Introducing SMART-OP, our new Digital Twin product

At Reliable Controls Corporation we like thinking outside the box. We believe true innovation requires a combination of technology and concepts of sustainable development. That’s why we are always working to innovate every process in our company to enhance our services, increase quality, and minimize the use of energy and natural resources.?It may sound easy, but it’s not! You need another essential thing: a creative and talented crew. That’s how we describe RCC’s Advanced Technology Team!

For the last two years, our team has been working on an exciting new Industry 4.0 initiative focused on digital twins. A digital twin is a virtual replica that can simulate in detail a real process or object. Our industry uses digital twins to improve project execution, workforce training, and quality. But as we said before, we like to innovate, and we see some amazing opportunities to leverage this technology in more creative, impactful ways. As the industry continues its trend toward digital technologies, the possibilities are endless, and we intend to be on the forefront of this movement.

The RCC Advanced Technology Team has built a digital twin, SMART-OP, to simulate the process of an existing operating plant—from right here in our training center in Salt Lake City. This project not only helps improve the quality and efficiency of our services, but also provides a training platform for the next generation of RCC engineers. With this technology, we provide intensive training via the simulation of real-life processes, getting our people ready for the field before even setting foot in a plant. But this is just the beginning.

Here are 5 main uses of SMART-OP, this Digital Twin Industry 4.0 Technology:

1)?????Engineering Training

Learning is one of the things we value most at RCC.?With digital twins, we enhance training by providing actual feedback from a simulation that is as close to the real plant as possible. This creates a low-risk environment, where new hires learn and make mistakes without compromising safety while improving their quality of training and accelerating the development process.

?2)?????Operator Training

We add value and improve the quality of our existing PCS services by including training for operators. We do this by creating a replica of the client’s plant directly in our training center, located in our Salt Lake City office. RCC is committed to safety, and with this technology, we provide a low-risk environment for learning, plus improve the quality of our transfer of care custody and control (TCCC) protocols.

3)?????Virtual commissioning

They say that planning is the most important function in management, and we truly believe in it. With this new technology, our commissioning activities are now planned in advance, and we can estimate how fast a process will achieve a determined condition (e.g., level, temperature, pressure). This helps us identify potentially dangerous decisions to plan accordingly and helps to prioritize the work in the field by simulating scenarios with different conditions. This also validates our own PCS engineering work and adds value to our existing PCS development service.

4)?????PCS Optimization

We improve the quality of our PCS optimization service, changing from a trial & error tuning process to a methodical one with guarantees. This is how it works:?when our team develops a digital twin of a client’s plant or process, they test changes to the control systems. This simulation helps them report to the client the estimated impact (savings in time, money, or resources) along with a confidence interval, assumptions, and risks before implementing any changes on site. Having everything analyzed in advance with a methodically designed process increases the efficiency and quality of the service.

5)?????Artificial Intelligence Research and Development

One of the most exciting things about this technology is the great number of opportunities we have to learn and discover.?RCC sponsors research in the fields of artificial intelligence, advanced process controls, and electrical engineering every year. Thanks to digital twins, we can research new innovative methods and technologies, and?implement them in our processes.

Digital twins have a huge potential for all kinds of industries, such as mineral processing, food & beverage, petro chemical, and more. In the long-term, we will use digital twins to further our research and development of advanced process control algorithms. We believe that by combining innovative processes and technologies, we can add value to our existing services, and also provide new services, focusing in improving safety, quality cost, and schedule.

The Advanced Technology Team consists of Sam Arce, Alex Macha, and Eduardo Casimiro. Team Director, Alex Macha, said:

“This is a big project for us. I’m excited about it because we’re able to offer our clients additional resources and more advanced technology. We’re using Industry 4.0 to improve the quality of products and services that we deliver, but at the same time, we’re creating new methods to optimize the overall use of our resources to further sustainable development goals.”

If you want to be part of the Advanced Technology Team, we have some good news:?We’re hiring! Have a look at our job openings or contact our recruiting team by?uploading your resume.