In the current competitive market with increasingly shrinking profit margins, mining and other resource processing operations are being forced to optimise operations through streamlining activities and efficiencies.
Yokogawa’s Operations and Production Management suite of solutions has been designed to bridge the gap between production planning and process control, providing a fully integrated business to production environment. Yokogawa Production Management integrates the vertical production execution workflow across all departmental personnel and applications, enabling real-time decision making and allowing all tasks to be executed quickly, consistently, and efficiently for a more agile production.
Production scheduling
Generating daily production schedules manually can be difficult due to a high quantity of orders and the need for real-time data. ERP planning modules are also not designed for load levelling in process and batch industries, especially because of handling constraints, sequence control of production line with constraints, and material simulation. Based on its understanding of the vastly different challenges facing discrete and process industries, Yokogawa has developed a production scheduling module which supports the creation of optimised and feasible production plans.
The production scheduling provides visibility through simulation models of both logistics and unit operations, maintaining constantly updated projections of inventories and material properties. Some other features include:
• User-friendly charts making changing schedules clear and easy.
• Extended views in work construction, evaluation chart, and work viewer.
• Master data editor and master flow editor.
• Scheduling High-Performance Engine & Development Components.
• Web-based viewer allowing information access from remote locations.
Permit to Work Module
In order to resolve the challenges faced by paper-based permit to work systems that are found in most industrial plant operations, Yokogawa Production Management solution includes a Permit to Work Module (PTW).
The PTW is a formal communication system for risk identification, management and control, and communication. The PTW systems are predominantly used in hazardous industries where it is paramount to have correct work requests, reviews, authorisation and documentation in place before carrying out any task.
PTW is a core element in integrating safe industrial systems, including Risk Assessment and Isolation Planning. Integrated safety systems enable As Low As Reasonably Practicable (ALARP) reduction of unsafe activities in non-trivial work environments. PTW adherence is essential to achieve Process Safety Management.
Incident/Near Miss Management Module
Yokogawa’s Production and Operations Management suite of solutions also includes an Incident (or near miss) Management Module.
This is an essential business process designed to help avoid major incidents and near misses that lead to accidents in complex mining and chemical operations facilities. Incident Management’s key objective is to monitor compliance with the key Health Safety and Environmental (HSE) guidelines defined and promulgated by OSHA.
The Near Miss Management Module focuses mainly on managing the operational safety risk of complex operations through the following three components of plant operations: People-Plant-Process. The module is meant to ensure compliance to internal and external statutory/legislative safety requirements. It allows reporting, investigating and closing out of incidents, and comprises the following features and benefits:
• Pre-configured incident investigation workflow based on best practices (Reporting to Close Out).
• Enforced approvals workflows based on statuses.
• Configurable templates for data entry at each stage of incident investigation reviews and approvals.
• Pre-configured risk assessment matrix.
• Pre-configured root cause analysis tree.
• Auto email alerts for notifications to all stakeholders.
• Integration with document management systems to maintain latest revised control documents.
• Complete audit trail of users and actions taken.
Plant Information Management System (PIMS)
It is well known that plant data is the basis for all solutions in the process industry. As such, data must be easily captured and accessible to ensure long-term improvement opportunities. Based on open standards, Yokogawa’s data historian and PIMS solution easily captures data to provide a valuable bedrock.
The PIMS solution is especially unique in that implementation costs are significantly reduced when compared to the alternatives and offers the following key features and benefits:
• Easy business-wide information distribution.
• Enhanced plant data that is usable throughout the business.
• Data that can be accessed from multiple process control systems.
• Provision of long-term plant history.
• Event-triggered processing of data into business information.
• Time-resolved event history.
• An integrated platform which runs on Microsoft Windows platforms using industry standard technologies.
Production dashboard (RPO - Production Supervisor VP)
RPO Production Supervisor VP is a core component of Yokogawa’s real-time production management suite. The unified platform enables the unlocking of the true potential of valuable production assets.
Production Supervisor VP monitors and visualises KPIs, inventory and process data by effectively collating key production and quality information. All users benefit from the ability to personalise the portal window, and the visual representation helps to improve business performance.
The Production Supervisor eliminates information overload by presenting context and role-based information supporting HSE and financial regulatory compliance. In addition, it brings fundamental benefits to production management and other stakeholders by facilitating timely and effective decision making, promoting proactive problem solving and possible root cause identification. These are made possible through features and functions such as:
• Role-based portal that is easily tailored to specific user needs.
• High resolution views of aggregated information presented in context and on time.
• Definition and calculation of KPIs using ready-made templates.
• Drill-down function for root-cause identification.
Conclusion
As technology makes it easier to generate and analyse data, it is becoming imperative to ensure that customers are given the opportunity and enabled to take appropriate actions which can have significant impact to their bottom line. Yokogawa has embraced the spirit of ‘Co-innovating tomorrow’, allowing new value to be created together with its clients. The Production and Operations Management suite are just some of the solutions which Yokogawa is walking hand-in-hand with its clients to streamline their respective operations into efficient and effective businesses.
For more information contact Christie Cronje, Yokogawa South Africa, +27 (0)11 831 6300, [email protected], www.yokogawa.com/za
| Tel: | +27 11 831 6300 |
| Email: | [email protected] |
| www: | www.yokogawa.com/za |
| Articles: | More information and articles about Yokogawa South Africa |
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