Chemical | Remote IIoT Application with a Twist
Grant Gerke | June 6, 2016
In general, oil and gas companies are beginning to divulge information about more sensing and cloud solutions in the U.S. This dispatch from Bob Gill at ARC Advisory Group documents a chemical case application from Denka that relies on a 3rd party turnkey monitoring solution for the company’s steam traps.
This asset management success story employs a IIoT system that’s completely outside of the plant’s control architecture. The twist, if you will.
As in most process facilities, Denka’s approach to monitoring of steam traps at its Styrenic Resins Plant was previously very manual, based largely on an annual inspection by a contractor. This conventional approach means it is inevitable that any failed steam traps will go unnoticed for a long time and contribute to wasted steam and wasted money. Indeed, Denka’s last yearly manual survey earlier in 2015 revealed 35 out of 210 steam traps (17 percent) as failed.
Being outside of the control system also helps alleviate HUGE security concerns with this IIoT solution:
Firstly, it has no involvement with or connection to the plant control system (DCS). This alleviates common concerns of process-industry owner operators of interference with a live and running DCS and, in terms of security, DCS data potentially leaving the plant.
Emerson Process Management provides this maintenance/asset management monitoring service. The IIoT case application train is getting full.
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