Emerson Process Experts

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Over the past 10 years, we've all benefited from the speed at which knowledge can be attained using the web and search engines to rapidly find things.

One of the fairly recent innovations has been really simple syndication (RSS) technology, which provides us a way to subscribe to information to have it come to us, rather than the mode of seeking and finding.

An October Yahoo! study indicates that the adoption rate is still quite low:

Awareness of RSS is quite low among Internet users. 12% of users are aware of RSS, and 4% have knowingly used RSS.

I've been using it for over a year and it's amazing what I can learn about process automation, the key industries we serve, and even what other automation suppliers are up to. This RSS communications seems too valuable to keep such a secret.

One of the things limiting adoption is that the Internet Explorer browser does not deal well with the cryptic XML looking code that is RSS. Anyone who has clicked on the little orange XML, RSS buttons sprouting all over the web see this gibberish looking code. This will change when Microsoft releases Vista and the next version of Office, but for now it takes some doing to use RSS.

In the spirit of helping process manufacturing professionals see the value that we see with RSS, we have just published an RSS Starter Kit.

The RSS Starter Kit gives you a quick what, why, and how to give it a try.

I even narrated a demo to show how you could be up and going in 2 minutes with a number of feeds about our industry, hot topics, and even a couple of fun feeds. I believe you'll find the time investment worth it. Give it a try!

Also be sure to check out how you can get a customized feed from Emerson Process Management based upon your preferences. With your RSS reader already in place, it's easy to add.

UPDATE: Welcome visitors from Steve Rubel's, Gary Mintchell's and Toby Bloomberg's blogs!

There was a thoughtful critique on the MoonWatcher blog of the customized RSS implementation on the Emerson Process Management site. I had a chance to catch up with Emerson Process Management's Global Director of Marketing Communications, Bill Morrison. His team put this together for all the the divisions within Emerson Process Management.

Bill sees the model followed closely resembling Apple iTunes where folks can state their preferences and receive targeted information based on these preferences. Meaning, you are subscribing to the same individual RSS feeds, but Emerson pre-aggregates the information into one channel…instead of requiring you to set up a different news feed for every Emerson subject of interest.

Folks can still subscribe to individual feeds on some of the sites, much like the DeltaV News RSS feed.

I think it's more a matter of preference. Some folks would like a bunch of orange buttons to choose from (like this New York Times example) or some would like their feed aggregated, as ones like iTunes, FeedShake, and Gada.be.

What do you think?

Tags: RSS | Starter Kit | Feed Aggregation |

March 31, 2006 in Miscellaneous | Comments (2) | Trackback (3)

A while back we set up a site called the DeltaV Bookstore in order to feature Emerson experts and other great minds in the world of process automation. The site links into the Amazon.com bookstore.

The first book we featured was Advanced Control Unleashed, by Emerson's Terry Blevins and Willy Wojsznis, as well as Greg McMillan and Michael Brown. We've added many other books including many more from Greg McMillan and Chairman Emeritus Charles F. Knight's Performance Without Compromise: How Emerson Consistently Achieves Winning Results.

I bring all this up because we recently received an email from Dr. Thomas Edgar of the University of Texas at Austin who identified a shortcoming we had with the bookstore:

The leading process control textbook in North America is not in your list; it is “Process Dynamics and Control” by Seborg, Edgar, and Mellichamp. Wiley, 2nd edition, 2004. You should add it to your bookstore, in that the authors have also worked with Emerson on research projects and with DeltaV.

Thank you Dr. Edgar for pointing out this omission so that we could remedy the situation.

If you have come across a book that has influenced your thinking on process automation, please add a comment.

Tags: bookstore | process automation | advanced control |

March 29, 2006 in Miscellaneous | Comments (0) | Trackback (0)

Automation World's Editor in Chief Gary Mintchell has an excellent recap of the Interphex show, a show targeted for pharmaceutical manufacturers. In that post Gary mentioned:

Another great learning experience resulted from dinner last night with Peter Dossing and Tom Diederich of Emerson Process...Now, pharma manufacturing is taking center stage--with a boost from the FDA--and they are ready to automate and study process improvement techniques.

Being the curious sort, I called Tom to catch up on some of the conversation. He described how pharmaceutical and biotech manufacturers, unlike most other industries live with extremely manual paper-based systems to meet the regulatory requirements of governmental agencies. These regulations are designed to prove repeatability, that what is being made today is the same as what was being made yesterday. As consumers, we expect the medications we receive to be right, not just somewhat close to right. The paperwork created to document that the correct procedures have been followed is as important as the products being produced.

Unfortunately getting things right the first time is extremely cumbersome and difficult with manual, paper-based operating procedures. Tom relayed an example of one pharmaceutical manufacturer getting things right the first time--less than 5% of the time. For this manufacturer, it meant spending 30,000 man-hours or 15 man-years annually checking, reviewing and recirculating documents before batches of the product could be released for sale.

A simple example - imagine an operator having to manually add 2 cc's of an additive to a running batch. Today, he does it, signs off on a paper saying he's done it, hands to his boss who signs off, who hands off to his boss to sign off according to the proscribed operating procedures, etc.

The questions this simple procedural example prompts are numerous: Was he trained properly to do this? Is his training current/expired? Was the measuring device calibrated? Did he add the correct additive? Did the additive have temp or light exposure limits/specs? Were those specs/limits exceeded? All these and much more must be checked, again to the standard operating procedures.

The Emerson Life Sciences industry team is working with pharmaceutical and biotech manufacturers and sharing their expertise in studying processes to see where they can be streamlined through work practice changes or through having automation and/or compliance management solutions applied. Many of these manual procedures and documentation steps like checking the training records, bar code scanning for equipment and material tracking, weighing, and dispensing additives, and electronic signatures, can be automated and collected as part of a complete batch record. This greatly speeds up the release of the manufactured product and significantly reduces the number of errors associated with manual data entry; both of which directly impact the bottom line.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration's Process Analytical Technologies (PAT) initiative is a catalyst for Life Sciences manufacturers to re-examine their current practices and look at ways to build product quality and consistency into the processes and procedures instead of fixing it after the fact. Some of these operational excellence practices are now being adopted in partnership between manufacturers and Emerson Life Sciences experts with significant results.

Tags: Life Sciences | Pharmaceutical | Biotech | FDA | Process Analytical Technology | PAT | Interphex |

March 24, 2006 in Life Sciences | Comments (0) | Trackback (0)

One of the guys who has been around as long as I have is Lou Heavner, a Consultant in our Advanced Applied Technologies team. As an MIT graduate, he is one really sharp person, and also someone who can simplify and communicate complex ideas.

I asked Lou about what he's been working on recently in the world of applying advanced process controls for process manufacturers. Lou's been recently involved in a project in the European region where he consulted with a refiner to get DeltaV PredictPro working on a crude unit and to take advantage of its optimization capabilities.

During that project, it became clear to Lou that the term optimization conjures up a different vision for most people. He was confronted with matching the capabilities of the system to the expectations of the customer and needed to dive pretty deeply into how optimization works in the DeltaV software, just to explain and train the local refinery staff.

The crude unit is the first unit in a refinery and the fractionator is a great place to start applying APC technology. An optimizer can take advantage of the capabilities of PredictPro and the extra degrees of freedom in a typical crude unit to drive the process to maximum throughput and/or minimize the energy required (as fuel in the fired heaters.) It can also support an objective to maximize yield of the more valuable cuts (products). The system is working and delivering benefits, but Lou is doing further work to quantify the results and turn this skeptical refiner into a good reference site.

Applications like these have been developed for many industries and branded as SmartProcess Optimization application packages. Some of these applications for refineries include the Fractionator Optimizer and the Heater Optimizer packages.

As one who applies the advanced process control software on a regular basis, Lou's feedback to the Emerson technology development teams has enhanced the software over a number of releases.

Lou is a regular presenter at the Emerson Exchange sharing his expertise with the Emerson customers who attend. This year he'll be presenting a short course which explains how to implement optimization with DeltaV PredictPro and surveys several optimization techniques including non-linear searches for minima, load allocation, and LP (linear programming) solutions. These optimization techniques are a key and inseparable part of those who employ use model predictive control techniques.

Tags: model predictive control | advanced control | linear programming | Emerson Exchange | refining | fractionator | heater |

March 23, 2006 in Crude Unit, in Refining | Comments (0) | Trackback (2)

Process manufacturers are modernizing their automation to increase the efficiency of their operations. A key requirement is skilled operators who are essential to effectively use the technologies these new automation systems deliver.

An October 2005 study of chemical manufacturers by the United Kingdom's Health and Safety Executive indicated that 37% of plant incidents could be categorized by incorrect operator actions.

Also, operator actions can have a big effect on process variability which can impact throughput, product quality, energy usage, and downtime. These all have an impact on the profitability of the operation.

Another issue many process manufacturers face is the expertise of their operators to effectively run the plant. In many countries with aging populations, the experience levels of operators are dropping as many reach the retirement age.

To help manufacturers address these issues, Emerson Educational Services has developed a number of solutions to help better train operators. These solutions include web-based operator training, formal classroom training, packaged fixed price Operator Training Simulation solution with customized curriculum, and full plant-wide simulation with customized curriculum for operator training.

I spoke with Jeff Hackney, DeltaV OTS Project Manager, about the new packaged Operator Training Solution called DeltaV OTS Express. Jeff told me DeltaV OTS Express is an affordable solution that provides operator training specific to the actual process for a fixed price.

DeltaV OTS Express is sized to target a specific critical unit, area, or process. With a combination of software and services, the operator training is built to be identical to live plant system configuration and graphics. Jeff, his team, and the global Ed Services team start with the manufacturer's DeltaV configuration database and graphics.

The DeltaV OTS team also uses DeltaV Simulate and the MiMiC process simulation software and customized courseware to create a training environment with process specific conditions, training scenarios and assessments to teach the operator process and skill-based knowledge. In addition to the simulation model, courseware and software, the PC hardware is included. The training solution is ready to go when it arrives and helps operators learn and refresh their knowledge of the process over time.

The DeltaV OTS Express is built with flexibility in mind to meet the financial and logistic needs of the customer. The base offering can be expanded in order to deliver simulation-based training to an entire class of operators if needed.

Jeff stressed that this is not a high complexity, high cost, high fidelity model which is designed to model the process as closely as possible, but rather something that helps the operator learn how to better operate and understand the process. By employing the actual automation system configuration and graphics, the DeltaV OTS Express solution can be delivered in one to three months, instead of a more typical one to two years for the more complex, high fidelity solutions.

Tags: operator training | process variability | product quality | energy usage | throughput |

March 20, 2006 in Operator Training | Comments (0) | Trackback (1)

With the global acceptance of the performance-based safety standard IEC 61511 (ANSI/ISA-84.00.01 in the U.S.), process manufacturers are responsible for designing and implementing safety systems that ensure a tolerable level of risk is maintained throughout their plants' respective lifetimes. In addition, many manufacturers now have fewer engineering resources than they once did to address these regulations, standards and other issues.

Emerson has been working to address these concerns with both technology and safety expertise. As part of its smart SIS approach to safety, a wide range of field devices and logic solvers have been introduced that are SIL-rated and independently certified by a third party such as TÜV. These devices range from Rosemount 3051S certified pressure and 3144P temperature transmitters, to Fisher DVC6000 smart valve positioners and Bettis SIL-PAC for final control elements, to Micro Motion SIL rated Mass flow meters and DeltaV SIS logic solvers.

But, as important as the technology component is, the expertise to apply it is equally critical. For many years Emerson project engineers around the world have been integrating safety instrumented systems (SIS) of other suppliers with Emerson products such as the DeltaV system.

I spoke with Engineering Fellow Len Laskowski, a certified functional safety expert (CFSE) and professional engineer in our Refining and Chemical Industry group about how Emerson approaches the safety lifecycle in projects with its customers.

Len stressed that with IEC 61511, we now have an internationally accepted best practice for implementing an SIS, so it only makes sense to follow this standard. As a result, Emerson has embedded it in its global engineering procedures so wherever a project is executed in the world, IEC 61511 is followed. Emerson became the first supplier with TÜV-certified procedures and engineering processes to help process manufacturers assure compliance to the standard. In addition to this certification, Emerson has encouraged many of its project engineers to study and pass the CFSE exam which accredits individuals in the area of functional process safety similar to regions which accredit engineers as a PE or Professional Engineer in their region of residence.

Every engineer that performs a safety critical task on a safety project with smart SIS technology including DeltaV SIS must be trained and certified by Emerson prior to doing the work. Given the focus on this certification, Emerson now has 31 global CFSEs, twice as many as any other supplier. And more than 100 are certified by Emerson's project management office for the various roles required in an SIS project.

In Len's industry center, they have completed DeltaV SIS projects as small as single burner BMS (Burner Management System) to as complex as a new Ultra Low Sulfur Diesel unit for a major refinery. Many more projects are in progress.

Ongoing support across the safety lifecycle is addressed with SureService smart SIS support.

Tags: safety instrumented system | SIS | IEC 61511 | CFSE | S84 |

March 15, 2006 in Safety | Comments (0) | Trackback (5)

I received a tip from Senior Control Engineering Consultant Eric Ascoli on our Control Performance team. It concerned a recent problem solving mission he had with a sugar mill in the state of Florida in the U.S.

One of the mill tandems at this sugar mill was having serious speed instability problems with all the steam turbine drives. The trouble was that quite frequently the turbines would overspeed during recovery after a bog-down due to abnormal increase in thickness of the bagasse bed when processing the sugar cane. The situation had always been present but it was becoming considerably worse and production was severely impacted due to frequent trips of the turbines.

Eric received a call from plant early and was there soon after a short drive. The Entech Toolkit was connected to process signals and the actuator of the poorest performing turbine. Data were collected while the operator executed tests, both in automatic and manual modes, and several turbine trips were recorded.

Eric's analysis of the data from these tests indicated that the culprit was poor major loop tuning and an inadequate control strategy to address the range of operating conditions. Contrary to what was believed, the control valve, actuator and positioner were performing really well. With the problem now clearly identified the solution could be achieved. Unfortunately re-tuning and control strategy adjustments could not immediately take place given other operational priorities.

During an upcoming scheduled outage these control changes will be made. Once the mill restarts in September, members of the Control Performance team will perform a dynamic analysis of the whole train and correct the tuning using the Lambda Methodology which has proven to be very successful at stabilizing interacting control loops.

Tags: sugar mill | lambda tuning | loop tuning | control strategy | steam turbine |

March 13, 2006 in Turbine Control | Comments (0) | Trackback (1)

I heard a story of a tremendous effort from our advanced applied technology experts to help a refiner stabilize his units after a restart. I went to the source, James Beall who is the team leader of our U.S. Control Performance team. It turns out that he is the one responsible for these successful efforts.

He received a call from one of our local business partners late on a recent Wednesday night to assist this U.S. based refiner with the startup of some of their units including three new distillation columns. This refiner had battled the startup for several days but could not stabilize the unit or produce on-spec product. The unit would have to be shut down within 48 hours due to limited storage if stable operation and in-spec product could not be achieved.

James arrived early Thursday morning and began to assess the situation. He installed Emerson’s EnTech Toolkit to be used for process control diagnostics, complex loop dynamics identification and advanced loop tuning. He reviewed the situation with the customer, prioritized and set the order of tuning of the control loops around the columns. Using DeltaV Tune and the EnTech Toolkit to provide coordinated loop tuning, the columns were stabilized by 10:30 pm, 12 hours after arriving on-site.

During this process, several measurement problems were identified and plant personnel began to troubleshoot and correct the problems. Once these instrumentation problems were resolved within a few days, James returned to the site to continue the control performance improvements.

The quantified results? The columns achieved 100% of design production 5 days after James first arrived and nearly another 20% after a total of 7 days.

Based on these results, the refiner is looking to set up a continual process performance improvements program with James and the Control Performance team.

Tags: refining | variability | distillation column | loop tuning | control performance |

March 9, 2006 in Distillation Column, in Refining | Comments (2) | Trackback (2)

As more and more process manufacturers incorporate digital busses into their automation architectures, debates often occur whether to limit the plant to a single bus or to incorporate multiple busses.

You can see both sides of this argument on a Foundation fieldbus forum in a Mixing fieldbuses thread. The original question posed:

In a new plant scenario, lets say an 800 point I/O count with about a 50-50 mix of analog and discretes. I think it's a no-brainer to go FF [Foundation fieldbus] where applicable for the analog control/monitoring. The question is, the remaining 400 or so points where we need shut-off valves, motor controls etc. what do we do?

The early responses from some of the suppliers and consultants gave advice such as:

Multiple buses should not be mixed in a system, not because it can't be done, because it can be done using most control systems in the market today, but because the system gets messy and expensive to operate and maintain.

You can see the thread in its entirety here.

Emerson's position in this debate differed greatly and was well articulated by Dewey Kuchle in our Hydrocarbon and Energy Industry Center in Calgary.

His key points in this forum thread include:
1. Remember the objective is to have projects on budget, on schedule, and operate efficiently. The selected technology is a means to this end.
2. No one digital bus technology is best for all the types of transmitters, actuators, motors, analyzers and other process instrumentation. Each technology and how it is implemented in the various process automation systems has its strengths and weaknesses. Pick the right one for the job.
3. Nothing beats "hands on" to compare the various systems and how they implement these digital busses like Foundation Fieldbus, Profibus DP, DeviceNet, and AS-bus. This is a great way to see what it takes to engineer, install, commission, operate and maintain them.

Digital busses like Foundation fieldbus are great for much of the process measurement and actuator instrumentation. It can be used, but is not as good a fit for motor control centers as DeviceNet or Profibus DP. The ideal situation is to have a single architecture that can support all of the most common busses and integrates them seamlessly, like our DeltaV system.

Conversely, these more discrete-oriented busses cannot pass back to the engineers, operators, and maintenance personnel the predictive diagnostics that intelligent measurement and actuator instrumentation contain that help run the process more efficiently and with fewer upsets.

Most of the reasons for the differences are the analog or discrete starting points of the technologies. Without delving into longer explanations, I will point to PlantWeb University's Engineering School which goes into the choices and tradeoffs in the "Choosing the right bus" section.

Tags: Foundation fieldbus | digital busses | Profibus | DeviceNet | As-i bus |

March 7, 2006 in Digital Busses, in Oil & Gas | Comments (0) | Trackback (0)

As competitive pressures drive process manufacturers to run their processes more efficiently, a key area of focus is to improve the management of data from various sources. Better, more timely decisions come from better data.

I spoke with one of our Life Sciences/Food & Beverage industry senior manufacturing consultants and data management experts, Gary Silverman about this need to consolidate and migrate data. He cited several reasons for this:

• Updating a historian and/or operating system because it's no longer supported by the original supplier
• Needing to consolidate data from multiple process automation system platforms and other data sources into a single enterprise historian
• Changing business needs requiring broader dissemination of information from the manufacturing process to plant and corporate personnel with web browser-based technologies.

This process of converting and consolidating data sources has historically been quite intensive and time consuming because of the diversity of data formats and the sheer amount of archived data typically seen. By analyzing the business processes and needs of the people accessing the data, our data management consultants determine what tools, reports, and utilities can be used to streamline this conversion process and provide the information required to those who need it.

One example Gary cited was a DeltaV system upgrade project where an AIM/Bile Historian with 9 years of process data collected from a PROVOX system needed to move to an OSIsoft PI historian. The finished solution collected data from the new DeltaV system, PROVOX and utilities programmable controllers. Emerson is an OSIsoft Platinum Partner as a provider of data management and integration services.

The data management team had developed automated tools and methods to extract the AIM tag database, create the PI tag database and migrate this vast amount of data. The team also built a Process Module Database to streamline the implementation of the OSIsoft RtPortal/WebParts technology. The Portal allows operators, aupervisors or engineers to quickly spot problems and then use ProcessBook and/or DataLink to drill down for in-depth analysis. The Portal also provides a central repository for Shift Logs, Operator Logs, etc.

Another key need was being able to perform batch-to-batch analysis with data from over 70 reactors and make comparisons of critical process parameters to discover any deviations from the best or "Golden Batch." PI Batch configuration and the PI Batch Client Tools provided the customer with a means to do this. They were also able to monitor and improve cycle times as a result of this analysis. In the end the project achieved its objectives to modernize the existing technology disseminate information more broadly and provide critical data in Batch context for continuous improvement.

Given the high interest in having better information to help plants run more efficiently, I'll be checking back with Gary and other data management experts from time to time.

Tags: Data Management | OSIsoft | Life Sciences | Food | Beverage |

March 3, 2006 in Data Management, in Food & Beverage, in Life Sciences | Comments (0) | Trackback (1)

A recent post on Control.com's global on-line community for automation professionals asked about how to go from pneumatics to a process automation system in a refinery.

Given the strong global demand for refined products, refineries want to avoid any downtime when modernizing their automation and safety instrumented system technologies. This process of cutting over from old to new while the process is running is called a Hot Cutover.

Ken Suetterlin, a senior Emerson Project Manager from our Refining and Chemical Industry organization responded to the Control.com post with the following recommendations:

1. Identify which loops are to be converted as Hot Cutover and which are to be done during Turnaround. If possible, we recommend you convert loops related to safety shutdowns during Turnaround. The loops in each category can be color coded on P&IDs and/or indicated by category in an instrument database. Then you can sort by Hot Cutover and get a list of all loops in that category.

2. Once you have a list you'll want to work closely with Operations to schedule the loops based on production priorities and loop complexity.

3. Install and test as much as possible in advance to avoid last minute surprises.

Upfront planning is critical to avoid downtime. In a Shell Deer Park refinery modernization project, Emerson supplied all phases of engineering services related to Hot Cutover including conceptual design, FEED (Front End Engineering Design), detail design, FAT (Factory Acceptance Test), field commissioning, SIT (System Integration Test), SAT (Site Acceptance Test), and installation. The team worked closely with installation contractors, and provided the engineers and technicians for actual cutover.

The Hot Cutover process at the Shell Deer Park refinery which included critical units like the Cat Cracker is described in an April Hydrocarbon Processing article.

Here is a description of some of the expertise and technologies Emerson applies in a Hot Cutover project.

Tags: Project Services | Hot Cutover | refining | FEED | Turnaround |

March 1, 2006 in Project Services, in Refining | Comments (0)