October 2006 Archives

Emerson's Lou Heavner, a consultant on the Advanced Automation Services team, recently co-authored a paper, Using Neural Network Technology for Virtual Sensing in Crude Refining Units, at the recent ISA EXPO 2006. Lou worked with engineers from Russian oil refiner, Lukoil.

Always a great presenter, Lou not only shared his expertise on this project, but the fact he homebrews beer. I imagine this keeps his control application skills honed!

The paper describes the need to improve quality of refined products to improve upon the current process of taking lab samples once or twice a day. The operators would make changes to the process based upon the lab readings. They tried to control key temperatures and other process variables on the pre-flash, atmospheric, and vacuum columns by manipulating flows including reflux, furnace fuel, pump-arounds and product draws.

To make these quality adjustments more in real-time, the refinery engineers want to use something other than costly and maintenance-prone on-line analyzers. They decided to use neural network technology to build real-time inferential property estimators which could run inside the refinery's existing DeltaV controllers.

Lou work with the Lukoil engineers to build ten artificial neural networks measuring gasoline, kerosene, diesel, VGO, and residue on the pre-flash, atmospheric, and vacuum towers. They believe this application of virtual sensors to be one of the world's largest on a single crude unit.

The real work comes in collecting the data needed to train the neural networks. They needed around 100 lab samples for each model and the continuous historical data for process variables over this sample period. The DeltaV Neural software helped automatically perform the data collection and model training need to build and prove the neural networks. Up to 20 process variables were collected as inputs in training each of the ten neural networks. Any abnormal operating conditions were identifies to exclude the data from this time period from the model. Any of the variables that had little or no effect on the model outputs were eliminated.

The largest challenge in the data collection effort was in the lab data. It had to be accurate in terms of precise time of taken sample and the proper analysis of the sample. The quality of the neural networks is directly impacted by the accuracy of the samples. Another important factor is to make sure the process data is not filtered or manipulated, but instead a raw snapshot.

The resulting inferential sensors predicted what the lab results showed within a few degrees. The ones estimating lighter refined products were more accurate. The engineers have not closed the loop to run the control strategies based on these readings, but they do present the information to the operators to make adjustments more frequently then they could with samples coming only once or twice a day.

As I mentioned in many earlier posts, Emerson has a long tradition for supporting open, interoperable standards. A recent example is the international standard, IEC 61804-3, Function blocks (FB) for process control - Part 3: Electronic Device Description Language (EDDL) which:

...fills the gap between the conceptual FB specification of IEC 61804-2 and a product implementation. It allows the manufacturers to use the same description method for devices based on different technologies and platforms.

The ISA's new SP104 committee is working to adopt this generic device description language specified by IEC 61804. The committee recently issued a press release, ISA SP104 Committee Releases EDDL Draft for Ballot. The key benefit to process manufacturers cited in the release:

Ultimately, tools based on EDDL enable faster device commissioning and loop checkout, as well as reducing field trips and eliminate unnecessary maintenance. Benefits from EDDL-based tools match corporate strategies such as reduced maintenance cost, quality improvement, increased throughput, and reduced downtime.

From a user perspective, applications which support EDDL can display information from these smart devices using familiar dialog boxes to present graphs, charts, and trending of dynamic variables in addition to text, and archived data in a consistent, familiar format.

One of the really great aspects of the EDDL effort was the cooperation among the leading digital communications standards consortia including: Fieldbus Foundation, HART Communications Foundation, PROFIBUS Nutzerorganisation, and OPC Foundation. This cooperation will continue to simplify the dissemination of information from the devices touching the process to those who need it to improve the performance of the process and the business. Emerson continues to incorporate this standard into its technology developments, like this recent announcement for EDDL enhancements for rotating machinery monitoring.

ISA SP104 is chaired by Emerson's Terry Blevins (a fellow blogger who you can see at ModelingAndControl.com.) Terry gave me a quick update that the SP104 committee is making good progress in advancing the adoption of the IEC 61804 standard as an ISA/ANSI standard.

From my days as a young systems engineer working on offshore oil & gas platforms in the Gulf of Mexico, I know that abnormal situations in our processes are something we all wish to avoid. A 1999 study by the ASM consortium estimated $10 billion USD in losses for U.S. process manufacturers due to abnormal situations. The question is how best to prevent these abnormal situations from occurring in the first place.

Emerson's Ravi Kant and Roger Pihlaja recently presented a paper, "Abnormal Situation Prevention (ASP) in Complex Systems" at the recent NPRA Q&A and Technology Forum.

In their presentation they stress that the potential severity and cost of an incident increases if timely corrective action is not taken. An example cited from a refinery abnormal situation is the failure of a butterfly valve. After going several hours without detection by the automation system or operations personnel, it caused the Cat Cracker (FCCU) to shut down. In a matter of minutes this caused the refinery to shutdown, resulting in more that $1 million USD per day in lost revenue.

Ravi and Roger explained how abnormal situation prevention (ASP) technology embedded in the sensors, actuations, and machinery health are closest to the process and have access to better information. This ASP technology can predict root causes of abnormal situations through high-frequency spectral and statistical data analysis within these smart devices. The main reason for doing this analysis closest to the process is that the sampling frequency is greater--22 samples per second, instead of 1 sample per second to 1 sample per minute typical at the automation system level.

Data analysis at this higher frequency can uncover process anomalies including drift, bias, excessive noise, process spikes, and plugged conditions. Some of the detection and prediction algorithms and techniques which are employed include: polynomial extensible regression, principal component analysis, statistical process control, decision trees, fuzzy logic, and neural networks.

They cited some specific ASP applications in refineries including early detection of catalyst losses, catalyst circulation issues, afterburn conditions, column and heater coking, temperature runaway, and acid levels outside optimal or safe levels. The key to detecting these process conditions is sharing this data analysis at from the field device level, up through the equipment level, up through the process unit level to the operators and plant maintenance staff. Digital communications technologies like Foundation fieldbus and HART provide the information path.

Roger also shared with me other high-frequency data dependant ASP applications in the process including:

• Plugged impulse line detection for DP flow transmitters
• Flame instability
• Stick/slip in FCC solids transfer lines
• Stirred tank vessel agitator diagnostics
• Continuous rotary drum vacuum filter diagnostics
• Fouling & DP level transmitter plugging in evaporators
• Detection of developing ASP issues like arching, bridging, & rat-holing in bulk solids storage vessels
• In-situ proof testing of emergency relief systems

Work continues to refine and extend these predictive ASP technologies to more smart field devices to increase the "eyes and ears" on the process in order to avoid the costs and losses associated with abnormal situations.

When modernizing your automation systems to take advantage of the digital technologies today's systems offer, you need to also take a look at the historical data you may have been collecting over the life of the system.

Recently Emerson's Clarence Presha presented a paper with a customer who looked at how to take 10 years of historical data collected by the Biles AIM historian and move it to OSIsoft PI System. The driver was that this data is the foundation for production reporting, process troubleshooting, and process improvement. Over this period of time, quite a bit of reporting and visualization tools have been built including using Excel spreadsheets for basic graphics, and Excel macros for reporting functions. This solution built over the years had limited capacity, slow frequency data (60 sec scan rate), and had custom code that was difficult to maintain and improve.

Clarence and the team identified more than 10,000 tags that needed to be converted. The agreed upon approach was to take a thin slice to demonstrate the proposed data management modernization solution. For this thin slice phase, sample PI tags were created with simulated history. Performance equations were added replacing the existing AIMcalcs. PI ProcessBook displays with a proposed graphics standard were created to improve visualization. Some existing production reports with custom Excel macros were updated standard PI functions. Finally, RtPortal was used to show plant information which could be made available to engineering, operations, and management via web browser.

Clarence and the Emerson data management experts provided design, configuration, data migration, testing, training of the operations, technical, maintenance, and engineering staff, and on-site deployment services for this project.

Some of the key results cited in this presentation were better visualization tools for real-time and historical information for the operators to analyze what was going on in the process. Also some newer equipment that had not been added to the legacy data management solution could now be added extending the operators' view. The web-based view into the key process parameters opened up more parts of the organization to what was occurring in the process. This view was combined with information from other business systems including the MRP, scheduling, and plant maintenance systems.

You may recall our Cyber-security expert Bob Huba from some earlier posts on this topic. Bob has done an excellent recap of the Cyber-security presentations from the recent Emerson Exchange which I'll pass along to you with some relevant hyperlinks:

The 2006 Emerson Exchange contains a significant increase in the number of system cyber-security presentations over past years. This indicates the increasing importance of system security in the minds of process manufacturers--since the user community actually develops the presentations and the agenda for the Emerson Exchange.

Last year there was only one short course and a couple of workshops on security. This year there are 2 full days of security presentations--basically the same presentations repeated each day to offer more opportunity for users to schedule time for the sessions. The Emerson Exchange Board doesn't usually schedule two sessions unless they feel the subject will be popular.

One highlight of the security sessions is the popular Idaho National Labs short course initiated in the 2005 Emerson Exchange--back again this year for two four hour sessions. The presentation, made by the highly knowledgeable presenter from INL Mark Fabro, held the rapt attention of 75 attendees. The course will be repeated on Thursday for those that attended the other cyber-security workshops scheduled concurrently with the INL course for this morning.

The other security workshops today had excellent attendance as well. One of our Pulp and Paper customers discussed how to keep your DeltaV system anti-virus scanners up-to-date using automated tools and procedures to download and distribute the signature updates. Another presented a user viewpoint on system security do's and don'ts. And I, the DeltaV marketing manager for DeltaV security, spoke on the DeltaV security enhancements, including the details on the new DeltaV Controller Firewall, to a packed room. Part of my presentation also included a section comparing a control system security program to a plant safety program. That like safety, a security program includes a significant effort on user education and training. We all need some basic cyber-security efforts and we just need to do something now rather than waiting for some complicated security program to develop.

Mark Fabro led an afternoon workshop discussion, "CyberSecurity Who Needs It" on how to understand the emerging threats and the practices countermeasures we can develop to mitigate these threats. We really need to have suppliers, users and the public sector to work together in this effort. Mark thinks there is a lot of fear, uncertainty and doubt in the user community about the "real" threats and how to mitigate them. Next was a refining customer with a management-oriented workshop on "Cyber Security and your Bottom Line". He was making the point that management is reluctant to spend the money on security. They need to justify how does this "help us make better oil" where better question might be "how does security keep us making oil". If your assets are at risk--water, power and environmental systems how long can we stay running? He also made the excellent point that when setting up a security policy that it "if it is important enough to make it a policy it is important enough to fire somebody for violating it."

The final presentation of the day was by two Oil & Gas customers with their presentation on "Cyber Security in a DeltaV Environment: A Harmonious Relationship". It was attended by over 50 people. Being the last presentation after a long day of being "PowerPointed" to death shows the serious concern manufacturers have about cyber security. They recommended a NIST publication 800-37 to help users develop their security program. A point was made discussing a key security concept--called "Defense in depth" and defined this as the concerted use of multiple security techniques to mitigate the risk of compromise to an acceptable level. At the same time they strongly advised that process user to be sure and use Defense in Depth techniques that are appropriate for use in the control systems and to not blindly deploy IT-based solutions that might impact the availability of the control system.

All in all, the Emerson Exchange developed an excellent and well attended set of control system cyber security workshops that provided process manufacturers with some great and pertinent information on keeping their DeltaV control systems as secure as possible.

A 2004 study by the U.S. Department of Energy shows continued global growth for the like Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) industry as one of the sources to meet global energy demand. Our Micro Motion division recently announced that Coriolis technology is ideal in cryogenic mass flow metering applications like LNG (-153.1 degC). LNG can be stored and transported much more efficiently in a liquid state than in a gaseous state.

I came across a Chemical Engineering magazine article entitled, Flow Measurement in Bitter Cold: How to Use Coriolis Meters in Cryogenic Service which better describes why Coriolis technology works well in the bitter cold of more than -100 degC.

The authors, Emerson's Tim Patten and Keven Dunphy describe how harsh temperatures pose problems for many flow measurement technologies. These problems are related to mechanical parts, wetted seals, and materials of construction with poor impact strength. And from a measurement standpoint, it's expensive to keep the cryogenic fluids cold, so they are kept slightly below their boiling points. As the fluid flows past an obstacle such as a valve, flashing can occur. Pockets of gas form in the liquid making flow measurement difficult at best.

Tim and Keven point out that Coriolis technology is well suited since it has no moving wetted parts, nor temperature sensitive materials, and it has the accuracy required to satisfy custody transfer regulations. They recommend careful attention be paid to the pressure drop across the meter to avoid flashing by increasing the meter size. Their rule of thumb:

...the difference between the discharge pressure and liquid vapor pressure at the fluid temperature should be maintained at a factor of at least three times the pressure drop across the meter.

The article also provides tips on density measurement limitations, insulation best practices, and non-linear compensation. These tips apply not only to LNG but other cryogenic applications like liquid helium.

For those who have seen some of my prior posts, you know I've been harping on why I think RSS (really simple syndication) is great.

Last Friday, Microsoft's Internet Explorer version 7 (IE7) blog confirmed that we will all be receiving IE7 with embedded RSS capabilities this month via automation update (dribble downloads as I call them.) As a friend in Switzerland reminds me, that is, unless your nefarious IT organization blocks this and allows this update only when they are good and ready (2009 he estimates!)

For both a presentation I gave to the Houston American Marketing Association and another at last week's Emerson Exchange, I showed a video clip of how easy it is to subscribe to an RSS feed using IE7. Since 87% of this month's visitors use Internet Explorer, take a look. For those 11% who use Firefox (which already handles RSS) feel free to ignore this whole post.

Basically, this video describes me subscribing to the DeltaV News feed using IE7, shows how the RSS feed is in readable form, and shows how to easily subscribe to the feed. Finally it shows how it's integrated with Outlook 2007 if you prefer to read your RSS feeds and RSS search feed posts as you would emails. This is my preferred way, since it's the application I spend the most time with, and the RSS posts (the full text feed ones) can be read offline.

As Walt Boyes recently reported in his coverage of the Emerson Exchange, a successful year has brought on the need for additional experts throughout Emerson Process Management.

Here in Austin, Texas where our Process Systems and Solutions organization is based there are quite a number of job openings for IT Professionals, Software Developers, and Project Engineers. There are even some Marketing Product Manager positions which I don't see yet posted. And even more as you look at the various divisions within Emerson Process Management.

Take a look and if interested respond directly to the opportunity or email me and I'll route it in the right direction.

Thanks to the safety expert who found the Emerson Process Experts blog and emailed me for giving me the idea for this blog post.

UPDATE: My friends in our Calgary-based Hydrocarbon and Energy Industry Center want me to also mention that the great Oil Sands projects in Northern Alberta require talented project engineers and managers.

I'm playing catch up this week after returning from a very successful Emerson Exchange meeting last week. I'm thankful that the board accepted my presentation, Finding What You Need Faster Via RSS and Blogs. One of the points I made is that we all have quite a bit of expertise that we can share.

Events like the Emerson Exchange allow us to come together one week out of the year to share this expertise with one another. That leaves an opportunity for 51 other weeks. Blogging is a way to share your expertise year round and to invite others to join in the conversation through your blog's comments.

It was fantastic to receive an email from Dave Harrold of the AFAB Group that he was inspired to share his wisdom with us in the blogosphere. Dave has vast experience as an automation engineer, with one of Emerson's local business partners, as a senior editor with Control Engineering magazine, and now as a freelancing writer.

Check out his maiden post, AFAB Group in now blogging and consider subscribing. I've also added Dave to the right-side blogroll as another member of our growing community of process automation and process industry bloggers.

As I also mentioned in the presentation, if subscribing via RSS is something foreign to you, spend five quick minutes with our RSS Starter Kit.

Now, back to catching up!

Emerson's David McLaurin in the Rosemount division presented a workshop entitled, Radar Solves High Temperature Level Application. The application was at a major chemical manufacturer. The refinery makes an intermediate for polyester and other fibers.

The application for level measurement was on a crystallizer unit that had high operating temperature of 230 degC (450 degF.) This unit was a critical path in making the intermediate material. Given these high temperatures nuclear, differential pressure, guided wave radar, other non-contact radar, and weigh cell measurement technologies were considered. Each had issues associated with reliability in this high temperature operating environment.

Radar was chosen as the best option. The manufacturer used a Rosemount Model 5600 non-contacting radar level transmitter with a quartz extended cone. Upon installation there were some issues with condensation on the antenna. This was resolved through insulation. One other issue involved echoes from the agitator blades in the crystallizer unit. Through the software these were masked out.

Comparing the historical trends on the new radar measurement versus the prior nuclear measurement, the radar performed more reliably and more accurately when the unit was operating at low levels.

Todd Ham and Dan Lorenzo from Emerson's Life Sciences Industry center presented a workshop entitled, Large Project Execution. The focus is on sharing best practices for successfully executing large projects.

They define a large project as 10 or more engineers with more that 5000 engineering hours. The project schedule is typically measured in years and tends to have high visibility with upper management.

Far and away the most important aspect to success is the team leadership. Team leaders should possess technical expertise, managerial competence, and the ability to attend to problems early. Many different styles of leader can be successful, but setting upfront expectations is critical. Dan cites a balanced leader that is knowledgeable, but non ego driven, is willing to make and stand behind tough decisions, knows when to defer to the team, and provides an environment for the team to explore new ideas. This leadership style gives the project its best chance of success.

The next important step is to create a common message to breakdown the project complexities, to provide a clear, cross-functional set of objectives, and to help everyone understand their roles in achieving these objectives. Todd made it clear this is not "rah-rah" motivational sayings on wall posters, but rather a clear vision such as a world-class biotech facility.

The makeup of the team is very important. Most teams have a mix of experience and inexperience and personalities. It's important the leadership be engaged, reinforce the common message and direction, and deal with people issues head-on and early. Build a team with a balance of skills and personality.

Project indicators that things are going well include new ideas being suggested, measured progress being made, and people on the project generally seem happy. On the flip side, indicators that things are not going well include people acting differently in the presence of team leadership, the leadership being unaware of major issues, and people hoarding information and knowledge. It boils down to reinforcing practices that are yielding good results.

Finally measure and monitor what makes sense for the project. Items that are measured will get better. Too many metrics can do more harm than good and not move the project forward toward the intended objectives.

In addition to the many presentations and demonstrations Terry Blevins and Greg McMillan have been giving this week, they have also gotten out some more jewels on their ModelingAndControl.com blog. Greg has also been showing fresh off the press copies of his new book, Bioprocess Modeling and Control: Maximizing Process Analytical Technology Benefits.

Terry offers up a Basics of Advanced Control post including the overview from his award-winning Advanced Control Unleashed book. He notes that the proceeds from this book go to "universities, consortia, and educational programs to promote and enhance the development and use of advanced process control."

Greg tackles the issues associated with measuring pH in his post, Techniques to Improve pH Measurement Performance. He includes his thoughts on improving pH electrode performance and his unique humor on the top 10 signs of a rough pH startup. I like seeing his natural sense of humor coming early in the life of this blog. Keep it coming!

It's great to see this wisdom put out in blog posts and books. Check out their posts and add your wisdom in the comments section.

Here at the Emerson Exchange we're now into the workshops where process automation professionals, Emerson technologists, and Emerson industry, project, and application professionals share some of their experiences.

Dave Horan, has 17 years with Emerson's Rosemount division. Dave works with many of the engineering contractors on large projects on their instrumentation requirement. His presentation is on a shallow-water offshore project off the coast of Venezuela.

The project had a floating storage offloading, central processing facility and wellhead platform. The central process facility (CPF) basically cleans up and separates the produced fluids from the wellhead platform. Produced water and some gas is re-injected to the reservoir to help keep the production flowing.

The largest problem in this project was 40 skids coming from 23 vendors located on 2 continents. The number of possible permutation in types of instruments is huge given so many skid suppliers. This would create a real training and maintenance headache to support these once the CPF was started up. The challenge was to manage the skid vendors to standardize on a set of instrumentation to reduce the permutations.

For the Rosemount transmitters, up front planning was done with the oil producer's engineering team to pre-select appropriate instruments that could be used by all the skid vendors. For this project, all skid vendors had the same project manager in Emerson's Rosemount organization, to specify and purchase the transmitters. Standardization was enforced for model numbers, materials, mounting brackets, and local indicators to name a few instrument selection parameters.

The project management group provides project managers, engineers, project documentation, quotations, data entry, logistics and other functions/deliverables required to achieve the project milestones.

The goal to reduce the variations of instrumentation was achieved meeting the project objectives of an on-time project and minimizing training and ongoing maintenance.

We're off to a great start at this year's Emerson Exchange 2006 at the Garylord Opryland in Nashville.

To see some excellent summaries from the leading journalists in our industry, check out these blogs:

• Walt Boyes' Sound Off!!!


• Greg Hale's Talk to Me


• Gary Mintchell's Feed Forward