The autumn edition of Innovations in Process Control is now published. It is also available in German, Italian, Spanish and French.
This edition contains articles on:
- Reliability management consulting
- Reliability value chain
- Improved engineering efficiency drives reliability
- Process reliability starts in the basement
- Keeping a close eye on corrosion
- Innovative technologies
Emerson Process Management Europe president, Roel Van Doren opens noting:
In an in-depth study Solomon Associates, a leading benchmarking company, quantifies the significance of top-quartile performance versus lower performers. The key to lifting performance into the top-quartile is a planned, integrated approach to all activities and technologies monitoring plant assets and workflows in order to standardise reliability practices.
The first four articles address aspects of this planned, integrated approach to reliability. Robert DiStefano notes that downtime in the oil & gas, chemical, refining and power industry routinely suffers around 5 to 7% downtime due to poor maintenance practices. He cites Solomon research:
…by reducing scheduled and unscheduled downtime, companies can reduce their maintenance spend by 50 per cent or more. Optimised reliability practices, such as increased condition monitoring and analysis based maintenance activities, drive down costs and also improve sales, quality, health and safety, and environmental compliance. These are all key factors affecting operational risk and shareholder value.
Michael Whittaker describes the reliability value chain:
Research has shown that top-quartile performers adhere to a set of closely linked process elements, a Reliability Value Chain that provides a systematic approach to optimising asset reliability and avoiding ad-hoc or inconsistent practices. Understanding the Reliability Value Chain sets the path for transforming raw data into usable information, into diagnostic knowledge and then into effective action. Ultimately, the ability to achieve top performance is dependent on the robustness of each element and, perhaps more importantly, on the effective connection of all elements within a continuous improvement cycle.
Read the articles for more on ways to get on the path to top quartile performance and practices that can help you across the lifecycle of your production facility.
You can also connect and interact with other reliability and maintenance experts in the Reliability & Maintenance group in the Emerson Exchange 365 community.
