The ARC “Technology Forecast for the Industrial Internet of Things” report remind us that “The transformation of the industrial sector has begun” and it brings “Information-driven systems based on increased connectivity, real-time data, advanced analytics”.
http://www.arcweb.com/strategy-reports/2014-08-01/arc-technology-forecast-for-the-industrial-internet-of-things.aspx
I personally believe pervasive sensing is an important part of the Internet of Things. The Internet of Things starts with sensors (and actuators) at the lowest level; this is where pervasive sensing fits. These sensors are digitally networked, from the very first meter, up through controllers and gateways. The other part of the Internet of Things is that the chain of all-digital networks continues up through a secure connection across the Internet. The connection over the Internet would typically be a VPN tunnel, essentially the plant’s corporate Intranet. Plant data is not made available on the public Internet. This enables assets like pumps, heat exchangers, air cooled heat exchangers, blowers, cooling towers, and compressors etc. to be monitored by a Subject Matter Expert (SME) from a central location.
ARC mentions “intelligent, connected production assets” which to me personally is about instrumenting ‘dumb’ equipment to turn them into smart pumps, smart heat exchangers, smart air cooled heat exchangers, smart blowers, smart cooling towers, and smart compressors etc. ARC mentions that “new service models” may emerge as a result of IoT. That is, by modernizing a plant with additional instrumentation, which is digitally integrated from the very first meter, it is possible for the process equipment OEM or a third-party service company to monitor these equipment remotely. With this, plants are “improving performance, reducing operating costs, and increasing reliability”. Performance improvement may include improving energy efficiency through steam trap failure monitoring, heat exchanger fouling detection, cooling tower fan optimization, relief valve leakage, as well as unit-wise energy consumption metering: water, air (compressed), gas/fuel, electricity, and steam (WAGES). Reducing operating costs may include reduced maintenance cost through monitoring of pumps, blowers, air cooled exchangers, on-process compressors, cooling towers, pipe & vessel corrosion, as well as managing valves and instrumentation – which all also improve reliability. To that I would personally also like to add reduced HS&E risk through Safety shower and eyewash station monitoring, manual and bypass valve position feedback, relief valve and rupture disk release monitoring, reducing operator rounds (to check gauges, sight glasses, VA meters, dip stick gauging, grab sampling, vibration, temperature, acoustic tester rounds.
However, ARC notes “we still have a long way to go. Large portions of industry have yet to discover these new solutions”. Nevertheless, some plants are already being modernized with WirelessHART to improve reliability, increase maintenance productivity, greater energy efficiency, and HS&E risk reduction. Many new plants are built with fieldbus for more effective monitoring of valve and instrument (especially flowmeters and analyzers) health, including on-offvalves, tank gauging systems, and gas chromatographs etc.
ARC sums it up well as “The Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) serves up data from connected devices in the plant or in the field and then processes those data using sophisticated new analytics and execution software systems.” That is, start by making sure devices around the plant are intelligent and networked; wireless or bus. The analytics software include for instance the essential asset monitoring software as well as utilities that runs on the plant historian.
I’d like to heat from the end-users on the EE365 forum if they have given any thoughts to the Internet of Things (IoT) for their plant