Emerson Exchange 365

By Paul Studebaker

“Ten years ago, we were in a reactive mindset, fixing issues if and when they occurred. We were firefighters, and we were really good at it, but we were totally ineffective at preventing breakdowns,” said Joel Holmes, principal engineer, site electrical reliability, at Monsanto’s Muscatine, Iowa facility, during a Monday press event presentation at the Emerson Global Users Exchange.

The Muscatine plant manufactures and packages agricultural herbicide, producing more than 70% of North American Roundup and 100% of acetanilide selective chemical products including Harness XTRA, Degree XTRA, and Warrant. It occupies more than 150 acres and has 450 employees running eight operating units 24/7/365.

It also has more than 10,000 valves. “Three-quarters of the valves were run to failure, and the rest were pulled on a time basis and overhauled, whether they needed it or not,” Holmes said. “Fifty percent had digital valve controllers, but they were not tied into the system—we had no means to access the information.”

Then the plant maintenance staff was reduced. “We had little or no collaboration between production and maintenance, and we needed to realize more of the full potential of the equipment,” Holmes said. “It was time to make a change.”

Now, the plant is reliability-focused. “Here’s how we got there,” Holmes said.

Road to Reliability

First, the plant established asset criticality ranking, “the foundation of any worthwhile program,” Holmes said. They used 12 factors to rank valve criticality A, B or C. “We would work only on A and B valves—C valves are run to failure.”

Then they optimized their workflow processes, analyzing and rationalizing their maintenance procedures. They added “deficiency” or “reactive” to the computerized maintenance management system (CMMS) task detail. “We defined ‘deficiency’ as anything outside defined actions,” Holmes said. “We could now compare the cost and see the savings of proactive maintenance.”

Some of the maintenance staff were consolidated into a subgroup to operate and manage reliability. “They were trained to do predictive, and to analyze the data.”

The result is a two-phased approach to valve maintenance. Three to four months before annual shutdowns, all valves are surveyed for physical issues such as gauging problems, packing leaks, regulator settings and corrosion, and serial numbers are verified to ensure data is accurate. Issues are all addressed during shutdown.

Valves identified as requiring condition-based maintenance are examined at least annually by AMS Device Manager, ValveLink and Control Valve Connected Services. “We are fortunate to work with Emerson on the valve connected services program,” Holmes said.

The proposal for remote-monitoring capabilities met with considerable resistance from Monsanto IT for security reasons. “But Microsoft Azure was in the process of being adopted company-wide as a corporate solution,” Holmes said. “When I was able to tell them Emerson already used it, it was a huge win for me.”

Proving ROI

“Upper management wants ROI,” Holmes said. “We put in place the means to distinguish between reactive and predictive expenditures, allowing us to track cost avoidance.” They found a $1,300 average difference in the cost of reactive and predictive work orders, not including downtime. “Accounting doesn’t recognize the cost of something that hasn’t occurred, but I can claim saved time and materials,” he said. So far, annual cost avoidance has added up to more than $525,000.

In one example, a 2-in Fisher control valve showed a travel deviation after a shutdown to replace catalyst. “We found a ¾ x 3-in. stainless-steel bolt stuck in this ceramic-lined valve,” Holmes said. “It had criticality A so we had a complete spare valve body and trim. Having that on-hand shortened the time to repair from 14 to 2 weeks.” When sold out—and it was—this particular asset’s production is worth $150,000 to $250,000 per hour.

Accomplishing the move from reactive to reliable can seem impossible when there is lots of data and not enough people, Holmes said. “Emerson experts take the data, run their algorithms and analyses, and tell me which bad actors to take action on.”

“I suppose you could say it’s changed me from an engineer to a cheerleader, to justify and show the results.”