The refining and petrochemicals industry is driven by performance like all industries. Efficient production is absolutely key to all companies, especially in the highly competitive Middle East market.
But equally important to maximizing output, is monitoring it.
The correct instrumentation is absolutely essential to smooth operations as keeping an eye on your assets throughout the supply chain is crucial to ensuring uninterrupted production.
In the past, most companies provided corrective maintenance on their assets: other than during routine check-ups, repairs were only made when a problem was detected.
According to a Fieldbus Foundation presentation by Hemal Desai, technology head for Endress+Hauser India, the global process industry loses $20 billion, or five per cent of annual production, due to unscheduled downtime and poor quality.
But smarter technology is continuously improving the way operators manage their instrumentation and tackle these avoidable problems.
“The trend is towards intelligent and self-learning sensors with integrated diagnosis functions to ensure permanent and maintenance free production processes,” says Sebastian Harbig, key accounts manager for VEGA’s German oil and gas market.
And David Hewitt, business development manager for Endress + Hauser’s petrochemical & chemical division, agrees. The future of instrumentation will be ‘predictive maintenance’, he says. Companies will begin to use devices that detect themselves and can inform maintenance providers of upcoming problems in advance.
For example, Endress + Hauser offers ‘Fieldcare’, an independent open vendor software for device integration. Fieldcare is designed as a monitoring system for different communication protocols and can combine a range of different products, sensors, drives and valves allowing operators to improve maintenance capacity.
According to Hewitt, self-monitoring will enable filed devices to provide information about their own status, it will primarily be used to check the plausibility of sensor measurements and actuator function, which will prevent adverse influences on product quality or even total plant failures caused by field instrumentation failures.
Also, determining a device’s wear-reserve, will help a company to conduct status-related maintenance as opposed to just scheduled servicing at specified intervals.
In addition to the introduction of self-monitoring systems, wireless communications have been transforming the way in which operators can monitor facilities.
“Wireless is the next big thing. Customers are getting excited to see the benefits of “no wires, no limits,” says Adam Wright, Marketing Manager for Rosemount at Emerson Process Management Middle East & Africa.
“Very little time is needed to add extra measurement points in any part of the plant. We can measure almost all process parameters wirelessly now and it is allowing our customers to be a lot more flexible in optimising their plant control.”
Article continues on next page …
Wireless technology coupled with smarter systems would allow maintenance teams to monitor assets from portable tablets while out on the field, helping them to plan a maintenance schedule that is more efficient than simply conducting routine checkups.
Customers are becoming more conscious of overall costs of ownership and are ready to accept and implement new technologies if this can save capital costs, reduce maintenance time and ultimately increase plant efficiency, says Wright.
“Customers love our conditioning orifice plate solution as it reduces piping cost whilst improving their measurement accuracy,” he continues. “We are also seeing a high demand for our Electronic remote sensor technology as it removes capillaries from DP Level measurement.
By using our ERS technology, customers reduce inaccuracies in measurement and benefit from easier installation, commissioning and maintenance.” Capillaries create errors in DP level measurement and can be difficult to maintain particularly in tall vessels and tanks.
Improving a company’s instrumentation monitoring can go a long way in saving costs in otherwise expensive processes. “Products such as steam and compressed air, cost a lot of money to generate, savings are possible with monitoring and controlling these processes,” says Hewitt.
“Products such as the turbine and positive displacer flow meters are being replaced by Coriolis mass flow meters, no moving parts. The main reasons for this are the zero/minimum maintenance and higher accuracy along with better repeatability,” he adds.
There is a markedly clear trend towards wireless and smart instrumentation technology, yet companies will also have to ensure that such technology is reliable as well.
“Automated processes require measurement technology that ensures reliability without major expenditures of time an money,” says Harbig. “Easy instrumentation selection, installation and setup, in conjunction with reliable operation, diagnostics and maintenance fulfils all customer needs and provides the best basis for successful partnerships,” he continues.
For Emerson, a successful instrumentation business is one that puts the customer first. “We talk to our customers and find out their pains from an instrumentation standpoint, and then develop or introduce new products and technologies to solve these pains,” says Wright.
“Emerson actually invests three times more resources in research and development than our competitors do, just so that we can offer the right solutions to our customers. This ensures we are always ahead of the competition and our products and services are valued by customers,” he says.
Innovation is certainly key to success and in Endress + Hauser’s case, success was due to innovation.
By the end of 2011,the company had 4898 patents with over 219 logged in that year. “We believe in being a leader and not a follower,” says Hewitt.
Article continues on next page …
Magnetrol releases ECLIPSE MODEL 706 Transmitter
Magnetrol International has launched the ECLIPSE Model 706 Guided Wave Radar (GWR) transmitter.
The GWR is a control solution that provides safe, efficient and cost-effective liquid and interface control applications.
The new model uses innovative GWR circuitry which achieves both a higher transmit pulse amplitude and improved receiver sensitivity, resulting in a signal-to-noise ratio that is almost three times greater than competitive GWR devices.
This assures precise, dependable control for every level application, including extremely low dielectric media, extended measuring ranges, and punishing conditions where foaming, boiling or flashing occur.
Magnetrol offers the only guided wave radar transmitter on the market with a complete line of overfill capable probes. The Eclipse Model 706 measures true level to within specification all the way up to the process flange. Coaxial and single rod overfill capable probes can be installed in various configurations on the vessel, even when the risk of flooding exists.
The Eclipse Model 706 comes with an LCD diagnostics convey critical real-time waveform and trend data designed for easy use. Additionally, it can be preconfigured online prior to shipping to ensure plug-and-play transmitter commissioning and automatic capture of echo curve during upsets.
