Making calls, sending text messages, responding to e-mails and surfing the web are activities that we have been doing for so long without thought of how these connections happen. With our ubiquitous smartphones, tablets, and laptops, we have the ability to get in touch with anyone, anytime and anywhere – and we expect our phone and Internet service to deliver without issue or interruption.
The same wireless technology has changed (and is changing) the game in the process industries, bringing new possibilities in the areas of maintenance, security, and health safety and environmental (HSE) performance. Between my first wireless project in 1999 and today, I have seen how the technology evolved and reached its current stature. Wireless has now already spread around the world, operating in thousands of refineries, oil fields, offshore platforms, chemical plants and industrial facilities in more than 120 countries. In fact, a few months ago, Emerson announced that it already clocked more than 1 billion total hours of wireless operation in over 10 000 networks, many of which are located in Middle Eastern and African countries like Bahrain, Iraq, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Angola, Egypt, Kenya, Nigeria and South Africa.
Wide-scale adoption
One of the key events that led to the rapid adoption of wireless is the international standard IEC62591 or WirelessHART – the first wireless standard developed specifically to meet the needs of the process industries. The standard was established by the HART Communication Foundation (HCF) in collaboration with end-users, process equipment vendors, and engineering and communication experts. WirelessHART was ratified in September 2007 by the HCF and approved by the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) in 2010. Today, many major process control equipment vendors are offering products and solutions based on WirelessHART.
Many things have been said about wireless in the process industries. Whichever process control magazine or website that you read, you will not find it difficult to find discussion about wireless. While there is no argument about the benefits of this technology, there remain a few conservative process manufacturers who are still hesitant about making an upfront investment in wireless.
And as the later adopters still wait for more assurance, the early adopters are now enjoying the fruits of their investment and moving to wider implementation. Emerson said that in the past five years, its wireless technologies led to customer installation savings of more than US$350 million and reductions in commissioning and installation time totalling 16 years.
Intelligence for health monitoring
The process industries are still discovering new applications for wireless, even in the much-explored areas of measurement, sensing, process control, and diagnostics. A perfect example is pump health monitoring.
One of our Middle Eastern customers was challenged to improve the health monitoring of the shipping pumps in their crude oil production station. Spread across the huge facility, these pumps deliver thousands of barrels of crude oil per day to an export terminal. Failure of the pumps can lead to station shutdown and significant production losses.
The customer’s condition monitoring team used to monitor the shipping pumps with an offline vibration data collection technology on a monthly basis. This means that if the team starts collecting data from the first pump today, the data collection for the rest of all pumps will be completed only after 30 days.
By replacing the offline technology with wireless vibration transmitters, the customer was able to eliminate the very long and costly process. Now, personnel both in the field and the distant control room can receive vibration information every hour. The wireless solution significantly reduced visits to the production areas and saved hours of travel time, which translates to higher safety, lower cost, and better productivity.
Another application that is receiving praise today is stream trap monitoring. With rising energy costs, process manufacturers are striving to improve their steam utilisation and avoid steam waste. Unfortunately, in many plants, the lack of a proper stream trap maintenance strategy creates steam trap problems that result in failure and leakage. It is estimated that an average refinery can lose up to $4 million every year in energy costs due to malfunctioning steam traps.
The traditional way of inspecting multiple traps in a plant is to send someone and check each trap, which is inefficient and sometimes hazardous. Now, by using wireless acoustic transmitters, the same person can monitor steam traps remotely and minimise physical visits. The solution provides insights into the state of each steam trap instantaneously, allowing the maintenance team to effectively plan and prioritise their work.
Personnel and asset tracking
Workforce productivity and human safety and environment (HSE) performance are top priorities for process manufacturers today. This is reflected by the rapid adoption of wireless for plant networks.
CCTV cameras can provide full visibility to and increase the security of homes, offices, and commercial establishments. In the process industries, CCTV monitoring is old news. Plant owners are moving forward to advanced and more sophisticated practices in tracking people and assets.
Wireless tracking applications are implemented with varying degrees of complexity depending on budget and business needs. For standard tracking, plant owners use Wi-Fi Active Radio-Frequency Identification (RFID) access badges. These ensure that personnel, contractors, and guests are allowed or restricted to enter specific plant areas depending on their roles. These badges also help plant owners to track attempts of violating security protocols and quickly detect potential vulnerabilities in security systems. For hazardous plant areas where tracking is more critical, plant owners maintain a more robust Wi-Fi network infrastructure with numerous access points, enabling them to obtain more accurate location information.
The same Wi-Fi Active RFID technology is also applied to plant assets. When assets are moved from one plant area to another, their locations are updated in real-time in the operators’ tracking database. This is significant in the event of a plant upset, as operators can direct the personnel nearest to the assets’ location to observe and address issues.
In addition to improving HSE performance, new wireless applications expand collaboration in maintenance and repair. An example is the new Mobile Worker, an easy to operate head-mounted camera, microphone, and earpiece that plant personnel can wear to communicate wirelessly with a remote expert and solve problems on the spot. Using this wearable video camera significantly removes the cost of flying subject matter experts to remote locations to investigate difficult problems.
A final safety related example is where one of our customers had a plant with over 100 eye wash and safety showers. They asked for a solution through which they could alert operators when a safety shower had been activated. The customer installed wireless discrete transmitters in the area, and this created a system that would issue an activation alarm in the facility’s control room. This allowed the operators to rapidly dispatch assistance to the area and check for possible injuries.
Embracing wireless
Some process manufacturers may find it difficult to consider wireless because it is a relatively new technology. It is natural to have concerns about protecting process data, and this is why control equipment vendors like Emerson make sure that their products are equipped with the most advanced security technologies.
Today’s wireless solutions offer robust, multi-tiered, always-on security that uses advanced, standards-based encryption and authentication, verification, key management, and anti-jamming techniques. Threat-control capabilities control and contain known and unknown threats, and network admission control helps you enforce organisational security policies to allow only trusted end-point devices to access your network.
I have discussed just a few examples of how process manufacturers are climbing the wireless ladder, and how new applications are being used to solve both traditional and emerging challenges in the areas of maintenance, security, and health, safety, and environmental (HSE) performance. Common in these applications is the experience of fast installation and implementation, reliable and secure transmission of data, and robust connection using an internationally accepted wireless standard.
Wireless is here to stay and is the next inflection point in our industry, so those who have not yet embraced the technology should pick an application, even the simplest one, and experience how wireless technology can move out of the box of traditional process control.
For more information contact Mark Tapson, Emerson Process Management, +27 (0)11 451 3700, [email protected], www.emersonprocess.com
| Tel: | +27 11 451 3700 |
| Email: | [email protected] |
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