanks until it is offloaded.

“This had never been done before,” explained Rashid. “It was the world’s first. We had many challenges, and we didn’t have any records. We had to develop a lot of new things.”

Some of the challenges included the remote location, 180 km offshore, with limited staff onboard, as well as thousands of fire-and-gas (F&G) detectors, instruments and valves to manage and operate safely and reliably.

New digital capabilities were needed to tackle tough challenges. “We needed to infuse digital technology to execute the project with confidence, and we needed to infuse digital practices in plant operations to run and maintain with confidence,” said Rashid.

Analog yields to digitalIt was through the use of mostly digital signals that Petronas was able to minimize the footprint enough to fit on the vessel, while enhancing the maintenance-and-reliability capabilities of the equipment.

“We wanted to use digital signals from the sensors to the actuators,” explained Jonas Berge, Emerson senior director of applied technology, who co-presented. “We used digital transmitters, digital controllers and digi-tal valves, and there were digital I/O signals between them. In addition, we also had some analog 4-20 mA devices with some digital capability.”

Redundant DeltaV H1 cards with built-in power sup-plies were used, so no additional power supplies were

needed, reducing the system footprint and the weight. “There’s no marshalling cabinet because there are no power conditioners,” explained Berge. “The fieldbus ca-ble lands directly on the H1 card. It simplifies the design and the commissioning.”

The project was designed based on device count, not I/O signal count or signal type, so the exact signal count didn’t really matter. “It doesn’t matter if a device has one signal or three signals or eight signals,” Berge said. “They didn’t have to wait until late in the project to count I/O. They just counted the number of devices. There’s also no I/O card selection because there’s only one type of card. All of the signals are grouped together, so there’s one tag for the whole device. You don’t have tags for each signal. It makes configuration a lot simpler.”

“The ship is only so long,” explained Berge, “so we put a maximum number of devices in each segment and made a worst-case design. We can put up to 12 or 16 devices on each segment.” Most segments were loaded with only eight devices, however, to allow additional in-strumentation to be added in the future.

Virtual remote seals, instead of traditional remote seals with capillaries, were used. “It makes installation simpler and reduces measurement errors,” explained Berge. “Seventy-three multi-point temperature transmit-

“The ship is 365 meters in length, about the size of four American football fields.” Petronas’ Harun Ab Rashid discussed the many challenges of building the world’s first shipboard LNG plant, and how digital technologies helped overcome them.

10

ters, instead of 584 single-point transmitters, were used, mostly for the cargo tanks. They reduced the number of transmitter devices and the wiring needed.”

For valve positioners, the feedback happens over the same two wires. “There’s no additional wiring or prox-imity switches or limit switches,” said Berge. “It’s all provided in real time over the fieldbus. It reduces sys-tem I/O count, and you get the flexibility to turn on the valve-position feedback.”

Commissioning also was simplified. The devices are automatically detected and identified when they’re con-nected, so configuration is automatically downloaded.

“Several of the team members weren’t familiar with digital technologies at the start,” noted Berge. “As the project progressed, the personnel got to learn the ben-efits of digital technology.”

Digital diagnosticsDigital diagnostic capabilities also benefited the main-tenance team. “We have very limited space onboard the ship,” explained Rashid. “The system I/O is in-stalled indoors in the equipment room, so we don’t have to go out into inclement weather. There are no I/O cards out on the deck.”

The system includes intelligent device management (IDM) software, and the fieldbus devices are in the da-tabase by default. “Not all 4-20 mA/HART devices are in the database yet, but their incorporation is almost com-

pleted,” explained Rashid. “Advantages include reduced maintenance costs and easy configuration and calibra-tion. We also incorporated smart-meter verification on the Coriolis flowmeters to tell if meters are drifting or not.”

Future process equipment diagnostics include moni-toring pumps and other equipment health, adding in-struments for equipment condition and performance monitoring and adding sensors for energy management.

Several changes were made after the factory accep-tance test, but the flexibility of the architecture made these easy to handle. “Commissioning was smooth, thanks to the device diagnostics,” said Berge.

“So far, we’ve had two instances of saves” due to the availability of device diagnostics, said Rashid. “The re-sult was we avoided downtime.”

Many lessons were learned along the way, including the need to educate contractors on the use of HART communi-cators and the importance of entering any 4-20 mA/HART devices into the IDM database from the beginning. But the end result is floating in open waters and documented.

“We managed to fit an entire LNG plant onboard a ship for the first time ever,” Berge reminded. “By using digital practices in project execution and plant opera-tion and by infusing more digital technology into the automation, we achieved smooth project execution and plant operation.”


BP TAKES MEASURE OF WIRELESS, CLAMP-ON TEMPERATURE SENSOR Paul Studebaker

To add a temperature sensor to an existing pipe using a thermowell, you have to cut into the pipe and weld in a nozzle. It may require scaf-

fold work, and always calls for a thorough engineering

analysis. “We wanted to explore the idea of not having to put in expensive thermowells and nozzles to do tem-perature measurements, so we did a pilot project,” said Roger Goecke, reliability instrument and safety system


11

engineer, BP Cherry Point Refinery, Blaine, Washing-ton. The refinery opened in 1971 and has a capacity of 234,000 bbl/day, with 90% of production being trans-portation fuel. The pilot project placed one of Emer-son’s Rosemount X-well clamp-on, wireless transmit-ters on a pipe near an existing control thermocouple in a thermowell, and evaluated its performance by com-paring it to the thermocouple.

“To install an X-well, clean the pipe surface, clamp it on and insulate it,” said Goecke. “A general contractor can do it with basic tools. In fact, the most time-consuming part of the installation was the time it took to get a contractor to remove the insulation from the pipe.”

An X-well measures the temperature inside the pipe without intrusion. “It solves a thermodynamic equa-tion with temperature compensation, allowing for heat dissipation,” said Marco Donnangelo, global business development manager, Emerson Automation Solu-tions. “It considers the whole equation, using informa-tion about the process pipe.

“Specifying a thermowell requires nine design in-puts. For an X-well, we just need three—pipe diameter, material and schedule (wall thickness).”

The application is on a diesel stripper tower feedline where reactor feed effluent at about 450 °F goes to a feed drum, then to the stripper. “It’s an 8-in. schedule standard ASTM A106GRB pipe,” Goecke said. “We sanded it to bare steel, clamped the sensor on, and in-sulated it with two inches of soft-pack and silicone.”

The X-well can be fitted to pipes from one-half to 48 inches in diameter, making it suitable for small-diame-ter pipes where a thermowell is impractical. Mounting clamps are available in carbon steel and in 304, 316 and duplex stainless steels to match the pope material and minimize corrosion issues.

Accuracy more than adequateThe installation was first tested uninsulated, and results were erratic and erroneous. “The pipe must be insulated for at least six inches to either side of the sensor, and the insulation must extend up the sensor neck to the trans-mitter, but not cover the ambient air temperature sen-sor,” said Donnangelo. The insulation must be at least half an inch thick, and more is better.

On horizontal pipes with liquid, it’s better to mount it on the bottom of the pipe to be sure the liquid is contacting the wall when the pipe is not full. Internal pipe corrosion or lined pipes can affect pipe thickness and thermal conductivity, which can be compensated in the software.

Trials were run short- and long-term, comparing the X-well (RTD) to the control thermocouple (Type K) installed in the nearby well. In the short-term trial, “X-well averaged 4.96 °F cooler than the control thermo-couple over the temperature range of 446.5 °F to 485 °F,” said Stephen Reeves, executive sales representative with Emerson’s Rosemount measurement technolo-gies. The long-term test extended over season changes with ambient temperatures from 30 °F to 90 °F with “the same results,” he added.

“To install an X-well, clean the pipe surface, clamp it on and insulate it. A general contractor can do it with basic tools. In fact, the most time-consuming part of the installation was the time it took to get a contractor to remove the insulation from the pipe.” Roger Goecke, reliability instrument and safety system engineer, BP Cherry Point Refinery, Blaine, Washington, spoke at the 2017 Emerson Global Users Exchange.

12

The response time is “good, but not as fast as an em-bedded thermocouple,” Reeves said, which may limit its use in dynamic applications. Also, “you have to con-sider the latency of the wireless network.” The Cherry Point Refinery has a robust wireless infrastructure, and latency was not an issue for this application.

Now, new temperature monitoring points can be installed when needed rather than waiting for a shut-down. The combination of wireless and non-intrusive

technology makes for a high-value, rapid-deployment option. “Based on the results of the pilot, we can see making more applications on relatively low-tempera-ture, non-alarm applications—the plant has a policy prohibiting alarms on wireless,” said Goecke. One of those applications is in the tank farm, to reduce the need for trips outside to check temperatures.


EVONIK PROJECT LIGHTHOUSE SHINES LIGHT ON ASSET HEALTHMike Bacidore

At specialty chemical-maker Evonik Industries’ campus in Mobile, Alabama, a 2015 energy metering project warranted implementation of

an instrumentation network. The effort included wired and wireless instruments, plus the retrofitting of wired instruments with Emerson’s THUM wireless adapters across 28 units. That network laid the foundation for Project Lighthouse, a larger monitoring and analytics initiative that has so far illuminated equipment health at Evonik sites in Alabama, Louisiana and Nebraska.

In Mobile, we had no more low-hanging fruit, ex-plained Michael Sowell (pictured), plant electrical en-gineer, Evonik. He and Emerson Automation Solutions field consultant Richie Graham presented Evonik’s story at the 2017 Emerson Global Users Exchange in Minneap-olis. We needed to find a way to the next level, and started Project Lighthouse in 2016. Before, we had data available, but we didn’t have it in front of the right people.”

“We’ve had local experts in Mobile doing vibration analysis with good results,continued Sowell. But we wanted them to be able to serve other sites across the United States, Mexico and Canada. We’ve had to extend our data-gathering infrastructure.

New Orleans was the pilot site, and then Omaha, Ne-braska, was added. More sites will be included as each one is ready to make the investment and connect to the analytics and diagnostics capabilities based in Mobile. To be ready for networking internally and with other Evonik sites, the Mobile plant had to get the architecture right, Sowell “ said We are remotely accessing information from the process data network (PDN) through our demilita-rized zone to Emerson’s AMS ARES Asset Source Inter-face and then to the office network, Sowell” explained.

The company also is working on a second service model where we can hang any device on the process data network, explained Sowell. We’ve worked with IT to ex-tend our process data network to the facilities in New Or-leans and Omaha, and so far we’re not experiencing any bandwidth problems.Project Lighthouse’s big payoffs will be in centralized subject matter expertise and data analyt-ics, as well as continuously improving maintenance and reliability practices. Evonik wants to move from preven-tive to predictive maintenance, explained Graham. Six months ago, they installed steam-trap monitoring in the sleeperways and got feedback. It was so easy to install that they added the pump monitoring application a month


13

ago. They’ve also implemented Emerson’s AMS Machin-ery Manager and AMS Device Manager, which works in conjunction with the DeltaV.

Emerson’s AMS ARES application serves as switchboard for these other applications. It delivers asset-health alerts to relevant personnel, enabling corrective actions to improve reliability and safety, said Graham. We expect this to trans-form the way we do maintenance, said Sowell. We’re able to centralize all of these services into the Mobile site and to continuously monitor equipment across the company.


“We expect this to transform the way we do maintenance.” Evonik’s Michael Sowell discussed the specialty chemical maker’s efforts to use remote monitoring technology to leverage the expertise of its subject matter experts.

DELTAV TO IMPROVE OPERATIONS WITH DIGITAL TWIN, HTML5 HMIBuilt as an extension of Emerson’s already established and suc-cessful cloud project engineering platform, the company’s new DeltaV digital twin delivered through a software-as-a-service (SaaS) subscription model delivers a virtual reference system for customers to optimize their operations.Paul Studebaker

Emerson debuted a first look at DeltaV digital twin delivered through a software-as-a-service (SaaS) subscription model this week at the 2017

Emerson Global Users Exchange. Built as an extension of Emerson’s already established and successful cloud project engineering platform, the new subscription ser-vice delivers a virtual reference system for customers to

optimize their operations.“It’s not just about the technology, it’s about how to de-

ploy it,” said Jamie Froedge, president, process systems and solutions, Emerson Automation Solutions. “We help customers deploy, measure and show the benefits.”

Emerson first released cloud engineering services in 2014, building a foundation that has now transformed


14

“We break down the barriers between the project and operational stages. Instead of waiting until the system is running to train operators, add advanced control and optimization, do reliability optimization and develop work practices, we can do it ahead of time on the virtual system.” Emerson’s Jamie Froedge on the company’s SaaS digital twin reference model.

hundreds of capital projects across the globe. The ser-vice brought engineering configuration and virtual test-ing online instead of on-site, eliminating costly travel requirements, as well as hardware, storage, and services costs. Cloud engineering has cleared the way for agile work processes and non-linear project methodologies, shortening overall project schedules and significantly re-ducing capital project execution costs.

“We used to do it on location—we’d fly there, maybe rent a space, build out the system, test it, fly in the cus-tomers and do acceptance testing. Then go to the site and do it all over again,” Froedge said. “Now, we have performed thousands of systems virtually. The next evo-lution is to use it as an operations reference system—a high-resolution digital twin as a subscription service.”

The service is designed to unlock a customer’s op-erations potential by providing a more flexible land-scape for maintenance, reliability, education and per-formance services.

Virtual FAT to digital twin“Users log on and we collaborate in a secure engineering environment to engineer and test the system,” Froedge said. “Then we extend it into the operations phase, so we can use the virtual system for system maintenance, reliability, education and performance improvements.”

The digital twin makes it easier to monitor and im-prove operator performance, deliver operator training with simulation, manage alarms, optimize production optimization, and implement advanced process control. What might take a year or two in the plant can be done ahead of time, and ready to go on day one.

“We break down the barriers between the project and operational stages,” Froedge said. “Instead of waiting until the system is running to train operators, add ad-vanced control and optimization, do reliability optimi-

zation and develop work practices, we can do it ahead of time on the virtual system.”

In 2018, DeltaV digital twin will be offered as a sub-scription service to make it easier to deploy changes, tune loops, and implement advanced control. “You can deploy and test changes safely, while the plant continues to run,” Froedge said.

As an up-to-date reference of the control and safety system, the digital twin also serves as a repository and guide for future project planning. Froedge said, “Cus-tomers often wish they had an up-to-date reference ver-sion for new sites and expansions, to not have to reinvent the wheel. Now they will have it.”

Better displays for screens of any sizeIn June, DeltaV Mobile brought the DCS to the small screen. Now DeltaV will use HTML5 to make the same screens available across essentially all platforms. “Del-taV v14 now includes an all-new operations experience we call DeltaV Live,” said Peter Zornio, chief technol-ogy officer, Emerson Automation Solutions.

DeltaV Live Operator Interface offers a more intuitive HMI to empower the digital worker. “We took human-centered design practices and years of display building experience to develop new display building tools and dramatically reduced the number of hours needed to

15

make an effective, functional display,” Zornio said. “We showed the displays to operators and the Center for Op-erational Performance, and developed them to get the best situational awareness, with progressive disclosure and an operator-configured watch list.”

DeltaV Live helps today’s digital worker make the most of every action by introducing more ways to visual-ize information as well as providing new capabilities for operators to augment their environment on the fly. Ulti-mately, digital workers will be able to make faster, better decisions in complex situations.

By building this modern offering on the latest technol-

ogy, Emerson sets the stage for taking advantage of the wide variety of desktop, tablet and phone platforms, giv-ing users more flexibility to choose the right platform or device for what they are doing and where they are work-ing. Regardless of the device, digital workers will have intuitive and familiar displays to make decisions to run their plants safely and more effectively.

“Being HTML5, it’s cross-platform, so you use the same technology and get the same displays for mobile workers,” Zornio said. “It’s a leap forward for DeltaV.”


CORIOLIS METERS INCREASE SAFETY, ELIMINATE TASKS AT LYONDELLBASELLPaul Studebaker

The ethylene oxide and derivatives (EOD) unit at LyondellBasells Bayport complex is capable of producing multiple products by operating the

fixed process equipment on a campaign basis. A cam-paign typically runs four to six weeks, and the differ-ential pressure (DP) flowmeters are re-ranged between campaigns to accommodate different flow rates.

The unit includes a loop reactor that reacts material with ethylene oxide (EO) and maintains the reaction in a liquid phase. The reactor has an elaborate trip and alarm system that met process requirements for safety integrity level (SIL) 3 and two-out-of-three (2oo3) voting.

The existing arrangement used an orifice plate with four DP flow transmitters, three connected to the safety instrumented system (SIS) and one to the distributed

control system (DCS). “The DP flow transmitter im-pulse lines would plug an average of six times per year,” said Sergio Vincencio, senior instrumentation and elec-trical engineer, Lyondellbasell Industries Bayport Com-plex, Pasadena, Texas. “We had more than 350 deviation alarms per month.”

“The flowmeters required monthly preventive main-tenance (PM) and had to be re-ranged for campaign changes, potentially exposing personnel to EO. Ethyl-ene oxide is really dangerous stuff,” Vincencio said. “As a result, the plant was spending $85,000 per year in PM and troubleshooting activities.”

In an effort to reduce that cost, engineers first reviewed the process hazard analysis (PHA) and SIL calculations. According to Vincencio, “The process people said, SIL


16

“The process people said, ‘SIL 3! SIL 3!’ but we did the hazard analysis again and found we did not need SIL 3, that SIL 2 would be OK. We met our process requirements for SIL 2 with 2oo3 voting, and we’re saving $85,000 per year.” LyondellBassell’s Sergio Vincencio selected Emerson Micro Motion Coriolis flowmeters to improve reactor productivity and SIS performance.

3! SIL 3!’ but we did the PHA again and found we did not need SIL 3, that SIL 2 would be OK,” with flow-ratio trips serving as an independent layer of protection.

They compared SIL level, proof test interval (PTI) and cost of multiple configurations using two or three Coriolis flowmeters, with or without pump trips or addi-tional on/off valves, and determined that SIL 2 require-ments could be met with two Coriolis meters, which would extend the proof-test interval (PTI) from one to 36 months at a cost of $110,000.

Why choose Coriolis?The former flowmeter installation included 36 poten-tial leak points. Further, impulse lines tended to plug or freeze, measurements were inconsistent, turndown was limited, and accuracy degraded due to plate wear. On the other hand, a best-practice Coriolis installation re-duced the potential leak points to two, had no moving parts, required no pressure or temperature compensation, reduced maintenance and extended calibration intervals. The transmitter has a real-time clock with historian and audit logs for regulatory compliance, and in-situ smart meter verification can self-check meter integrity. A USB plug allows data transfer, an SD card backs up the config-uration, and the meter is SIL-rated. Lyondellbasells flow-meter requirements were met by Emersons Micro Motion CMFS/5700 Coriolis flowmeters, including:

• More stable signals.• Increased turndown to eliminate the need to re-

range.• Universal AC/DC power supply.• Service port for immediate and clear meter status.• 4-20 mA HART and frequency outputs.• All characterization and configuration can be

done through the display.

• Conduit entry and terminal compartment acces-sible through the sides.

• Large compartment for ease of wiring.• Multiple output channels.• Universal serial port (USP) to allow data collec-

tion using standard, easily available equipment.• SD card for transmitter configuration, meter veri-

fication baseline, history, and data log. • Smart meter verification to check coils, RTD,

electronics, tube stiffness, and store values.• Use existing wiring for SIS/DCS.• and Output option to be set for “active” or “pas-

sive.”“We selected CMFS/5700 flowmeters with two out-

puts, one connected to the SIS, the other to the DCS,” Vincencio said. “We have no plugging issues because we have no impulse lines.Our PTI is now 36 months in-stead of 30 days, and there is no need to re-range due to the Coriolis meters 25:1 turndown, which also increases safety by reducing potential exposure to EO. “We met our process requirements for SIL 2 with 2oo3 voting, and were saving $85,000 per year.”



17

“We don’t need help finding the failures, they find us. We’re looking for solutions to help us prevent them.” Absolute Energy’s Travis Rosenberg discussed the company’s collaboration with Fisher Controls to better understand and prevent control valve failures due to vibration.

Absolute Energy has been producing ethanol since 2008 at a plant near Lyle, Minnesota. Now it’s trying to expand plant capacity through opti-

mization of existing equipment and systems. “We’re push-ing our plants, and we’re finding the weak points, such as vibration failures,” said Travis Rosenberg, maintenance manager, Absolute Energy. “We don’t need help finding the failures, they find us. We’re looking for solutions to help us prevent them.”

Rosenberg presented the session “Control valve vibra-tion problems—monitoring, predicting and avoiding them” with Shawn Anderson, senior research specialist, and Adin Mann, simulation technology lead, both with Emerson Automation Solutions, at the 2017 Emerson Global Users Exchange this week in Minneapolis.

“At Emerson’s Innovation Center in Marshalltown, Iowa, we are looking for places where we can monitor valves and vibration, and see where we can predict fail-ure,” said Anderson. “Valves never fail in the field the same way they fail in the lab, and we need field data to support our lab data and help us tie all this data together.”

Absolute Energy was experiencing repeated fatigue crack failures on a steam let-down system for an evapo-rator feed. The system let the steam pressure down from 125 psig to 12-14.5 psia prior to a steam diffuser. “We had cracking taking place in an area around the inlet to the diffuser,” Rosenberg said. “Diffuser pressure varies, and it’s often under vacuum. We had repeated weld failures even though we changed the diffuser, tried different ma-

terials, and had a system vibration analysis done, which did not lead to a solution. When it failed, we lost revenue as well as the repair cost.

“One consultant suggested we move the components around to change the dynamics, which was not realistic.” They did try moving the valve further from the diffuser.

Consultants often recommend trying to overcome a vi-bration problem by adding mass or stiffening the struc-ture. “We wanted to know if we could address the prob-lem at the source instead of trying to work around it,” said Anderson.

PROGRESS ON PREDICTING CONTROL VALVE VIBRATION FAILURESPaul Studebaker

18

Collaboration by Emerson and Absolute Emerson monitored vibration levels before and after the valve was moved. “We have sensors we can put on the valve, log in and see the data,” said Anderson. “We also collected sound level measurements and process pressures—we merged in some historian data.”

As a side note, Anderson said there’s a lot of mature vi-bration monitoring technology out there, but it’s not for control valves. Existing technologies are looking at lower frequency vibration, less than about 1,000 Hz. The lab is now looking at vibration levels of 3-5 kHz and even higher, which are acoustic-range vibrations.

“The approach is not a product yet, but it may lead to a product in the form of a monitoring system or service, as an add-on or option on new valves,” Anderson said.

At Absolute, “We put magnetic sensors upstream, downstream, on the actuator body, low on the actuator, and on the valve itself. We also collected the sound pres-sure level,” Anderson said. A plot of acceleration over time for the sensors showed that while “some were mild and some were wild,” they were generally below 2-3 G. Then they would suddenly pop up. “We learned the vibration was related to process changes,” Anderson said.

Meanwhile, Rosenberg realized “We have a lot of simi-lar pieces of equipment in other plants and I wondered, why don’t we see more failures on those? I tried working on the steam saturation, and realized that I had pushed the desuperheat adjustment to raise efficiency, which led to the problem.

“When we get it fixed, we’ll push it again, but for now, we’re going to give up some efficiency to prevent equip-ment failure.”

Fixing the problem Mann showed details of how piping configurations and valve characteristics affect acoustic vibration. “Closely coupled systems, where valves are closer to elbows and equipment, have more problems due to flow-induced tur-bulence,” Mann said. The turbulence from the valve can interact with the turbulence from an elbow and “add up.” The system at Absolute Energy also has a flex connector. “Noise radiates from the connector, and it wobbles,” he said. “Some of the bolts were loosening and coming out.”

In general, it’s best to observe the guideline to keep

elbows at least six diameters before and 20 diameters af-ter a valve. Mann said, “Fisher sizing software also pro-vides a warning when a valve application is expected to exceed 110 dBa. This is because there is danger to strain on downstream piping and in the valve, it’s not just be-cause of noise.”

Outlet noise is higher on smaller as compared to line-size valves, and ValveLink™ software provides noise mea-surements for both the trim and the outlet, so you can see the effects.

The valve at Absolute Energy is not a Fisher valve, but “We want to investigate all kinds of valves so we can build generic scenarios,” Anderson said. There’s also a time in-terval effect—valves that are noisy on startup may be quiet in operation, and it’s hard to be sure how much damage occurs when, so “We are trying to take the data and eval-uate the damage as it happens, not overall over time, to help us make predictions,” he said.

Work in the lab has shown how valve vibration corre-lates with actuator tubing damage, and how acoustic-in-duced vibration can cause failure of small-bore connec-tions upstream and downstream of a valve. “There, the problem was frequency coincidence,” Mann said. An 1800-Hz tone coincided with the pipe resonance. “The solution was to quiet it down, to use a quieter valve,” Mann said. “It was as simple as an accelerometer mea-surement of the frequency and a calculation by someone who understands the basic physics.”

Back at Absolute Energy, “We didn’t fix the problem yet,” Anderson said. “We’ve looked at the valve sizing, the system, and the diffuser sizing, and we determined the diffuser sizing is too big. The vibration is being caused by different pressure drops due to different op-eration at different times. The answer may be a smaller valve, or two valves. On the Emerson side, we learned a ton. We want these chances to monitor valves that are having or causing a problem, so we can learn from them with semi-continuous or continuous monitoring.”

On the Absolute Energy side, it’s not clear to Rosen-berg whether they’ll be buying one valve or two, but he says, “With all that these guys have done, I’m pretty sure they’ll be green.”



19

Emerson’s Interactive Plant Environments are designed to recreate plant environments for maximum training efficiency.

Manufacturing workforces and digital transformations are accelerating. That speed of change is evident in Sha-kopee, Minnesota, where the foot of industry has stomped on the gas pedal.

Emerson Automation Solutions conducted the first classes at its new Interactive Plant Environment (IPE), while hosting Emerson Global Users Exchange 2017 in Minneapolis.

“We’ve talked about the technology and services to get companies up to top quartile,” said Tanner Rundall, Em-erson’s director of educational services. “But there’s also an element of foundational skills. How are we taking peo-ple and getting them ‘upskilled’ and keeping them cur-rent throughout their careers?”

As technology changes, the way people learn is chang-ing. Watching a how-to video on YouTube has become a go-to resource. Emerson has recognized the need for new types of training and is launching targeted programs to upskill new controls engineers; delivering competency-based programs with recurrent training so workers have real-time access to ar-chived information; and investing in the tools and infrastructure to make these available and useful.

Roll up your sleevesMany graduates start their careers with-out any hands-on experience in an ac-tual process facility. In the mean time, veteran engineers are called upon to as-sume responsibilities to fill knowledge

gaps. Emerson’s IPE provides a fixed, scaled-down physi-cal training facility with actual process units, instrumen-tation and control systems that immerse students in real-world scenarios.

Emerson’s first IPE facility opened in Charlotte, North Carolina, in 2014. The second facility, in Shakopee, which is also Emerson’s innovation headquarters for Rose-mount products and services, features 15 tanks, spanning three levels, with the ability to move water and oil, as well as more than 600 products, featuring hundreds of mea-surement points from instrumented pressure, flow, level, temperature, flame and gas, liquid analysis and gas chro-matography devices that can connect to the DeltaV dis-tributed control system (DCS).

“People wear full personal protective equipment (PPE), follow safety procedures and simulate the environment,” explained Rundall. “Students return to work with confi-dence from practicing in a live plant. Students practice real applications while minimizing risk, which maxi-

IMMERSIVE TRAINING FACILITY GETS WORKERS UP TO SPEEDMike Bacidore

20

mizes return on training investment.”The facility allows students to enter a simulated plant

and execute work orders in a safe training environment. The facility also has a classroom where students learn about a variety of topics, from theory of operation to ad-vanced troubleshooting. After learning in the classroom, they receive work orders, enter the plant and apply what they’ve learned. Students often go into a plant needing additional guidance in applying what was just taught in training. The hands-on portion of the IPE classes with real-world scenarios helps to put the theory into practice.

The courses are designed to mirror real-life. Students receive work orders on a variety of scenarios, such as commissioning a new device, calibrating an existing de-vice or assessing a challenging measurement point. The classes also review safety permits and tools required to complete work orders.

OTJ training, without the riskReal-world scenarios help to develop basic instrument skills, critical thinking and problem-solving skills. By pro-viding a safe, distraction-free environment where engi-neers and technicians can apply new concepts and tech-niques, students will leave with a better understanding

and vision of how a whole plant works, without the safety risks that are inherent in an operational facility. Emerson certified instructors act as mentors.

“This week we’re also launching ControlPerfor-manceAcademy to address the knowledge gap for process controls engineers,” explained Rundall. “As new controls engineers, they don’t have the benefit of spending 10-15 years to learn these things or to experiment on the plant like they used to be able to do.”

The program, which lasts 18-24 months, is based on one used internally at Emerson for years. Phase 1 includes basic instrumentation. Phase 2 addresses control perfor-mance fundamentals. And Phase 3 is for the control per-formance specialist.

“We know it works because we’ve been doing it inter-nally for some time,” explained Rundall. “Traditionally you might come to a class for a week. We work with cus-tomers to make sure they get the tailored curriculum, whether it’s maintenance technicians or controls engi-neers. We’re pairing this methodology with technology being used in the plant. And we’re building skids for cus-tomers to be able to practice on them.”


At the Saudi Aramco Shell refinery (SASREF) in Jubail, Saudi Arabia, performance benefits were realized in emergency maintenance and

mechanical availability, both of which jumped two quar-tiles. This added some real value with a 13.5% reduction

in maintenance cost from the total budget, including overhead, and a 38% reduction in cost-avoidance bad ac-tors, reducing maintenance costs an additional 3.2% this year. There were many other reliability improvements.

All of this couldn’t have been achieved without hard

SAUDI ARAMCO SHELL REFINERY JUMPS TWO QUARTILES IN RELIABILITY PERFORMANCEJubail refinery awarded 2017 Reliability Program of the YearDave Perkon


21

After benchmarking and assessing the operations, Saudi Aramco Shell Refinery (SASREF) established two new departments in 2015, reliability and rotating equipment, to become a maintenance-focused organization and proactively improve work processes. SASREF was recognized as the 2017 Reliability Program of the Year this week at Emerson Exchange.

work and a successful reliability program. For its efforts the refinery won the 2017 Emerson Reliability Program of the Year. “It starts with our vision to safely achieve best-in-class performance, maximizing profitability, with commitment to our people and community,” said Ya-hya Hamdi, reliability engineer, maintenance strategy, at SASREF. “We have four core values: people, safety, ethics and excellence. We always start with people.”

Its reliability program will expand with plans to look at future and continuous improvements. Benchmarking and performance will be studied with actions and plans assigned as needed. SASREF also will continue to de-velop its excellence center and ISO 55001:2014 asset man-agement along with programs to execute a culture of sus-tained reliability while partnering with Emerson.

SASREF was one of three finalists selected, based on interviews and program details presented at the 2017 Em-erson Global Users Exchange this week in Minneapolis. It competed with 53 organizations worldwide that were nominated by their Emerson representatives and local business partners—the most ever—through three rounds of competition.

To start, the participants had to fill out an extensive questionnaire about their reliability programs, host a member of the Emerson’s Operational Certainty Con-sulting team and then prepare and deliver the reliabil-ity presentation twice at the Emerson Global Users Ex-change event to a panel of expert judges. The judging panel included an industry analyst, a reliability and op-erational excellence expert and a university assistant di-rector, among others.

In distinguished companyThe two runners-up were Gwinnett County Department of Water Resources, Lawrenceville, Georgia, and TNB Janamanjung Sdn. Bhd., Manjung, Perak, Malaysia. Dur-ing the presentations, each best-in-class finalist discussed its company’s reliability program, highlighting the effec-tive use of reliability-based technologies, effective work processes, integrated maintenance best practices, leader-ship commitment, business benefits and lessons learned.

Charlie Roberts, section manager, facility operations, at Gwinnett County Department of Water Resources, discussed the reliability program at this water, wastewater and storm water utility covering 437 sq mi and 16 mu-nicipalities, serving more than 900,000 customers and $3.1 billion in production assets. “Each of our five main plants had its own micro-culture,” said Roberts. “We were not doing what we were supposed to be doing, so we cre-ated a steering committee to set the goals and path and then reorganized to central management. The result was the creation of a reliability program called Maintenance Operations Reliability Excellence (MORE). It created a roadmap aligned with teams and a reliability framework to ensure we provide superior water services at an excel-lent value.”

Phoebe Rajendran, senior engineer at TNB Janaman-jung Sdn. Bhd. (TNBJ) discussed the reliability program at the largest electricity utility in Malaysia. TNBJ supplies 20% of Peninsular Malaysia’s electricity demand and is currently the largest independent power producer in Ma-laysia. It includes two generating facilities with a total gen-erating capacity of 3,100 MW.

22

“Before the reliability program, we were not meeting our targets,” said Rajendran. “With limited skilled man-power available, we decided to deploy Emerson AMS 9420 wireless vibration transmitters on our critical equip-ment, such as coal conveyor lines. The ability to collect vibration data, including spectrum/ waveform/ PeakVue, periodically and access it remotely with less manpower and improved accuracy is a huge accomplishment.”

Saudi Aramco’s Hamdi discussed how they created a reliability assurance program at the refinery that produces 305,000 bpd. It started in 2014 with a reliability assurance program that did not exist, a maintenance department with a reactive outlook, overloaded engineers and a short-age of predictive maintenance resources and techniques.

From laggard to leader“We had no reliability program in 2014,” said Hamdi. “The rotating equipment department was scattered in engineering and other areas, and our resources were overloaded. There were 700 assets per engineer. With all the data we had in place, we did an analysis of our weak-

nesses and strengths. At the time, we were concerned about the age of the facility and attrition of skilled work-ers, resulting in a knowledge gap.”

While SASREF had high reliability, there were op-portunities to improve availability, failure management, maintenance index and work processes. It created a Reli-ability Excellence Transformation (RExT) program that infused a reliability culture and improved performance by creating work processes.

After benchmarking and assessing the operations, it es-tablished two new departments in 2015, reliability and ro-tating equipment, to become a maintenance-focused or-ganization and proactively improve work processes. “We moved from a firefighting to a proactive side of mainte-nance,” said Ghaith Al-Ghamdi, engineer, asset main-tenance at SASREF. “We deployed two new processes, Threat Identification Workshop (TIW) and Mitigation of Threats to Availability (MTA). A total of 176 threats were identified, and 98% of the threats were resolved.”


MarkWest Energy Partners, L.P. is a recently acquired subsidiary of Marathon Petroleum that gathers, processes and transports natural

gas from the Utica Shale region in Ohio. Four facilities about 90 minutes apart each have DeltaV systems, and needed to be brought into compliance with Marathon standards for cybersecurity.

“Marathon has a pretty good expectation on the IT side,” said Paul Miano, cybersecurity operations, Mar-

athon Petroleum Co. “We want to bring the lessons we learned on the IT side to the OT side and align them, with the adjustments needed, to meet business objectives.”

MarkWest lacked the resources to manually patch and backup systems in accordance with the policies and wanted to make a comprehensive plan for improvement. “Cybersecurity can be overwhelming,” Miano said. “A cafeteria tray approach doesn’t work!”

MARKWEST ENERGY FINDS RATIONAL APPROACH TO CYBERSECURITYPaul Studebaker


23

Ron Sprengeler of MarkWest Energy Partners discussed using the Dept. of Homeland Security’s “Seven Steps” framework to build a more cybersecure operating environment.

Miano, with co-presenters Ron Sprengeler (pictured), operations project lead, MarkWest Energy Partners, and Ben Jackman, lifecycle services program manager, Emerson Automation Systems, presented “Exemplary cybersecurity improvements: Applying DHS Seven Strategies to defend industrial control systems (ICS)” at the 2017 Emerson Global Users Exchange this week in Minneapolis.

Read the paperThe Marathon/MarkWest approach is guided by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) white paper, “Seven Steps to Effectively Defend Industrial Control Systems.” “It’s a six-page paper that anyone can read and understand,” said Jackman. “It applies to all industrial control systems, and gives a good background for getting started in cybersecurity.” The paper describes seven steps in descending order of the percentage of reported indus-trial cybersecurity incidents they would prevent:

1. Implement whitelisting (38%)2. Ensure proper integration and patch management

(29%)3. Reduce your attack surface (17%)4. Build a defendable environment (9%)5. Manage authentication (4%)6. Monitor and respond (2%)7. Implement secure remote access (1%)“These seven strategies provide a defense-in-depth en-

vironment – the layers of protection in the onion model,” Jackson said. The presenters related the steps to actions in their industrial facilities:

Implement application whitelisting: This can help detect and prevent attempted execution of malware. “Any application you don’t list is not allowed to run,” said Mi-ano. “This limits what will be in the soft, gooey middle of the onion.” A control system is reasonably static un-less you’re doing updates, and certainly can be addressed

with whitelisting. Miano said, “Do calibrate your list to be sure that what you allow will run without what you leave out.”

Ensure proper integration and patch management: “Any good patch management system begins with a com-plete inventory and systems baseline,” said Sprengeler. “We thought we knew what our hardware inventory was, but until you get down and dirty and into it, you don’t, PLCs and all.” With software, some things that look like you need, you don’t, “such as HAVEX,” Spengeler said. HAVEX is a form of malware—a remote access trojan (RAT). “People are getting tricky about getting their pay-loads into your environment,” he said.

Validate downloaded software with digital signatures and vendor-supplied hashes. Pay attention to PLC/RTU firmware and the required configuration software, and limit or eliminate connection of external laptops to the control network.

Reduce your attack surface: This means isolating your ICS networks, especially from the internet. Allow connection only when there is a defined business re-quirement: historian, supply management, etc. “Make sure your networks are locked down, shut down unneces-sary ports, and allow no additional software, like MS Of-fice, where it’s not needed,” Miano said. “That also limits

https://ics-cert.us-cert.gov/sites/default/files/documents/Seven%20Steps%20to%20Effectively%20Defend%20Industrial%20Control%20Systems_S508C.pdf

https://ics-cert.us-cert.gov/sites/default/files/documents/Seven%20Steps%20to%20Effectively%20Defend%20Industrial%20Control%20Systems_S508C.pdf

24

the patches you have to do.”On the question of when to use a firewall versus a data

diode (a one-way connection where data only flows out, not back into a system), Miano said, “At some point, data transfer is inevitable, for patches if nothing else. You have to manage that. Use a firewall anytime you need access from the outside.”

Build a defendable environment: Begin with a solid physical perimeter, and use identity verification systems. “Have card access to your server rooms, and key access to computers,” Sprengeler said. Network segmentation lim-its damage from network perimeter breach or bypass of physical security, and prevents widespread effects if mal-ware is introduced. “If someone gets on your layer 2.5 network, can they go everywhere? Limit that,” he said.

Restrict host-to-host communications. “Don’t let one server talk to another unless you have to. Then firewall it,” Spengeler said. And have effective removeable me-dia methodology and procedures. “There are always ar-guments to allow some removeable media, at least for emergencies, so you have to have a policy and limit it,” he said.

Manage your authentication: “Restrict the who, what and why of what an individual can do,” said Miano. “Al-low no unauthorized individuals.” Limit admin access to those who need it, and separate ICS and general ad-min roles. Lock up high-level accounts so they are not exposed if someone gets in. “Don’t let the VLAN and ICS touch,” he said. “You don’t want a hacker on your network to be able to get into DeltaV.”

Emerson’s Jackman added, “Combine something you know, like a password, with something you have, like a key.”

Monitor and respond: Monitor the network for suspi-cious activity. “It’s easy to be able to see suspicious activ-ity with an intrusion detection system,” Spengeler said. Baseline the network traffic to learn your “normal,” and implement security information and event monitoring (SIEM) to track logins, and monitor use and misuse of administrative privileges. Manage vulnerabilities using manual or automatic scanning.

Finally, Jackman, said, “Have a response plan in place, and a way to recover.”

Implement secure remote access: “Just because it’s the last 1% doesn’t mean you can write it off,” Jackman said. “Some of these events are a lot more severe than the others.”

Use a read-only data diode for monitor-only access. “Look at a data diode. Can it provide the data you need out of the plant?” Miano said. Allow no persistent con-nections for vendors or business users, he added. “Our preferred methodology is to use an operator-controlled connection, an operator switch that can be used to let an outside user in when needed, then shut them back out. Think lock-out, tag-out procedure.”

Wherever you can, use two-factor authentication. “The attack that shut down the grid in Ukraine was a brute force attack on an account. Two-factor authentica-tion would have prevented that,” Miano said.

Sifting it into DeltaVEmerson offers a range of products to help support the seven steps in DeltaV installations. “We took a look at all seven and implemented pieces of them,” Miano said. They include, for each step:

1. Application Whitelisting for DeltaV Systems2. Automated Patch Management3. Emerson Smart Firewall, Workstation Hardening4. Firewall IPD, Tofino Firewall, USB Protection5. Multifactor authentication, DeltaV User Manager,

Active Directory6. SIEM, Security Monitor, Backup & Recovery7. Multifactor authentication and Remote Desktop

GatewaySprengeler said, “In some cases, we worked with Em-

erson, and in others, we used established Marathon cor-porate strategies.” In the process, MarkWest was put on the path to improved consistency and efficiency of cyber-security practices.

It began with a security baseline and implemented a consistent methodology to meet, exceed and report against the baseline. Where possible, it is eliminating human effort by automated patching and backups. “The manual effort to identify and apply security patches and implement consistent, reliable backups is high,” said Jack-man. “Almost a full-time resource is required to address

25

MarkWest’s four-plus DeltaV systems and more than 50 workstations. Automated tools have helped alleviate that manual effort and eliminate human error.”

The DHS Seven Steps provide a vendor-agnostic framework and reference for selecting solutions, and MarkWest was able to apply many of the steps with se-

lection of a few of Emerson’s cybersecurity solutions for DeltaV systems.

In the end, Miano said, “The primary thing we’re try-ing to achieve is system reliability.”


Just as one good question inspires others, last year’s launch of the Plantweb digital ecosystem is pav-ing the way for more new capabilities, which have

been gathering momentum. Plantweb now has the criti-cal mass to surpass itself, connect beyond its usual plant floors and interact with other digital realms for better decisions and top-quartile performance.

After talking to more than 5,000 customers since last year, Emerson Automation Solutions unveiled an array of new and upcoming tools and services for the Plantweb digital ecosystem at Emerson Global Users Exchange 2017 in Minneapolis. All of these innovations are based, of course, on Plantweb and Emerson’s 30-year founda-tion of process control and optimization solutions.

“Because the next era of value creation will be en-abled by digital transformation, we need to apply the five essential competencies of automating workflows, decision support, workforce ‘upskilling,’ mobility and change management,” said Emerson CTO Peter Zor-nio. “This will enable users to automate mundane pro-duction tasks and let core production workers focus on handling exceptions, abnormalities and other functions

beyond control, such as reliability and safety.”Zornio added that Emerson sees the Industrial Inter-

net of Things (IIoT) as an evolution, not a revolution, which will be deployed by local experts on their auto-mation networks, leverage centralized on-site or cloud-hosted experts overseeing fleets of facilities, and bring in third-party expertise as needed via cloud services.

“Manufacturing jobs are rapidly becoming data-cen-tric roles, requiring immediately actionable informa-tion for experts across the enterprise,” explained Zornio. “Through a deep understanding of customer visions for organizational effectiveness and business performance improvement, Emerson is innovating breakthrough products and services to accelerate that organizational transformation.

“A clear message from industry is that a one-size-fits-all, vendor-prescribed IIoT approach won’t work. Users want to identify specific business challenges, target tech-nology to improve performance and scale up investment based on results achieved. That’s why we’ve architected Plantweb to enable companies to get started where they can gain the greatest near-term impact.”

PLANTWEB ECOSYSTEM CONQUERS NEW DIGITAL WORLDSAfter last year’s launch of the digital ecosystem, Plantweb’s ex-panding capabilities are paving the way for connections that in-teract with digital realms beyond the plant floor.Jim Montague


26

“We’ve architected Plantweb to enable companies to get started where they can gain the greatest near-term impact.” Peter Zornio spells out the digital ecosystem’s power punch at Emerson Global Users Exchange 2017.

Expanded Plantweb portfolioThe latest additions to the Plantweb digital ecosystem expand on its existing automation infrastructure to make IIoT capabilities scalable and achievable. This en-hanced portfolio includes a host of tools and services.

Pervasive Sensing, which is a foundation of the Plant-web digital ecosystem, provides enhanced visibility into process performance and asset health. This network of robust sensing, measuring and monitoring technologies features more than 50 wireless devices for temperature, pressure, corrosion, vibration and acoustics. The portfolio is expanding to include Rosemount 928 wireless, toxic-gas monitor for hard-to-access applications; explosion-proof approvals for THUM adapters in the United States and Canada; high-accuracy, wireless guided-wave radars de-vices; and Therm-O-Disc power meter monitors.

Secure First Mile connectivity architecture provides secure data transfers from operations to authorized, In-ternet-based applications, services or mobile users. This security portfolio is enhanced with certification from the ISA Secure standard. To accelerate adoption of new service relationships such as Emerson’s Connected Ser-vices, Secure First Mile works with different security models to use IT infrastructures to create secure con-nections. This includes cloud-to-cloud or direct-to-edge connections to field-level sensors and instruments via Microsoft Azure, such as direct connections with data diodes that only publish data outward, physically inde-pendent networks and OSIsoft’s Pi cloud connections.

Plantweb Insights is a scalable, lightweight, Web-based software platform that helps users to instantly make sense of plant data with Pervasive Sensing devices and pre-built analytics to provide relevant time moni-toring and identification of abnormal situations for dif-ferent asset classes. Winner of this year’s Vaaler Award, Plantweb Insight has added air-cooled heat exchang-ers, corrosion, heat exchangers, network management and pressure-relief devices. In 2018, Plantweb Insight

will begin to log releases and identify failures; diagnose vibration and cooling issues; identify status and alarm conditions; and monitor pipe integrity and health.

Plantweb Advisor is a scalable suite of software appli-cations that use deeper analytics to provide critical data about equipment health and efficiency, as well as energy consumption and emissions. Complete with a modern-ized, human-centered interface, Plantweb Advisor has been expanded to provide analytics for mining and me-trology applications.

Always Aware expands on prior mobility solutions to deliver role-based, relevant data and alerts, regardless of users’ locations, enabling more effective collabora-tion and driving actions to improve asset and process performance. Updates include RFID asset manage-ment tags and AMS ARES’s integration with interfaces such as AMS Device Manager, AMS Machinery Man-ager, Plantweb Insight and Plantweb Advisor. These up-dates will allow users to view device summaries on smart phones and other mobile devices.

Connected Services include remote assessments of plant equipment and processes by Emerson experts. Zornio reported these services are based on streaming technology supported by Microsoft Azure, and will ac-complish tasks such as enhancing valve connected ser-vices. These updates also include capabilities for sub-

27

scription-based services that need little or no capital investment. They also feature industrial Wi-Fi network management for system health monitoring of Cisco Wi-Fi networks, and engineered Plantweb solutions, such as management of Plantweb Insight and Advisor applica-tions by Emerson personnel.

Foundational Solutions provide core process control and safety systems critical to plant operations. Enhance-ments to Plantweb include the new DeltaV Live opera-

tor interface that employs human-centered design prin-ciples to integrate numerous data points and improve control system functionality with a more efficient, intui-tive interface that can be used in project designs, daily operations and cross-platform applications viewable with native, scalable HTML5 display technology. “This represents a big leap forward for DeltaV,” added Zornio.


Chevron Oronite manufactures hundreds of ad-ditive packages for engines, gears and hydraulic fluids in seven plants around the world. “Our fa-

cility has expanded over the years, becoming larger and more complex. As part of an overall Chevron effort, we want to improve safety, and we started by looking at ac-cess control,” said Tom Madilao, regional manager, spe-cial projects, Chevron Oronite, in his presentation, “Us-ing analytics and sensing technology to improve safety, energy efficiency, and productivity at a chemical plant” at the 2017 Emerson User Group Exchange, this week in Minneapolis.

“It’s easy to have employees and contractors in the wrong place at the wrong time, especially during start-ups and shutdowns. And during an incident, we need to be able to find and account for everyone,” Madilao said. “We don’t want everyone having to go to the con-trol room to sign in and out, and even then, we weren’t certain about their location. We wanted to go from ‘I think…’ to ‘I know…’”

The solution is a real-time locating system, and Emer-son provided a practical approach. “We now have RFID tags for employees and contractors, so we know where they are. If they get into trouble, they can press a button on the tag and we’ll respond to a ‘man down’ alert,” Madi-lao said. They added a WiFi and WirelessHART “traffic light” system, so if a person goes to an area and the light is green, they can go on in. If it’s red, don’t go in, and if it’s amber, they should be careful and look for instructions.

The system has been in operation for about a year, in-cluding during a major turnaround about six weeks ago. “Knowing exactly where people are, especially at night, helps us keep them safe,” Madilao said, “And when con-tractors have to take a trip to the control room every time they move to sign in and out, they lose efficiency. Now they don’t have to.”

A reliable plant is a safe plantMadilao is now embarking on other opportunities. One of them is steam-trap monitoring, and the plant has

INNOVATION BOOSTS SAFETY AT CHEVRONChevron Oronite deploys wireless personnel tracker to boost safety and efficiency. Steam-trap monitoring and mobile HMIs are next on the list.Paul Studebaker


28

“As a former operations manager, I ask myself what operators will be doing in the future. Is it the right thing to have them go out and check, or instead, to have the system check for them?” Chevron Oronite’s Tom Madilao discussed the use of digital technologies to keep track of employees and contractors when in the plant, and to reduce the need for them to enter the plant in the first place.

thousands of them. Instead of checking them manually, he said, “We have a trial of acoustic sensors installed on 30 of them, with built-in analytics to tell us which ones need service.”

The plant is further exploring reliability with wire-less vibration monitors on large rotating equipment, a program that is also taking place in Chevron refineries. It’s also using wireless for production monitoring and for loss of containment.

“Non-intrusive wireless is a process control play-ground,” said Madilao. “We’re trying wireless sensor de-vices for temperature, pressure, etc. to learn where we need them to improve operations.”

He’s also experimenting with mobility. “As a former operations manager, I ask myself what operators will be doing in the future,” Madilao said. “Is it the right thing to have them go out and check, or instead, to have the system check for them?”

A current trial gives operators tablets with wireless connectivity. “They have information at their fingertips, at any time,” Madilao said. “If a pump doesn’t sound right, they can take a video, press a button and create a work order then and there. They don’t have to go back to the control room, write it up, then try to answer a lot of maintenance questions about it.”

Digital innovation drives resultsMadilao said each program has shown quantitative suc-cess. The access control and monitoring program was

the first such implementation at Chevron, and has re-sulted in faster mustering tally, more effective and effi-cient access control, and enhanced emergency response capability. Steam-trap monitoring allows immediate de-tection of failures, which has avoided steam loss, ham-mering and process upsets. Vibration monitoring has accurately predicted pump failures, avoiding loss of con-trol and safety incidents. The mobile worker program has increased the effectiveness of field surveillance and allowed faster response to abnormal conditions.

“People who want to digitally innovate often need help answering the question, ‘What are the right tools to pick up and apply?’” Madilao said. “I suggest you partner with Emerson and make a plan to improve business results. Manage the change—we needed to teach those opera-tors how to use those tablets. And make sure the tech-nologies you choose will drive business performance.”



29

“We think the value of these tools occurs when they’re fully integrated.” Monsanto’s Derek Taravella talks equipment health for dicamba production at Emerson Global Users Exchange 2017 in Minneapolis.

With 20,000 global employees and facilities in 69 countries, Monsanto has the ability to take advantage of opportunities to change

the way equipment health data is integrated into busi-ness systems for better decision-making and increased asset availability.

Crop protection, seeds and data science are the com-pany’s three core businesses. And its flagship site for crop protection is in Luling, Louisiana, where Roundup Ready Xtend is manufactured. The production of glyphosate and the introduction of dicamba—key ingre-dients in the milkweed-killing product used primarily by soybean and cotton farmers—have been a key focus of a $975 million expansion at the Luling facility.

“This creates manufacturing facility challenges,” ex-plained Derek Taravella, Monsanto crop protection reli-ability systems lead, who explained the path to increased safety and reduced downtime in his presentation at the Emerson Global Users Exchange 2017 in Minneapo-lis. The dicamba plant challenges included increasing equipment availability, reducing staff exposure to haz-ardous locations, and reducing the risk of cross-contam-ination with the existing facility.

Monsanto also believes it can use the new production facility as a means to developing better systems for re-duced downtime company-wide. “Dicamba is a new op-erating process for us,” said Taravella. “Safety and reli-ability go hand in hand.”

Monsanto has seven crop-protection sites globally. The timeline will take facilities from the fragmented re-liability that exists in 2017 to a comprehensive approach by 2020, via a 2019 implementation at the dicamba plant. “We want to use dicamba as a model approach,” explained Taravella. “Advanced Manufacturing 2020 is focused on improved processes, skilled competencies, data and insights. Our vision is zero unplanned events through reliability excellence.”

MONSANTO’S MODEL FOR GLOBAL RELIABILITYWith a single facility to supply global production needs, uptime is among the key challenges at the company’s dicamba manufacturing facility.Mike Bacidore

30

The dicamba manufacturing facility represents an op-portunity to support asset-care lean practices, achieve asset-care vision, implement Advanced Manufacturing 2020 data and insight tools, and serve as a first-of-its-kind model for Monsanto.

The reliability strategy begins with vision casting and solution design before hierarchy is determined and criti-cality ranking is done on equipment. Then reliability-cen-tered maintenance and failure mode and effects analysis (FMEA) are conducted to determine which assets require predictive maintenance and which are appropriate for time-based, or preventive, maintenance. All of this also requires culture change and training—no simple task.

“For the reliability-process approach, we’ve been work-ing with Emerson to gather information and put it in our CMMS,” explained Taravella. “What are the most im-portant?” Once equipment monitoring is designed and the data is loaded into the CMMS, the process under-goes continuous improvement using insights.

To incorporate and leverage data and insights, the Mon-santo facility is using Emerson’s Catapult master data de-

velopment, as well as Emerson’s AMS asset management software, to identify performance issues associated with instrument and valve health, wireless predictive vibration monitoring and consolidated equipment health alerts.

“We’re also using Emerson’s 6500 ATG machinery health monitor, and we’re using Meridium for critical-ity analysis,” explained Taravella. “We think the value of these tools occurs when they’re fully integrated. We want to take the data and integrate that with business tools like Meridium and SAP.” Meridium asset-perfor-mance-management software supports criticality analy-sis, asset strategies, integrated asset insights and policy-based work management notifications to SAP.

Ultimately, by 2020, the integrated data and insight tools, combined with stronger asset-care work processes, will increase equipment availability for new facility de-sign, as well as reduce staff exposure to hazardous lo-cations and reduce the risk of cross-contamination with the existing facility.


TRIPLE-OFFSET VALVE HITS SAFETY, UPTIME HOME RUNJim Montague

Closing part of a line with double-positive isola-tion instead of shutting down an entire process unit or plant is a potentially huge deal. The

question is: Can it be done safely and efficiently?Luca Vertova, engineering director, for Emerson’s

Vanessa technologies, reported “yes” because he knows that triple-offset valves (TOVs) can do double-positive isolation with none of the leaks or degradation that can affect single, soft-seated ball valves in high-risk and/or safety applications. TOVs typically have a non-symmet-

ric design that maximizes their inherent safety.

Are you positive?“Positively isolating a line means there’s no admissible leakage downstream, so equipment can be safely re-moved, and operators and technicians can save time be-cause their maintenance and inspections can be carried out without shutting down the entire facility,” said Ver-tova. “Positive isolation evolved from linear, multi-turn movement valves, such as gate valves, which have been


31

“Triple offset valves offer a lower-cost and lighter solution compared to ball valves. They ensure versatility and optimal torque/ tightness performance with two separate valves with distinct trims.” Luca Vertova, engineering director, Vanessa Engineering division, Emerson Automation Solutions.

used in process isolation for centuries. Over the past few decades, there’s been a surge in use of soft-seated, quarter-turn ball valves for ‘positive’ isolation. But en-vironment, health and safety (EH&S) regulations have recently become more stringent, and all of these have revised the concept behind ‘positively’ isolating a line.”

Vertova presented “Achieving safer, more efficient double positive isolation at a lower cost” this week at the 2017 Emerson Global Users Exchange in Minneapolis.

To achieve positive isolation and safety, Vertova re-ported that:

• Single block-and-bleed method, using one closed block valve and a vent or bleed valve, is less safe;

• Double block-and-bleed and single-valve trim method is safer, but isolation can be compromised if the valve fails; and,

• Double block-and-bleed with two independently driven valve trims is safest for critical operations be-cause it establishes redundant isolation.

Choosing triple offsetTo achieve its safer design, Vertova reported that TOVs use a sealing system consisting of a stationary seat and a rotating sealing surface that share an identical shape—an inclined conic section—which minimizes wear of sealing surfaces, while its cone angles don’t compromise operability. Its three offsets include:

• A shaft placed behind the plane of the sealing sur-face;

• A shaft placed to one side of the pipe/valve center-line; and,

• The seat and seal cone centerlines inclined with re-spect to the pipe/valve centerline.

“The geometry of a TOV is similar to a globe valve, but its characteristics are to provide long-lasting zero leakage,” added Vertova. “This is accomplished by its torque seat-ing, and the compression of it that resists high differential

pressure, as well as the metal-to-metal seating of its seal ring and seat that also withstands high pressure. Again, there’s no soft seal, so there there’s no chance for degrada-tion, event at very low or high temperatures.”

TOVs also achieve zero leaks over the long term by employing quarter-turn rotations that minimize any type of wear or degradation. Plus, their non-rubbing ro-tation from 0° to 90° means there’s no contact or chance for wear on their seats and surfaces. “TOVs also have a shaft side that supports seating of the valve, which fur-ther enables positive, shaft-side isolation. We also sup-port this with a bolted-seat design in the same direction as the pressure of the material in the application.

Exercise with end userWorking in cooperation with a major oil-and-gas com-pany, Vertova reported that Emerson recently used two TOVs in combination in a double-positive isolation exper-iment to study if it could be a lower-cost alternative. This combination has been officially approved by its end users.

“Double-positive isolation may not be feasible with ball valves due to costs, footprint and maintenance require-ments,” said Vertova. “TOVs offer a lower-cost and lighter solution compared to ball valves. They ensure versatility and optimal torque/ tightness performance with two sepa-

32

rate valves with distinct trims. Absolute tightness perfor-mance is provided by using two independent bodies.”

Both valves are installed with their shafts facing up-stream to ensure double-positive isolation. The differen-tial pressure supports the first valve’s tightness. Unlike ball valves, the higher the cavity pressure is between the two TOVs, the more support is provided to the second valve seating, even in the remote case of torque applica-tion failure. “Whenever pressure comes from one side only, maybe due to leakage from the first seat, the sec-ond seat will provide sealing,” added Vertova. “In fact,

even in case of torque application failure and cavity-bleed valve failure, the valve cavity pressure itself will push the second seal against the seat.

“Though double positive isolation has recently be-come a key topic in the oil and gas industry because of its high pressures combined with explosive, poten-tial environmental pollution and health-adverse risks, other industries may also start considering this ap-proach to isolation.”


HOW TO UPSKILL NEXT-GENERATION WORKERSIt’s not the technology, it’s the blue-collar, technical workforce that’s needed to do the work that advances productivity

Dave Perkon

Stan Shoun, president of RankenTechnicalCol-lege, knows what’s right and wrong with educa-tion—and how it can help the process industries

get the skilled people they need. During his presentation this week at the 2017 Emerson Global Users Exchange in Minneapolis, he also illuminated one of Emerson Au-tomation Solutions’ five essential competencies of digi-tal transformation—workforce upskilling.

Shoun reported that Ranken has about 2,000 students on its three campuses in Missouri. The main campus of this 110-year-old, not-for-profit, accredited two- and four-year college is in St. Louis, which is about five miles from Emerson’s offices, which has allowed them to part-ner for many years.

“Our founder gave us the mission of teaching the dig-nity of labor,” said Shoun. “We make sure we prepare

our students for careers. We have 16 areas we focus on, and if it doesn’t lead to a career, we don’t mess with it.”

Its philosophy shows. Ranken places 96% of its alumni within six months of graduation, and students graduate at a high rate of 86%. There are three components to the college’s education philosophy.

“We teach technical education, general education and work ethic,” said Shoun. “The number one thing asked for by industry today is: ‘Find me an employee that will show up on time, reliably and want to do the job.’ Call it what you want, that is work ethic.”

The students are graded every day on their work ethic. “They wear a uniform, get a haircut, and are graded on their communication, professionalism and teamwork,” added Shoun. “If they don’t receive a passing grade on the work ethic, they don’t graduate. It’s that simple.”


33

The college also operates on the credo that the best way to prepare for work is to work. “Why wait to get to work before you learn about what you’re supposed to be doing?” asked Shoun. “Approximately 85% of the stu-dents are involved in integrated, work-based learning such as co-ops or internships.”

Shoun reported that he often hears from community leaders that they need jobs for people, but he believes this isn’t the right perspective. “While there are 12,000 to 14,000 people unemployed in St Louis, a city of about 300,000 people, on any given day, there are about 25,000 jobs unfilled,” he explained. “This isn’t a jobs issue; it’s a skills issue. The future jobs created will be skilled, not unskilled.”

Shoun added these jobs aren’t going to be filled by people with four-year degrees. “The vast majority—75% of the population—will not get a four-year degree,” says Shoun. “That’s not a bad thing. The deficit is in skilled labor. Every company I talk to is looking for skilled tech-nicians. This needs to be addressed. We need to get stu-dents into the right area, and that’s the technician area.”

Ranken starts this process with students in middle school. “I don’t wait until they’re seniors in high school. If I do, it’s too late,” said Shoun. “Building the pipeline starts with community engagement and summer camps in middle school. We’ve had more than 29 camps with our industry partners.”

The college has moved into local high schools, where they’re teaching IT and advanced manufacturing skills. Its one- and two-year programs embrace work-based learning, and its four-year degrees demand a technical background.

Part of Ranken’s workforce learning program includes apprentice programs and micro-enterprise programs. “A micro-enterprise is literally a reverse apprenticeship,”

added Shoun. “Instead of the student working in indus-try, we bring industry to us. We integrate the work into our curriculum by producing products and services for industries, while training a 21st-century workforce.”

Of the 14 micro-enterprises at the college, two of them are with Emerson’s climate group and process group. “There is actually a third micro-enterprise; it’s the Del-taV training cards on display in the Emerson Global Us-ers Exchange exhibit hall,” said Shoun. “Check them out. We’ll be manufacturing training cards as an Emer-son product with our students.

“I ask CEOs what keeps them up at night. Almost everyone tells me it’s finding a skilled, stable technical workforce. Technology is not the limiting factor. Tech-nology is actually outpacing us being able to work with it. The limiting factor is the workforce. Until we em-brace this, the economy won’t move forward. It will stag-nate. We have to be able to build. This nation was built on a blue-collar-technical workforce. If we’re going to continue to be a world leader, we’ll need to develop the blue-collar, technical workers of the future.”


“I ask CEOs what keeps them up at night. Almost every one tells me it’s finding a skilled, stable technical workforce.” Stan Shoun, president of Ranken Technical College on the growing need for technical training.


34

“There was limited I/O available to us, making it difficult to add any type of automation.” Anadarko’s Chris Diaz explained the wireless solution that saved more than $75,000.

Clogged pump input screens were causing un-scheduled maintenance and damaging light-oil booster pumps and motors at Anadarko Pe-

troleum’s mainline facility in Catarina, Texas. This amounted to an unexpected maintenance and repair cost of about $7,000 for each occurrence, three times a year.

The design decision to use wireless pressure gauges pro-vided a quick, cost-efficient monitoring solution with no disruption to operations. “In 2011, the mainline facility was never designed for expansion,” said Chris Diaz, auto-mation engineer at Anadarko Petroleum, who presented at the 2017 Emerson Global Users Exchange 2017 in Minne-apolis. “However, production demands exploded overnight due to the growth of Eagle Ford Basin area production.

The mainline facility was forced to expand, adding two 70,000-barrel and two 15,000-barrel tanks. A total of nine light-oil booster pumps transfer oil from the tanks through the facility to the pipeline.” The maintenance problem was with the light-oil booster pumps, said Diaz. “The input screen was being clogged by about a half-inch layer of debris and paraffin buildup and causing pump cavitations and resultant damage,” he said. The maintenance issues due to untreated pump cavitation are many, explained David Penny, sales manager for Emerson’s Rosemount measurement technologies. “Pro-longed cavitation will result in decreased flow and pro-duction, along with various levels of damage, including failure of pump housing or bearings, destruction of im-peller and excess power consumption,” he said.

The problem was that the traditional manual pressure gauges and operator rounds were an ineffective way to

monitor input pressure to the pumps. “The buildup to the screens did not happen in a consistent or predictable manner because the contaminant content of the oil var-ied,” said Diaz. “The goal then was to replace the pres-sure gauge with a digital, wireless gauge.”

Due to the facility design, there were many con-straints on the project. “There was limited I/O available to us, making it difficult to add any type of automation,” said Diaz. “Excess trenching was also a problem. Many runs between the control room and pumps were 600 to 700 ft, and a running facility at Anadarko Petroleum al-lows only HydroVac trenching, adding to the installation cost of an already expensive standard wired system.”

ANADARKO PETROLEUM MINIMIZES OPERATOR ROUNDS WITH WIRELESSDave Perkon

35

A wireless pressure solution. The chosen solution in-cluded nine of Emerson’s Rosemount wireless pressure gauges combined with two Rosemount 1410 wireless gateways. “Monitoring of head pressure in real time al-lowed Anadarko to set alarms and shutdown settings to prevent pump damage,” said Terry Folsom, oil & gas account manager, Emerson Automation Solutions. “It also enabled scheduled, preventive maintenance of the pump screens.” “Wireless pressure gauges were installed on the input of all nine light-oil booster pumps,” said Folsom. “The wireless pressure gauge that was used measures from vacuum up to 4,000 psi, indicated with a 4.5-inch display updated every four seconds.” This wire-less gauge has a 10-year battery life at a 60-second up-date rate using WirelessHART technology.”

“Due to the size of the mainline facility, two wireless gateways were installed to make sure there was sufficient site coverage for the WirelessHART self-organizing mesh network. Configuration of the wireless pressure gauge is completed using an Emerson 475 field com-municator, AMS Trex or Emerson’s new Instrument In-spector application software,” said Penny. “The gauge connects to the gateway after entering the join-key and network-ID user name and password. After all the de-

vices have joined the gateway, communication is estab-lished with the control system through Modbus RS-485. This is all completed using Internet Explorer.”

“The installation was efficient, requiring no additional I/O as communication was through TCP/IP and Mod-bus,” said Folsom. “The wireless also eliminated Hydro-Vac trenching and long wire runs, greatly reducing startup time and installation cost,” he said. The wireless pressure gauge also minimized operator rounds by providing re-mote monitoring of the light-oil booster pump pressure from the control room, continued Folsom. “This reduced safety risks by limiting exposure to slips, trips and falls, and it keeps operators out of hazardous areas,” he said.

The results were impressive. “The estimate for a wired instrument pressure monitor system was $87,000 includ-ing 320 hours of labor, plus instruments and wire,” said Folsom. “The wireless pressure monitoring system, in-cluding five hours of installation, plus instrument cost was $10,375. The elimination of traditional wired in-stallation methods and wiring costs resulted in capital-expenditure savings of $76,625. And the reduction of booster pump repair resulted in even more savings.”


HYBRID LASERS STABILIZE SPECTROMETERS FOR EMISSIONS MONITORINGJim Montague

BP’s Cherry Point refinery in Blaine, Wash., re-cently completed a 50-day stability trial of Em-erson’s Rosemount CT5400 hybrid quantum cas-

cade laser (QCL)/tunable diode laser (TDL) analyzer to characterize the flue gas from its calciner hearth for en-vironmental reporting. The analyzer is installed after the chiller in the stack’s vacuum eductor, and uses chemilu-

minescence, infrared, ultraviolet (UV) and paramagnetic technologies to analyze O2, CO2, CO, SO2 and NOx.

“All of our heaters have operating permits issued by EPA and state regulators, which specify emission lim-its, and require continuous emissions monitoring system (CEMS) testing,” said Ryan Holgate, analyzer engineer, maintenance, BP Cherry Point. “This testing includes


36

“BP has experience with TDL analyzers, and found them to be reliable, fast and repeatable. Hybrid QCL/TDL analyzers add further capabilities for CEMS, including multiple measurements, very low drift and high analyzer availability.” BP’s Ryan Holgate on the company’s successful trial of Emerson’s Rosemount CT5400 analyzer.

daily validation of analyzers with check gas, quarterly sta-bility testing against check gases, and yearly relative ac-curacy test audit (RATA) of stack gases compared to a third-party reference.

“In our daily validation testing over 50 days, all opera-tions were well within limits, and we found QCL to be very stable,” Holgate said. He and Dave McMillen, busi-ness development manager in North America for Emer-son’s Rosemount QCL technology division, presented “RATA using hybrid QCL/TDL spectrometer for emis-sions monitoring” this week at the 2017 Emerson Global Users Exchange in Minneapolis.

Laser learningsMcMillen explained that recent quests for more stable laser-based analyzers arise from the challenges of using other, less stable technologies. “The non-dispersive in-frared (NDIR) and chemiluminescence methods devel-oped in the 1940s were good in their day, and are still used now, but they rely on broad-spectrum light sources and filter wheels with moving parts,” said McMillen. In recent years, he added, laser spectroscopy technologies are yield-ing even more stable analysis and more precise emissions measurements that allow easier regulatory compliance.

“Lasers are more stable because they only look at the fre-quencies we want to absorb,” added McMillen. “They’re also reliable, fast, very repeatable, don’t drift even over 10-15 years, don’t need calibration, and give us good ab-sorption peaks for multiple analyte measurements, which are calculated from thousands of scans. Bringing together QCL and TDL for CEMS lets us measure several gases at once without a fuss, and gives us higher analyzer avail-ability. Performing multiple different measurements is done by ‘chirping’ six lasers over 1 millisecond by apply-ing power to heat them, and then rapidly cooling them with a Peltier cooler in 500 nanoseconds.

“BP has experience with TDL analyzers, and found them to be reliable, fast and repeatable. Hybrid QCL/TDL ana-

lyzers add further capabilities for CEMS, including multiple measurements, very low drift and high analyzer availability.”

RATA arrivesHolgate added that BP Cherry Point’s annual RATA com-pares CEMS data to information collected from an in-dependent EPA test method, and passing a RATA means matching the test method, though it’s not necessarily a measure of accuracy.

“A RATA usually includes nine runs at 21 minutes per run, and data is recorded at one-minute averages,” said Holgate. “The tester performs analyzer bias checks be-tween each run, and traverses the stack diameter to elimi-nate any stratification concerns by moving the probe ev-ery seven minutes.

“We needed to match the performance of the EPA’s ex-isting testing method before we could adopt QCL tech-nology. We did 10 runs, and we passed for all gases—O2 , CO2, CO, SO2 and NOx—within the EPA’s specs,” added Holgate. “During the 50-day trial, QCL showed it was stable, met the EPA’s performance requirements, and had lower maintenance requirements. We anticipate that QCL/TDL will give us greater data availability with less downtime, and QCL has already been approved for our next two heater applications.”



37

“We’ve not only reduced alarms in our leaching process by 98.6% from 17,280 in October 2016 to 245 in November 2016, but our operators who used to be faulted for not reacting to alarms can now react to them, and they aren’t in a constant flood state.” Adrien Rudulier, P. Eng. at AREVA Resource Canada, presented at the 2017 Emerson Global Users Exchange.

URANIUM MILL TAMES ALARMS WITH DELTAV ANALYZEJim Montague

There are floods of alarms—and then there are so many alarms that you can’t even see the floods. This used to be the situation in the leaching

process at AREVA Resource Canada Inc.’s uranium mill in McClean Lake, Saskatchewan, where operators had been dealing with 60 alarms every 10 minutes as recently as January 2016.

Starting operations in 1995, the mill and its process application, systems and equipment were built by sev-eral different contractors with different process control methods and technologies, which led to a multiplic-ity of alarm systems that grew increasingly unwieldy over the years. “There was an absence of alarm guide-lines and specifications,” said Adrien Rudulier, P. Eng., AREVA. “Alarms were designed and implemented dif-ferently and subjectively because the original build had many consultants, subsequent capital projects had nu-merous more consultants, and there were hundreds of site change controls.

The resulting one alarm every 10 seconds became white noise in the minds of AREVA’s operators, and motivated Rudulier and his colleagues to undertake an alarm rationalization and management project in 2015. “We used DeltaV Analyze software from Emerson to ob-tain baseline statistics for project justification, and sort out alarms based on their DeltaV area assignments,” said Rudulier. “We also sought assistance from safety and se-curity consultant exida, which helped us develop a cus-tomized alarm philosophy, set up a SILAlarm master alarm database, and provide onsite training.”

Rudulier and Darren Wells of Spartan Controls pre-

sented “Everything is alarming: Implementing alarm management at McClean Lake” at the 2017 Emerson Global Users Exchange in Minneapolis.

Process yellowcake safelyThe McClean Lake mill is unusual in that it can han-dle low- to very high-grade ores. During 1999 to 2010, its average ore grade was about 1%, but from 2015 to the present, its average ore grade was 17%. “The mill is presently configured and licensed to produce 24 million pounds of U3O8(yellowcake) per year,” added Rudulier. “It can accept ore that can range from 0.5% U to 30% U, and produce 80-84% U yellowcake.”

38

To achieve these results, Rudulier reported that the mill’s operators interact with its processes in several ways. “They’re responsible for the safe operation of circuits,” he explained. “There’s some manual control and monitor-ing (rounds, sampling, etc.), and some remote control and monitoring from a control room via DeltaV. Alarming is inherent to all systems, both local and remote, to inform operators of any problems. Each circuit has a dedicated control room and operator. All circuits are monitored by the central control room for additional oversight.”

Rudulier added, the intent of AREVA’s alarm man-agement project was to give it a reliable tool to keep its operators and processes safe. “The key was to get buy-in from management and everyone else,” said Rudulier. “We secured that when we issued our first alarm phi-losophy, and defined roles and responsibilities. Once we got an estimate of the rationalization project, it be-gan to smooth out.”

Appropriate alarm designTo rationalize its alarms and develop a new alarm man-agement system, Rudulier reported that his team fol-lowed the ISA 18.2 standard and its design principles. “Each alarm should inform and guide,” he said. “Every alarm presented to the operator must be unique, and every alarm must have a defined/required response. Alarms should also be explicitly designed to take into ac-count human limitations. We also had to allow adequate time for operators to analyze the situation, and carry out a defined response.”

Consisting of members from operations, training, instrumentation, metallurgy, health and safety, envi-ronment and engineering, AREVA’s cross-functional alarm team sought a target alarm distribution of 60-80% low, 10-20% medium, 3-7% high, and less than 1% emergency. Its industrial target for alarms per 10 min-utes was that zero to one alarm was acceptable, two to four was manageable, five to nine was demanding, and more than 10 was unacceptable and impossible.

First attempt lessonsDespite gaining crucial buy-in, Rudulier added that

the team’s first attempt at alarm rationalization expe-rienced some unexpected challenges, even though it made good use of DeltaV Analyze and exida SILAlarm rationalization software, which were used to step though each of the mill’s approximately 12,000 con-figured alarms.

“We tried to deal with the bad actors first, but this was a bad idea because we got bogged down trying to refine our consequence table and rationalize every part of an alarm as per our alarm philosophy, and our sessions got too long—about eight hours a day for five days,” says Rudulier. “We opted for a first-pass strategy that limited alarms by simply asking ‘is it an alarm?’ Our alarm priorities were that every alarm must also have a cause and consequence. If there’s no conse-quence, then it’s not an alarm.”

The team eventually got into a groove of monthly two-day sessions, and found they were able to rational-ize about 300 alarms during each 12-hour day. Its ratio-nalization process:

• Identify the consequence of no action;• Determine the consequence on safety, health ex-

posure environment or operations;• Determine operator urgency;• Review setpoint, delays and deadband using his-

torical data; and• Identify candidates for advanced or conditional

alarming.“Our first changes were implemented in November

2016, and so far, we’ve rationalized about 46% of our alarms, or about 5,400 of our total 12,000 alarms,” added Rudulier. “Our first-pass rationalization will be done by December 2018, but we’ll keep on doing a continuous monitoring and improvement process. The good news is that the bad actors are now easily identifiable.

“We’ve not only reduced alarms in our leaching process by 98.6% from 17,280 in October 2016 to 245 in November 2016, but our operators who used to be faulted for not reacting to alarms can now react to them, and they aren’t in a constant flood state.”



39

“We reduced the control valve spend from $5.5 million to $3.5 million. Yearly storage expenses were reduced from $1.3 million to $875,000.” Brett McCutcheon, account manager, Spartan Controls Ltd., described some of the savings from spare parts rationalization at the 2017 Emerson Global Users Exchange in Minneapolis.

Large, greenfield projects require specification and procurement of thousands of instruments. When procurement is driven by cost, it can be

extremely difficult to coordinate and consolidate the se-lection to reduce lifecycle cost while maximizing safety and reliability. As a result, warehouse spare part inven-tories often reveal unnecessary stock levels and huge potential for cost reductions.

“Buying spares by model number based on manu-facturers’ recommendations often means stocking a wide variety of parts, and excess spending may cause you to run out of money before you have all the criti-cal spares,” said Brett McCutcheon, account manager, Spartan Controls Ltd., in his session at the 2017 Emer-son Global Users Exchange this week in Minneapolis. “You end up with a mishmash of wrong spares. Instead, you need to spend money the best way, to buy smarter and spend less.”

When Suncor planned its new Fort Hills production facility in Alberta, it recognized the need for standard-ization and the potential to improve on cost and cover-age. The facility has a planned capacity of 194,000 bbl/day for 50 years, using more than 10,000 smart instru-ments and devices. Suncor and Spartan worked together on a systematic analysis of the Fort Hills asset database and found that with proper model analysis, they could significantly reduce requirements by consolidating rec-ommended spares.

A four-step processIt’s a process of validation, standardization, consolida-tion and rationalization, said Rob Gray, technical sales specialist at Spartan. “We start by putting all the de-vices’ information into a large database, gathering it from the manufacturers, engineering firms and the floor. At Suncor, we had three major and more than 10 minor engineering companies involved, from many parts of the world. Assets were sourced globally from

SUNCOR SAVES MILLIONS ON SPARE PARTSPaul Studebaker

40

various manufacturers.”In the database, missing or questionable data is high-

lighted in yellow, and the database is worked on until it’s complete. “Then we look for opportunities to re-place each device or part with another, and to standard-ize for multiple applications,” Gray said. For example, “Control valves were standardized on bare-stem mod-els with maximum coverage for multiple applications, and we used spare trim sets for two applications where it made financial and operational sense.”

“For regulators, we found we could use one spring for four applications,” Gray said. Pressure transmitters were standardized on transmitter heads and capillary lengths that could be used in the maximum number of applica-tions, and separated by pressure ranges for quick stan-dardization review. For example, three models that were unique numbers due to materials and vendors were pro-posed to be replaced by one.

Consolidation begins by providing the summary da-tabase of the proposed, standardized builds against as-set counts and criticality. Then a case-by-case study was performed for each standardized spare. “We confirm each standardization with the user, vendor and reliabil-ity team,” Gray said.

Rationalization is where each standardization be-comes the norm throughout the facility. Pricing and availability are quantified before making management of change (MOC) documentation. “MOCs are created to make changes to the datasheets and approve alter-nate spares,” Gray said. “And the job is not done until

it’s reflected in the SAP database, which may require another set of resources.”

Then it’s necessary to do a site rollout, and champions are needed to raise awareness with maintenance teams. “This must be done or the site will just replace like for like,” McCutcheon said. “There are many stakeholders, and everyone on the site involved in maintenance and reliability has to know we’re not going to do that.”

Even with optimized standards, things can be missed when ordering spares. “The team used our findings to catch these misses, resulting in large project savings,” Gray said.

Business resultsAt Suncor, the number of unique valve constructions was reduced from 186 to 121. “We reduced the control valve spend from $5.5 million to $3.5 million,” said Mc-Cutcheon. “Yearly storage expenses were reduced from $1.3 million to $875,000,” assuming 25% cost of asset annually. Suncor calculated the total cost savings at $7,301,388.

The sparing strategy has been used as a feeder to an overall equipment spares strategy for the company, as the models and types spared for this facility are in many cases applicable to other facilities. This approach will continue to result in incremental business results as more standardization is done.



41

“Similar to operator training, we are building skids to enable customers to practice specific things on a skid at the facility before performing a configuration or calibration of production devices in the plant.” Emerson’s Tanner Rundall explains the hands-on training at Control Performance Academy.

DOMAIN EXPERTISE-BASED TRAINING FAST-TRACKS PROCESS ENGINEERS“Similar to operator training, we are building skids to enable cus-tomers to practice specific things on a skid at the facility before performing a configuration or calibration of production devices in the plant.” Emerson’s Tanner Rundall explains the hands-on train-ing at Control Performance Academy.Dave Perkon

As the Baby Boom generation heads into re-tirement, carrying decades of knowledge like knapsacks strapped to their backs, plants need

new recruits to step up and become high performing controls professionals to replace them.

At Emerson Global Users Exchange 2017 in Min-neapolis, bridging the knowledge gap has become a formal program complete with one-on-one mentoring from process control veterans. Tanner Rundall, direc-tor, educational services at Emerson Automation So-lutions, talked about the efforts to get new employees upskilled as quickly as possible once they enter the workforce and how to keep them current as they prog-ress through their careers.

“We have to be very conscious of how we best cater to their learning needs as we implement this technology,” said Rundall, who announced the debut of the com-pany’s Control Performance Academy. “It’s a compre-hensive program specifically designed for new process control engineers,” said Rundall. “Many of the people who have been in the plant for many years are retiring and are taking the knowledge with them. What we are

trying to do with this program is get as much experi-ence and perspective for new process control engineers as quickly as possible.”

The Control Performance Academy program effec-

42

tively compresses five to 10 years’ worth of work experi-ence into less than 24 months. With a graduated spe-cialized curriculum in which each phase builds on the previous and individual coaching from Emerson ex-perts, the Academy turns novices into qualified engi-neers more efficiently.

In addition to meeting the industry’s need for new tal-ent, the program helps to advance knowledge-sharing between new and seasoned engineers all over the world.

Through three phases of instruction, students put the concepts they learn into practice using Emerson’s EnTech Toolkit, which serves as a platform for simulat-ing, testing and analyzing process dynamics and per-formance. By combining a blended-learning approach with one-on-one mentoring from Emerson experts, the Academy gives trainees a solid foundation of skills and abilities around designing and troubleshooting control strategies, to optimize process performance.

“It’s a curriculum that combines online, in-class and a number of workshops,” said Rundall. “What we do differently is that we actually pair customers with ex-perienced process control consultants within Emerson, so they get the coaching and mentoring along with the direct feedback about what’s working and what’s not.”

Emerson is also helping maintain proficiency through competency-based development. “This pro-cess is an extension of our consulting methodology where we come in and work with customers on the things they need to learn or specific job roles and not the things they don’t need to know,” said Rundall. “Tra-ditionally, you may attend a class for a week and learn a lot, but when you return to a plant, you may only use 10 or 15% of it.”

Control Performance Academy works with custom-

ers to ensure they’re receiving tailored and custom curriculum for specific job roles such as maintenance technicians and controls engineers. “But, even then, it is difficult to stay current. If the information isn’t used immediately, it may be forgotten. Because of this, we are pairing this methodology with technology utilized in the plant itself.”

Emerson makes it as simple and efficient as possible through cloud-based operator training. “A new concept we are introducing is called maintenance training,” said Rundall. “Similar to operator training, we are building skids to enable customers to practice specific things on a skid at the facility before performing a configuration or calibration of production devices in the plant.”

On-demand expert coaching is yet another upskill-ing offering from Emerson. All Control Performance Academy graduates receive up to 40 hours of remote consultation and mentoring with a certified Emerson process controls engineer. Students can call or email their assigned experts to set up an on-demand Web conference, which allows the Emerson engineer to view actual system data or share students’ desktops.

Emerson has also launched a series of online video tutorials and how-to videos. It is just an introduction to the broader learning-based curriculum Emerson is offering but should work well with the YouTube gen-eration.

“Online learning is good, but it is never a substitute for hands-on training,” said Rundall. “Emerson has made an investment in its brick-and-mortar facilities over the past two years, upgrading or building from scratch 11 facilities and more through acquisitions.”



43

“The old station was already at capacity at maximum demand.” Niko Boskovic explains why FortisBC collaborated with Spartan Controls and Emerson Automation Solutions to improve its below-grade CNG distribution station.

FortisBC manages more than 100 below-grade compressed-natural-gas (CNG) distribution in-stallations in British Columbia, with a 25-to-30-

year lifecycle, many of these are due for replacement over the next several years.

Working in collaboration with Spartan Controls and Emerson Automation Solutions, the Canadian power and gas distributor installed the first of a new buried-pit design, which is being modeled for subsequent below-grade replacements.

“No one knows the infrastructure is there,” explained Julie MacLennan, application specialist at Spartan Con-trols, who co-presented the details of the new station at the 2017 Emerson Global Users Exchange in Minneapo-lis. “We executed the project on time. Confined-space, er-gonomic and safety goals all were achieved for FortisBC.”

The installation reduced the operational/financial risk of the facility by $1.3 million/outage, and the com-missioning and startup were executed with on-site sup-port, making the station operational in time for peak de-mand loads in the winter of 2016.

FortisBC conducts annual analyses of gas supply and demand for the 1.1 million customers it serves. More than 60% of the customer base is located in the south-west part of the British Columbia province, which com-prises the greater Vancouver area and Vancouver Island. The distribution pressure-control station tagged for up-grade was located on the corner of a busy street with six lanes of traffic nearby—an environmental incident wait-ing to happen. The installation serves 123,000 residen-

tial customers and 30 industrial/commercial customers.“The station had an issue with potential growth,” ex-

plained co-presenter Niko Boskovic, engineering super-visor—stations, FortisBC. “The old station was already at capacity at maximum demand.”

FortisBC’s wish list included moving the site from the traffic-heavy corner; updating the technology, regulators and design; increasing capacity of the system to supply customers; changing monitor inherent failure response; and improving safety and accessibility.

After identifying potentially underserved customers

BELOW-GRADE CNG STATION CUTS RISK BY $1.3 MILLIONMike Bacidore

44

and a plan to address system growth, project objectives were set:

• Correct the design of the regulator station to ad-dress the area’s flood tendency;

• Correct ergonomic and safety considerations for technicians;

• Increase maximum station capacity for future ex-pected growth and current limitations;

• Improve protection from potential vehicle damage;• Add filter bypass to improve future maintenance ca-

pabilities;• Change technology of isolation valves upstream of

regulators; and,• Update upstream filter for improved reliability.The project was justified by the identified capacity

limitations and recommended capacity increase, as well as the existing system and station risks. Project risks were identified from a failure analysis, which accounted for a process hazard assessment and the critical customer, socio-economic and business impacts of system failure.

“Using a HAZOP technique, we analyzed scenarios,” said Boskovic. “We looked at no-flow or low-flow scenar-ios and at high-flow scenarios, and the scores were sur-prising low.”

FortisBC considered three different technology op-tions before deciding on Emerson’s FL series 4-inch ax-ial two-path regulators. Boot-style regulators also were considered. And the EZH-SOL spring-to-open two-path regulator wasn’t yet available.

The FL series two-path regulator was the obvious choice because of its high accuracy and response time, noise abatement capabilities, flow capacity of axial body design, reliability of two-path design, no bleed to atmo-sphere and customization and control of pilot tubing to allow above-grade adjustment, explained MacLennan.

Safety first“When we moved into the technical solution, we wanted to include, first and foremost, safety,” said MacLennan. “It was decided to go with the monitor solution for its no-bleed, environmentally friendly design. Plus, what were we going to do for the technicians to protect their safety?”

The environmental concern—how to keep the gas in the pipeline—demanded a no-bleed, not low-bleed, so-

lution. “There were station flood design considerations,” explained MacLennan. “We’re just north of Seattle, so we have a lot of rain. Floods are a real concern, and this is close to one of our major rivers, so it was important that we can operate underwater and keep the system safe and contained.”

The location also dictated an assessment of noise im-pacts to residential surroundings. “Gas utilities in every city have to take this into account,” said MacLennan. “The closer you are to people sleeping, the more impact you can have.”

From an operational perspective, Spartan Controls was looking for a set-it-and-forget-it solution. “We looked at the filters and the isolation valves,” explained Ma-cLennan. “The double-block-and-bleed (DBB) isola-tion valves were giving them better shutoff. We wanted this to be high-accuracy and robust for high shifts in de-mand, and it needed a huge amount of capacity because this area is growing.”

The new buried-pit design reduced the space size. “The smaller the package we can fit this into, the better off economically,” explained MacLennan. “And the FL has lots of noise attenuation capability. We don’t want the neighbors complaining. Fisher has come out with a polyurethane seat design.”

A technician can access the monitor above-grade and change the set points. In the pit, piping height is ad-justed to technician level. “A regulator is a self-contained control system,” explained MacLennan. “It needs to be in a stable spot. The instrumentation and piping lines are all in the P&ID and used as part of the technician training. They were happy with the design and said it was easy to follow.”

The pit includes a hydraulically lifted lid, so it doesn’t come down on technicians, and there are safety steps for easy entry and exit. There’s also an emergency lift to get them out of the vault in case of an accident.

“In the event of a flood, we capped the sense lines,” said MacLennan. “This station could flood and the overpressure protection would remain intact. The two controllers are above-grade, and all testing can be done without opening the pit.”



45

“Over the past 10 years, industrial wireless combined with smart sensors have provided the foundation that will support cloud-based applications, remote monitoring and other industrial IIoT over the next decade.” Emerson’s Bob Karschnia on the 10-year anniversary of its wireless instrumentation offering.

Emerson Automation Solutions is celebrating the 10-year anniversary of its first wireless transmit-ters. After a decade of pioneering wireless tech-

nologies for industrial companies, Emerson predicts the next 10 years will see exponential growth in the adop-tion of wireless and Pervasive Sensing applications that help companies maximize safety and reliability, op-timize production and enable Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) strategies.

Industrial wireless and Pervasive Sensing are provid-ing manufacturers the digital technology to access es-sential data to make better decisions and improve opera-tional performance and safety.

“Wireless is arguably the most impactful technology for industrial manufacturers since the introduction of digital instrumentation more than three decades ago,” said Bob Karschnia, vice president and general manager, wireless, Emerson Automation Solutions. “Over the past 10 years, industrial wireless combined with smart sensors have provided the foundation that will support cloud-based applications, remote monitoring and other industrial IIoT over the next decade.”

By collaborating with customers on early installations, Emerson helped to introduce the world’s first industrial wireless automation standard in 2007. Since then, Emer-son has surpassed 10 billion hours of wireless operations across more than 32,000 networks, providing its reliabil-ity, robustness and security.

While initial adoption focused on harsh, remote and difficult-to-reach environments, wireless has expanded customers’ automation ecosystems from core functions

to new applications, such as acoustic monitoring, corro-sion detection and power consumption monitoring. New plant construction is leveraging wireless technology for enterprise-wide applications, such as equipment-health monitoring and energy management, with upwards of 20% wireless infrastructure.”Given the new normal for oil prices and the intense focus on getting more value from existing assets, companies are increasingly turning to wireless as a cost-effective and highly efficient tech-nology for fleet-wide performance optimization,” said Karschnia. “In the next 15 years, there could be 100% wireless plants; just as many homes today have cut the

EMERSON MARKS 10 YEARS OF WIRELESS INNOVATIONDave Perkon

46

cord on wired telephone service.”Over the past 10 years, Emerson has introduced a

broad portfolio of sensors, said Peter Zornio, chief tech-nology officer at Emerson Automation Solutions, dur-ing his presentation at Emerson Global Users Exchange 2017 in Minneapolis. “Wireless is a very key part of Per-vasive Sensing, because, fundamentally, pervasive sen-sors are easy to deploy and support and easy to connect and communicate to,” he explained. “Wireless enables these easy-to-connect sensors and eliminates the wires.”

Zornio described the concept of Pervasive Sensing as a whole generation of sensors that’s targeted not just at the traditional process measurements used to control the plant. These are measurements that can directly support applications in other areas such as safety, environmental, energy and reliability. This increasingly robust network of sensing and automation technologies features more than 50 wireless devices and wireless measurement capabilities that include temperature, pressure, corrosion and power.

Emerson’s expanding portfolio of Pervasive Sensing technologies includes capabilities in hazardous gas sens-ing, ability to extend wired data to a wireless network and level sensing.

Emerson recently introduced a new Rosemount 928 wireless toxic gas monitor. “This wireless gas sensor can monitor toxic hydrogen sulfide gas in wellheads, tank farms and other remote locations,” said Zornio. “It helps

eliminate personnel in hazardous areas. The old way, a worker needed to enter an area to determine if toxic gas is present. A permanently installed network of sensors monitoring for toxic gas is a better way to improve the overall safety of a facility in applications previously con-sidered too expensive and difficult to monitor.”

Another enhancement to Emerson’s Pervasive Sens-ing is the explosion-proof certification in the United States and Canada of the Wireless THUM adapter. The THUM is a device that can be attached to any existing two-, three- or four-wire HART devices and turn them into wireless devices. It siphons a small amount of loop power from the device, enabling it to be mounted any-where in the facility to allow operations and mainte-nance a better view in hazardous areas.

Emerson also released the Rosemount 3308 Wireless Guided Wave Radar (GWR) transmitter for continuous level and interface monitoring, redesigned for +/- 3 mm accuracy. “This GWR keeps people off tanks,” said Zor-nio. “There are many areas in the oil and gas industry where they go out and manually measure tanks. It’s not a very safe operation when climbing up and down tanks or working near hazardous gas. This accurate and reliable level instrumentation helps to eliminate these hazards associated with tank measurement.”


CESMII EFFORT TO ADVANCE INDUSTRIAL DIGITALIZATIONMike Bacidore

At the 2015 Emerson Global Users Exchange in Denver, Pete Sharpe, director of industry solu-tions application development at Emerson Au-

tomation Solutions, gave a presentation about the con-ceptual future of smart manufacturing and the roadmap to get there.

Fast forward two years to the same event this week in Minneapolis, and Sharpe delivered Part 2 of the presen-tation, focusing on real-world testbeds spearheaded by the Clean Energy Smart Manufacturing Innovation In-stitute (CESMII), which didn’t even exist when Sharpe first spoke about the subject.


47

“In the Chemical Processing Affinity Group, our testbed is going to be about a digital twin.” Emerson’s Pete Sharpe shared opportunities that the CESMII bring to the table.

CESMII is a UCLA-headquartered nonprofit organi-zation started in 2016 with a U.S. Dept. of Energy De-partment (DoE) grant and manufacturer funding. It is led by the Smart Manufacturing Leadership Coalition (SMLC). “When we talk about smart manufacturing, we’re taking sensors, wired and wireless, pulling the data up into the cloud for some additional applications and then coming out with knowledge,” explained Sharpe. “All of this is running up in the cloud. Industry is mov-ing to the cloud, like it or not. It reduces the cost and risk of managing these systems on-premise. Bringing the data to the cloud allows subject matter experts (SMEs) and software to collaborate and make decisions.”

Cloud computing is being able to deliver applications at much lower cost, said Sharpe. “The intent is not to force you to use a platform,” explained Sharpe. “The idea is to build a marketplace where vendors can post applications. It’s a repository of systems, tools and apps for smart manufacturing. It connects manufacturers with application vendors. Applications can be customized for commercial products. And they need to be reconfigu-rable and reusable.”

Bring the heatIn 2013, the SMLC conducted a Praxair testbed, which was funded by a DoE grant. It brought together technol-ogies to balance burners in a furnace and reduce waste heat. The steam-methane-reformer (SMR) furnace con-tained 96 burners and 400 tubes. “Higher temperature improves hydrogen yield,” said Sharpe. “These furnaces are as big as four-story houses. We added a number of in-frared cameras to the tubes, and every single pixel is a temperature measurement. We picked out about 600 tem-perature measurements on the tubes that tell us how to adjust the 96 burners, so we can balance the heat in the furnace. One tube is affected by multiple burners, so it’s not easy to do.”

Preliminary waste-heat-reduction analysis demonstrated that Praxair was able to save 3-7% on the SMR and identi-fied about $300,000/year in savings using this technology.

Open, CESMIICESMII is a national network of practitioners. It enables access to technology exchanges and provides opportunities to learn from other companies and industries. Members include manufacturers, technology providers, national labs and academia, state and local governments, associations and nonprofits. “We want to double energy productivity in U.S. manufacturing every 10 years,” explained Sharpe. “We want to halve the cost of deploying smart-manufactur-ing systems relative to state-of-the-art in the next five years. Further, we want to increase the smart-manufacturing workforce, double the smart-manufacturing technology supply-chain value, and reduce energy use.”

Sharpe is part of the Gulf Coast Regional Manufactur-ing Center, which currently is in the process of identify-ing its own testbeds. “The goal is to propose a number of testbed projects to the region around a set of Affin-ity Groups,” he explained. The five Gulf Coast Affinity Groups include chemical processing, decision support/human integrations, discrete processes, polymer pro-cesses and process intensifications.

“In the Chemical Processing Affinity Group, our tes-tbed is going to be about a digital twin,” said Sharpe.

48

“Most people think planning, scheduling and optimiza-tion. In Emerson’s world, the digital twin is about assets, valves, controls devices, processes and plants.”

CESMII expects to make advanced technology avail-able for small and medium-size companies. “We are still looking for more manufacturing partners. The smart-

manufacturing platform provides an open marketplace for vendors,” explained Sharpe. “It promotes reusability of applications, and it shifts software, hardware and sys-tem-management risk to the vendor and cloud provider.”


TURN DIGITALIZATION DREAMS INTO A PLAN FOR SUCCESS WITH DEFINED ROIEmerson’s Operational Certainty consulting practice brings to-gether consultants and project and application engineers to help manufacturers achieve digital transformation

Paul Studebaker

Emerson’s Operational Certainty consulting busi-ness targets an estimated annual $1 trillion loss in operational performance by helping manu-

facturers integrate Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) technologies and updated organizational work practices to achieve Top Quartile performance.

“Operational losses are the result of production down-time, increased safety incidents, as well as excessive energy consumption, emissions and production costs,” said Tom Waun, general manager, Operational Certainty Consult-ing, Emerson Automation Solutions, at the 2017 Emerson Global Users Exchange. “We have quantified the oppor-tunity in each industry, and it’s Emerson’s mission to help customers target these losses with scalable plans to recover what some call ‘dead money’ in their plants.”

In a recent Emerson and Industry Week survey of manufacturing executives, 60% acknowledged having active IIoT pilot projects underway, yet only 5% had clear business case justification. Asked about the challenges

for operational efficiency programs, 47% indicated com-pany culture, 41% cite a lack of clear business strategy, and 34% point to lack of clarity on which technology will deliver measurable improvements.

“We see a potential to increase earnings before inter-est, tax or depreciation (EBITDA) by 15%,” said Waun. Of that, 7-10% is through reliability: data and work management and practices; 3-5% is by improving pro-duction feed-to-product ratio and decision support; and 3-5% is by improving energy efficiency and emissions. “We also expect to improve health, safety, security and environmental performance by mitigating personnel exposure and improving real-time operational aware-ness,” Waun added.

“Virtually all manufacturers are focused on some form of digital enhancement, but very few have a plan to drive the culture change necessary to capitalize on the oppor-tunity that digital transformation represents,” said Waun. “Automation is the highest-impact lever to both acceler-


49

ate and sustain behavior change and deliver results.”Emerson’s new Operational Certainty consulting

practice includes more than 100 consultants with deep expertise in disciplines including reliability, safety, en-ergy and emissions, production, and IIoT infrastruc-tures. They are supported by more than 5,000 proj-ect and applications engineers to help manufacturers execute plans and achieve digital transformation. To-gether, they combine strategies, processes, tools and ex-pertise to simplify and accelerate institutionalization of operational best practices.

“My group helps users leverage new technology to en-able workers to be more productive,” Waun said. “We stay with the customer to drive change, implement tech-nologies, achieve goals and drive them into top quartile performance.”

Operational Certainty consulting methodologyDriving operational certainty starts with an analysis of IT and network infrastructure, with an eye to facilitat-ing the communications that allow the collaboration that leads to digital transformation. “We jump-start their progress on the journey to digitization,” said Moazzam Shamsi, director, global solutions architects, Emerson Automation Solutions. “We look at where they are today, how their architecture is serving its functions and indi-viduals, and figure out where it needs to be to fulfill their vision of digitization and IIoT.”

Most manufacturers are in one of three situations. “Some know what they want, but not how to get there,” Shamsi said. “Some have no idea where to start. The third group has made smart decisions about outfitting their plant

with great technology, but no vision where to go with it.”Often, data is siloed. Work practices are inflexible be-

cause of limited connectivity, so the existing architecture is underutilized. “They may have great capability, but in-flexible, outdated reference models,” Shamsi said. “The environment is no longer static. They need to be multi-skilled and agile, and we need to be sure their architec-ture and data flows support that. We close the gaps and show them new ways.”

For example, a floating liquified natural gas facil-ity wanted more asset visibility. “They added WiFi and WirelessHART so information does not all have to go through the DCS, and is visible to everyone who needs it,” Shamsi said.

A major paper, film and ink supplier wanted to improve maintenance. “They added central work order process-ing and improved their maintenance strategy with cen-tralized scheduling,” Shamsi said. “They now have a grip on total hours and maintenance technician efficiency.”


“My group helps users leverage new technology to enable workers to be more productive. We stay with the customer to drive change, implement technologies, achieve goals and drive them into top quartile performance.” Emerson’s Tom Waun leads the company’s new Operational Certainty consulting practice.


50

SAVE THE DATE FOR EMERSON EXCHANGE 2018! The Emerson Global Users Exchange returns to San Antonio, Texas, October 1-5 at the Henry B Gonzalez Convention Center

Powering Collaboration - Control Global · managers manage business outcomes. Maintenance...

Documents

Transcript of Powering Collaboration - Control Global · managers manage business outcomes. Maintenance...