Don't Build Your New Plant Old

Many new plants are being designed and constructed right now, but will be operated the old fashioned way with manual data collection rounds. They will have advanced process technology, the latest and greatest control and safety systems, even an online machinery protection system for the turbines. However, condition monitoring for a vast majority of equipment will be by manual data collection. Energy management will also be manual or nonexistent. What can be done to ensure the plant does not have to be operated this old fashioned way? Here are my personal thoughts:

To operate more reliably, productively, efficiently, more environmentally friendly, and to make the plant a safer place to work, a second layer of automation is added to automate the data collection around the plant which traditionally has been done manually or not at all. Instead of manual data collection rounds with portable vibration tester, IR temperature gun, acoustic leak detector, corrosion probe, the corresponding vibration, temperature, acoustics, and corrosion transmitters are instead permanently installed at the positions which previously were checked manually. Pressure and temperature gauges, sight level glasses, variable area flow meters in the field that traditionally have been checked and the data manually recorded on a clipboard can be replaced by transmitters for pressure, temperature, level, and flow respectively. By automating the data collection, personnel save time and can instead spend the time analyzing and acting on the data such as aligning equipment or replacing parts where vibration is too high, topping up fluids when levels are too low, overhauling to stop leaks, clean and prevent fouling etc. This is more productive. The data comes in faster and is more accurate, allowing action to be taken sooner. Moreover, personnel spend less time exposed to bad weather conditions, including ice and other slip risks, dangers like hot surfaces, or hazardous emissions.

Wireless transmitters lend themselves well to modernizing existing plants because there is no need to open cable trays and junction boxes. The risk of damaging the existing installation is much lower than for adding more wires.

WirelessHART can be used on any system, regardless of manufacturer. Even though the system does not have native support for WirelessHART, this integration can still be achieved using open protocols. Integration with any historian, control system, and Intelligent Device Management (IDM) software is made possible thanks to open protocols like Modbus, OPC, and HART-IP. The historian is mentioned first on purpose, because that is where most information related to equipment condition, equipment performance, energy management, and other non-control functions go. Historian integration is typically done through OPC, control system integration through Modbus or native integration, and IDM software integration of WirelessHART devices through HART-IP or native integration. Start by studying how data shall flow from the sensor, be analyzed and aggregated into actionable information, and to who/which roles in the organization it should be presented to. Get the reliability, maintenance, energy efficiency, and HS&E teams involved in the project as early as possible, in the pre-FEED and FEED stages if possible, to define the automation requirements for each department in the plant. Although the wireless infrastructure is shared, each department needs to figure out what tasks to automate and which equipment to instrument, in order to establish their instrument count.

For a new project, even if the detail design is already completed and installation has started, it is still not too late to add in a second layer of automation. The wireless sensors will not affect the hardware I/O count, I/O and panel design, marshalling design, cable layout design, and junction box plans etc. that have to be done for 4-20 mA/on-off signals. After all, plants which are decades old are also being modernized with wireless. If automatic data collection for reliability, maintenance, energy efficiency, personnel safety, and productivity is considered early, some of the measurements can use digital fieldbus. See further explanation of these applications in this article:

https://www.ceasiamag.com/2015/04/instrumental-to-success/11137/

So don't build your new plant the old fashioned way. Instead design and build the plant with wireless sensor network infrastructure from the very beginning. Not designing a new plant or modernizing an existing site for maintainability and availability sets the stage for a reactive maintenance culture. With a digital infrastructure in place, the plant is ready for the Industrial Internet of Things. Well, that’s my personal opinion. If you are interested in how the digital ecosystem is transforming process automation click “Follow” by my photo. Let me know what you think of this essay by providing your feedback below, and click “Like” if you found this useful.