IT & SECURITY

IIoT boosts heat management

EMERSON’s extension to its Plantweb Insight Heat Exchanger app will help LNG and oil and gas plants better measure KPIs for increased efficiency, <i>Energy News</i> has learned.

IIoT boosts heat management

Plantweb is an analytics and asset alert predictive intelligence tool designed to provide maintenance staff real time access to critical heat exchanger diagnostics in chemical, oil and gas and refining operations.
 
Emerson reliability and wireless sales manager for Southeast Australia Craig Abbot told Energy News the new technology was applicable to LNG plants and especially to refineries and other petrochemical plants. 
 
"If you want to be more efficient, you need to have measurable KPIs to track. We like to paraphrase Peter Drucker by saying, ‘you can't manage what you don't measure," he said.
 
He said that though sensor pricing was coming down they were still not cheap, and there would always be a demand to be economical, so the company prefers a "surgical" approach to the industrial Internet of Things. 
 
"We know what information can be measured in an asset, and how that data can be used to create useful information and from the information." 
 
Plantweb joins a suite of offerings including apps for pumps, steam traps and pressure gauges and it uses pre-built algorithms that have been built from Emerson's decades of process experience and industry-vetted analytics to deliver predictive diagnostics that enable maintenance prioritisation. 
 
The interface allows maintenance and operations instantly from within a browser from any laptop, tablet, smartphone or other device connected to the network. 
 
Plantweb Insight monitors shell and tube heat exchangers to provide real-time status and alerts including fouling, heat duty and heat transfer coefficient and doesn't require integration with the plant's existing monitoring and control system; it can operate completely independent of existing or legacy control systems.
 
The app can also leverage existing data points when needed using OPC Unified Architecture - a machine-to-machine communication protocol - to collect data stored in the control system, historian or data base if access is available.
 
"If we are specific about what we measure, and we apply the right algorithms to the data, then we can derive useful information to support actions that drive plant efficiency, reliability and safety improvement projects," Abbott said. 

 

TOPICS:

A growing series of reports, each focused on a key discussion point for the energy sector, brought to you by the Energy News Bulletin Intelligence team.

A growing series of reports, each focused on a key discussion point for the energy sector, brought to you by the Energy News Bulletin Intelligence team.

editions

ENB Cost Report 2023

ENB’s latest Cost Report findings provide optimism as investments in oil and gas, as well as new energy rise.

editions

ENB Future of Energy Report 2023

ENB’s inaugural Future of Energy Report details the industry outlook on the medium-to-long-term future for the sector in the Asia Pacific region.

editions

ENB Cost Report 2021

This industry-wide report aims to understand current cost levels across the energy industry

editions

ENB Social Licence Report 2021

In its second year, this research now includes trends and new findings surrounding impacts and responses as the energy industry seeks to secure and maintain a social licence to operate.