Processing, June 2020

CHEMICAL PROCESSING Build your all star chemical workforce w i t h a m o d e r n D C S An information enabled distributed control system empowers chemical operators through useful insights By Chris King Rockwell Automation ts a truth that has passed the test of time in industrial operations Youre only as good as your workers Providing tools to empower staff to continually improve is I a major advantage of a data enabled modern distributed control system DCS Even today with more information and greater automation your success still hinges on those veteran operators the ones who have a detailed understanding and situational awareness of your process and seemingly always make the right decision whatever the situation But what happens when these valuable resources retire e less experienced workers who take their place likely wont have the same level of experience or the ability to anticipate and rectify issues quickly And you cant a ord to spend years or even months replacing lost knowledge With a modern DCS your new operators can become virtually as e ective as your best operators in mere weeks A modern DCS is information enabled and seamlessly connects all aspects of your chemical operations including both automated and manual tasks arming your operators with clear actionable information And it can help guide them through operating problems in real time is helps operations focus resources on further improvements in people and processes As a result you can have greater con dence that even your newest operators will soon be among your best workers This is essential to lowering overall enterprise risk Empower all workers By guiding operators decisions a modern DCS can reduce your operational reliance on veterans who have accumulated vast operations knowledge It can also reduce the time it takes for new operators to get up to speed on their jobs or cross train on di erent processes is could prove critical for managing the turnover of millennials who may only stay in one job for only a few years not a few decades So how exactly does a modern DCS do this It uses a high performance human machine interface HMI which provides critical information to operators and guides them to the right decisions during production and maintenance is involves using a combination of proven situational awareness techniques and graphic screen designs that enhance an operators focus and response time It can capture manual steps that are not automated in the context of digitized sequences which can display standard operating procedure SOP video content and Augmented Reality all while capturing timing and results of manual actions is contextualized data drives consistent operations more detailed root cause analysis RCA and continuous improvement initiatives By guiding operators and avoiding non essential data that can distract them a modern DCS improves process visibility decision making and safety ese capabilities can bene t experienced workers just as much as they do new workers if information is limited in your operations In fact when one chemical company replaced the control system across its plants with a modern DCS better information and nancial reporting was one of its goals The new information enabled system displayed real time data helping operators make much better and more timely decisions In addition the new system transformed data collection data aggregation and reporting allowing insights to be shared on demand with business management for improved decision making and nancial reporting Due to the improved decision making the 16 million project paid for itself in just nine months and the modern DCS will be used in four other projects the company is working on Reduce alarm burdens Sometimes less than optimal alarming can create more problems than it solves Legacy alarm systems in particular can generate distracting nuisance alarms ey also often lack historical and contextual information is can make it hard for workers especially inexperienced ones to figure out the root cause of an alarm quickly and e ectively A modern DCS however helps to reduce nuisance alarms and make remaining alarms in your chemical operations actionable e result As alarms do occur operators are guided by the DCS to immediately know what they need to do and how urgently they need to perform these actions is cuts troubleshooting time and costs and overall enterprise risk which ultimately reduces downtime and lost production as well as reducing incidents For example at a small batch chemical production facility in California the plant control systems were no longer supported ey were creating production issues such as pop up alerts that frustrated operators and alarms 34 Processing JUNE 2020 By guiding operators and avoiding non essential data that can distract them a modern DCS improves process visibility decision making and safety Images courtesy of Rockwell Automation