Processing, April 2018

In developing and using the system the project met its goal of identifying and initiating resolution of process control SIS and documentation safety and reliability issues instrument rather than a typical reading or over range reading Older facilities will have a mix of smart and legacy instrumentation so the mA values may differ for legitimate process readings versus bad instrument indication This creates opportunity for configuration error Misalignment results worst case in the SIS continuing to operate with a bad instrument or mistakenly bypassing a still operating instrument If the process being monitored goes to a dangerous state the SIS will then fail to perform the correct action to take the process to a safe state The system checks these and related issues verifying that the instrument alarm and system fault settings are aligned The system performs many of the SIS verification and validation steps required by IEC 61511 Checks include confirming that the initiators and final elements specified in the SRS are implemented the process safety times required by the SRS are not exceeded and that the SIS configuration meets the initiator voting required by the SRS Failure of the SIS configuration to meet the SRS can result in identified hazards not being properly protected against putting people facility and the environment at risk Instrument range and trip setpoints are another area where issues can cause many different safety and reliability risks When an instrument or system is not calibrated configured to the design range operators and the SIS may be blind to the process entering an unsafe state If the misalignment does not result in unsafe operation it can cause spurious trips if the SIS trip setpoint ends up acting in the normal operating range of the process There are numerous places where range issues can appear thus these areas are high priority for the system to check Specific tests performed by the system include instrument configured to incorrect range control safety system configured to incorrect range errors in units of measurement errors in engineering unit conversion between systems and as built documentation systems containing incorrect ranges The above scenarios are a small sample of the checks performed by the system For each check issues identified were submitted to the responsible system owner and tracked for resolution Once a system owner reported that issues were resolved the data for their system was easily reloaded The dynamic reports immediately validated whether the issues were resolved or not In developing and using the system the project met its goal of identifying and initiating resolution of process control SIS and documentation safety and reliability issues Errors in any human endeavor are inevitable more so in managing change in complex process facilities By refreshing the base data on a regular basis the client can quickly act upon any new system configuration database and documentation misalignments that arise Dean Whitford is a PMI certified project manager program manager and business analyst with 19 years of software development and data analytics management experience He has been a project manager for Cybertech Automation Inc a North American controls and automation multidisciplinary engineering service provider EPC and MAC for four years and two months He may be contacted at https www linkedin com in deanwhitford Cybertech Automation Inc www cybertech ca 60 Processing APRIL 2018 INDUSTRY INSIGHT Digitization IIoT based technologies drive demand for global enterprise asset management software solutions The Global Enterprise Asset Management Software Market Forecast to 2022 finds the emergence of digitization and integration of Industrial Internet of Things IIoT based technologies will boost demand for EAM software and create a connected environment Revenues are expected to reach 28539 million by 2022 Key factors driving market growth include embedded IIoT based technologies pushing demand for EAM to analyze business functions and asset health conditions servicebased business model generating higher demand for EAM to integrate manufacturing operations and strategic partnerships with ERP vendors IT participants and niche IIoT technology companies expanding market revenues Frost Sullivan ww2 frost com