Processing, June 2020

JUNE 2020 www processingmagazine com 35 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 different processes that were difficult to manage The systems also lacked clear documentation to help operators nd the cause of alarms which led to guesswork and precious time spent on troubleshooting instead of other value added tasks After implementing a modern DCS the new HMI resolved the pop up and alarm management issues that had been frustrating operators By rationalizing alarms and implementing a new grayscale HMI operators can more quickly spot priority issues and understand and identify the root cause of issues faster eliminating guesswork Get ahead of downtime Chemical operations are being flooded with smart devices in the hopes of improving asset reliability and reducing downtime ese goals are achievable but only if you can turn the raw device data into clear actionable information ats exactly what a modern DCS can do for you It turns diagnostic and performance data into actionable information Operators use this information to see if an equipment unit or production unit is nearing failure and even track when those failures are most likely to happen ey then prioritize when assets need to be serviced or replaced and schedule that work during planned maintenance windows before unexpected downtime occurs When one chemical company needed to expand a unit to meet increasing market demand it chose to update its entire production unit to a modern DCS The older control system was operating inefficiently resulting in unplanned downtime and high maintenance costs The modern DCS now delivers historical and realtime production data to the plant operators in a clear understandable format for easier analysis Today when a system issue occurs downtime is signi cantly reduced Operators can more easily pinpoint the issue using captured production and equipment performance data In fact the chemical company reduced ongoing two hour downtime instances to less than one hour of recovery with a 50 increase in maintenance cost savings An easy decision Whether youre building a new chemical processing plant or replacing a control system thats nearing obsolescence you already have reason enough to use a modern DCS It gives you A single control platform to improve productivity and e ciencies across all operations Scalability to grow with your production demands Real time information to improve decision making across roles But a modern DCS becomes even more valuable when it can ll the knowledge gap of newer workers and elevate the performance of all workers Chris King is the PlantPAx migration business development manager for Rockwell Automation He has worked for over 41 years in industrial process control and joined Rockwell in 2017 Previously he was with Emerson Process Management for 14 years and Honeywell Process for 23 years Rockwell Automation www rockwellautomation com