Most people are familiar with statistics like, “It costs approximately 50% more to repair a failed asset than if the problem had been addressed prior to failure,” and “Industry statistics show that 60-70% of instrument work orders result in no work.” But, even with state-of-the-art condition monitoring and asset management systems, they may not realize how much time is spent and how difficult it is to turn a notification or alarm into a work order. According to Exploration & Production, “Technicians spend as much as 60% of their time managing data before they can focus on analysis and decision-making.”
That’s because alarm, historian and condition monitoring information are typically gathered in separate systems, none connected to each other or to the plant computerized maintenance management system (CMMS) or enterprise systems.
For several years, Emerson Automation Solutions’ Plantweb Optics asset performance platform has been expanding the same principles used for process optimization into reliability, safety and energy. In March, version 1.4 included an expandable data framework, robust customization tools, personalized notifications, and the ability to take data from multiple asset classes.
Now, Plantweb Optics version 1.5 has added several capabilities designed to pare down and streamline the time and effort devoted to analysis, decisions and work order management. The latest release adds connectivity to CMMS systems to create, prioritize, execute and track actions. It also includes a native historian for deeper analysis, and additional connectivity to plant floor data sources.
“You can see asset health and create work orders automatically, instead of looking at a ton of data in different apps,” said Mani Janardhanan, vice president, product manager, Plantweb and reliability solutions, at a press conference during the Emerson Global Users Exchange 2018 this week in San Antonio. “It’s available as a phone or desktop application. You can see the health of all your assets in one location, and initialize work orders from there.”
By integrating with IBM Maximo and SAP CMMSs, Plantweb Optics becomes a single platform where personnel can see operational issues, collaborate on a solution, and manage maintenance response, parts ordering, scheduling and work order execution—enabling a fully automated workflow loop for reliability from the prediction of problems to the execution of prescribed, preventive tasks to avert failure.
The native historian provides operators and reliability teams the ability to validate maintenance and operational response based on past asset behavior, and assess future performance of the asset. Now coupled with the automated workflows to their CMMS, personnel can more efficiently respond to reliability issues that affect production and ensure critical issues don’t go unresolved.
Plantweb Optics is also expanding the supported asset classes by adding access to Plantweb Insight applications, another component of the Plantweb digital ecosystem. The edge analytics provided on steam traps, pumps and heat exchangers is channeled to the operations team so they can determine effective strategies for these essential assets.
“You can use stranded diagnostics in existing applications, so investments in software like AMS Device Manager and ValveLink are accessible and utilized,” said Janardhanan. “Users can easily identify critical alerts and required action—alerts are organized around assets instead of individual issues, providing situational awareness, and data is filtered into meaningful information that drives action. You can capture and view stranded data, regardless of device type, and connection across asset classes delivers critical visibility over the entire plant.
“Now users can see operational issues, collaborate on a solution, manage the response, and validate effectiveness, in a single application, in a single location.”
For more information, visit www.Emerson.com/PlantwebOptics.