Refining Blog

Driving Refinery Safety Performance Improvement

Jim Cahill — Fri, 29 May 2020 16:49:34 GMT

Refining crude oil into gasoline, jet fuel and other petrochemical products requires constant vigilance in safety. And although the refining industry has always been focused on safety—and overall rate incidence reports have been decreasing—there are still opportunities for improvement.

According to the American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers (AFPM), the top three leading causes of Tier 1 and Tier 2 incidents between 2012 and 2016 were due to issues with piping, atmospheric tanks, and pumps.

In an article from the Refiner’s Guide to Digital Transformation and Top Quartile Performance, Emerson’s Tim Olsen shares ways for refiners to embrace new strategies and technologies that reduce their personnel’s exposure to hazardous environments and materials—and integrate more accurate, reliable, and regulatory-compliant process equipment to enhance personnel and site safety.

When it comes to personnel safety, Tim notes that for refiner’s staff members:

…who make the rounds to enable your refinery to operate smoothly, safety is everything. Even though a typical refinery spends less than 10 percent of its time in transient operation—those hours surrounding a plant shutdown or startup—it’s also the time when 20-to-30 percent of process safety incidents occur.

Ways modern technologies can help include:

…better methods of flame and gas detection in the most hard-to-reach and dangerous refinery environments, the ability to use more wireless sensing and analytics to eliminate the need for personnel to do manual data collection in dangerous areas, and more accurate, reliable methods of toxic gas detection that further keep your personnel out of harm’s way.

Process equipment failures also affect safety performance.

According to the National Response Center Database, approximately 40 percent of process safety incidents can be tied to mechanical integrity across all processing industries.

Read the article and others in the Refiner’s Guide for more on ways to drive improved performance in safety and digitally transform your refining operations.

Visit the Downstream Hydrocarbons section on Emerson.com for more on the technologies and solutions to help you drive top quartile business performance. You can also connect and interact with other downstream hydrocarbon industry experts in the Refining group in the Emerson Exchange 365 community.

The post Driving Refinery Safety Performance Improvement appeared first on the Emerson Automation Experts blog.

Digital Transformation Actionable Roadmap

Jim Cahill — Fri, 15 May 2020 17:20:15 GMT

Because the refining industry is constantly changing, with new regulations and opportunities with discounted crude oils, changing distribution patterns, and new competitors on the scene—refiners are challenged to adapt to a complex and dynamic environment.

Not only must they optimize process operations, train and upskill staff, and be flexible enough to capture favorable market conditions, they need to maintain compliance and meet safety standards, while improving efficiency. Digital transformation provides a path to Top Quartile performance in safety, efficiency, and reliability.

In an article from the Refiner’s Guide to Digital Transformation and Top Quartile Performance, Emerson’s Marcelo Carugo shares avenues for starting the digital transformation process. Three essential conditions for refiners include:

Operational agility—which involves being able to efficiently process different feedstocks while avoiding asset degradation, becoming more flexible to accommodate changing demands for different products, and producing more products for markets not traditionally served.
Achieving Top Quartile performance-level availability—which is related to operational and mechanical availability, asset reliability at the site, and best-in-class strategies and technologies.
Implementing shared intelligence—where sophisticated new technologies deliver the right information to the right person who can take the right action when needed. It’s about bringing the data to the expert, instead of the expert to the data.

In Marcelo’s article, Creating a clear and actionable roadmap for digital transformation, he describes critical elements for successful digital transformation initiatives. These include:

Developing a clear and focused business case for investment.
Creating a scalable methodology that lets refiners transform operations at their pace, based on the value you achieve.
Incorporating a flexible technology platform that allows refiners to effectively start anywhere.
Choosing a strategy that includes people and work practice.

Read the article as well as other on ways to drive Top Quartile performance in the Refiner’s Guide to Digital Transformation and Top Quartile Performance. Also, visit the Refining section on Emerson.com for more on the technologies and solutions to help you drive business performance improvements during these challenging times.

The post Digital Transformation Actionable Roadmap appeared first on the Emerson Automation Experts blog.

Refinery Flare Regulatory Compliance

Jim Cahill — Fri, 21 Feb 2020 16:18:30 GMT

At the 2020 4C Health, Safety & Environment conference, Emerson’s Jamie Marsden presented, New Refinery Flare Regulations 40 CFR Part 63. The rule, 40 CFR 63 Subparts CC and UUU, affects any refinery with a flare used as a control device for an emission point, and those refineries must have been in compliance by January 30, 2019.

These regulations set flare operating limits, require a flare management plan (FMP), and require a continuous parameter monitoring system (CPMS) plan. The regulations also cover pilot flame monitoring, visible emissions and flare tip velocity—requirements previously found in earlier versions of the rule.

Jamie explained that the FMP rule specifically states:

For each flare, the owner or operator shall operate the flare to maintain the net heating value of flare combustion zone gas (NHVcz) at or above 270 British thermal units per standard cubic feet (Btu/scf) determined on a 15-minute block period basis when regulated material is routed to the flare for at least 15 minutes.

And:

For each flare actively receiving perimeter assist air, the owner or operator shall operate the flare to maintain the net heating value dilution parameter (NHVdil) at or above 22 British thermal units per square foot (Btu/ft2) determined on a 15-minute block period basis when regulated material is being routed to the flare for at least 15 minutes.

It allows the (EPA) Administrator to confirm that the selected site-specific operating limit(s) adequately ensures that the flare destruction efficiency is 98 percent or greater or that the flare combustion efficiency is 96.5 percent or greater at all times. Combustion efficiency, net heating value in the combustion zone, and net heating value dilution parameter are calculated as defined in rule CFR 63.670.

The gas chromatograph performing these measurements average continuous emissions monitoring system (CEMS) calibration response must not differ by more than 10 percent of calibration gas value at each level after each 24-hour period. Any one injection shall not deviate more than 5 percent from the average concentration measured at that level. The linear regression curve for each organic compound shall have an r 2 ≥0.995.

The sample to be analyzed shall flow continuously through the sampling system. The sampling system time constant shall be ≤5 minutes or the sampling frequency specified in the applicable regulation, whichever is less.

Here’s a typical flare system to meet the 40 CFR 63.670 controls:

Jamie shared the basics of a gas chromatograph system:

There are two standard Rosemount gas chromatograph solutions to meet the flare vent gas composition monitoring requirement of 40 CFR Part 36. The first solution, a Rosemount 1500XA process gas chromatograph measures hydrocarbons, H2S, H2, CO and CO2. The second 1500XA option measures hydrocarbons, H2S, H2, CO, CO2 and Benzene.

Jamie also noted that custom solutions are also available since the downstream hydrocarbon producer is responsible for confirming the components that are in the flare that need to be measured.

Visit the Gas Chromatography for Environmental Monitoring section on Emerson.com for more on solutions to comply with flare regulatory reporting. You can also connect and interact with other gas chromatograph experts in the Measurement Instrumentation group in the Emerson Exchange 365 community.

The post Refinery Flare Regulatory Compliance appeared first on the Emerson Automation Experts blog.

Driving Safer and More Secure Refining and Chemical Operations

Jim Cahill — Tue, 28 Jan 2020 20:15:05 GMT

According to the United States Energy Information Administration, the Texas and Louisiana Gulf Coast refiners and petrochemical producers accounted for 50.5% of the U.S. total finished petroleum products as of October 2019. So with over half of America’s refining and petrochemical production, running these facilities as safely, efficiently and reliably as possible is critical.

For refiners and chemical producers in the Corpus Christi and Houston, Texas regions, Emerson and Emerson Impact Partner Puffer-Sweiven industry experts will team up to conduct two Digital Transformation Innovations for Process and Personnel Safety in Refineries and Chemical Plants seminars.

The seminars will run from 8am to 1pm on February 10 in Corpus Christi and February 12 in Houston. I’ll update the post as additional locations are announced.

The focus for the seminars will be on the technologies and solutions in control and asset management to help drive safer and more secure operations. Key discussion areas will include:

Safety First: Digital transformation solutions for safety
Process Safety – focus on safer operations
Achieve Top Quartile- Operational Availability, Net Cash, Margin while maintaining Safety and Environmental
Compliance
Occupational Safety
Cyber threats
Actionable next steps

Several Emerson experts you may recognize from earlier posts will share their experience including Marcelo Carugo, Ed Schodowski, Dr. Doug White, Christiane Lederer, Marcio Donnangelo, Marcelo Dultra, Dave Macedonia, Scott Pettigrew, and Pete Sharpe.

Register today if you’ll be in the Corpus Christi area on February 10 or Houston on February 12, or contact our refining & chemical industry experts to discuss ways to drive safer and more secure operational performance.

The post Driving Safer and More Secure Refining and Chemical Operations appeared first on the Emerson Automation Experts blog.

Driving Safer and More Secure Refining and Chemical Operations

Jim Cahill — Tue, 28 Jan 2020 20:15:05 GMT

The seminars will run from 8am to 1pm on February 10 in Corpus Christi and February 12 in Houston. I’ll update the post as additional locations are announced.

The focus for the seminars will be on the technologies and solutions in control and asset management to help drive safer and more secure operations. Key discussion areas will include:

Safety First: Digital transformation solutions for safety
Process Safety – focus on safer operations
Achieve Top Quartile- Operational Availability, Net Cash, Margin while maintaining Safety and Environmental
Compliance
Occupational Safety
Cyber threats
Actionable next steps

The post Driving Safer and More Secure Refining and Chemical Operations appeared first on the Emerson Automation Experts blog.

Optimizing Opportunity Crude Usage while Minimizing Operational Risks

Jim Cahill — Wed, 04 Dec 2019 15:24:07 GMT

Meha Jha

Julie Valentine

For refiners, opportunity crude is crude oil available on the spot market that are typically much lower cost than crude oil received under long-term contracts.

In a Hydrocarbon Engineering article, Finding the Sweet Spot, Emerson’s Meha Jha and Julie Valentine collaborated with Topnir Systems‘ Didier Lambert, to highlight the processing challenges for opportunity crudes and solutions to address these challenges.

They open describing the challenge in processing opportunity crudes.

As using expensive crudes can limit the profit margins of a refiner, there is a trade-off between the cost of crudes and the risk of operational impacts they can have on the process.

If the opportunity crudes are not blended to the right ratios for which the refining process has been designed, these operational impacts can include:

…risks such as corrosion, fouling, bottlenecks and slowdowns.

They provide an example of what the use of operating crudes can financially deliver.

An increased usage of just 1% of opportunity crudes could save US$5 million for a 250 000 bpd refinery at a differential of US$6/bbl…

Even the composition of long-term suppliers of crude can change.

Furthermore, crude assays from known suppliers are not always consistent as changes in the conditions at the source can affect the crude over time.

Crude assays, lab analysis and tank blending are the traditional ways to find and change the characteristics of the crude oil, such as its API gravity, acidity, sulfur content, etc. To avoid some of the operational impacts, refiners are looking to more automated and continuous ways characterize and blend the crude oil.

These changes include adopting technology to provide online crude characterization and inline blending to accurately measure each component according to a target recipe, enabling real time blend adjustments based on the online crude analysis.

Instrumentation such as [hyperlinks added for more information]:

Flow, density and viscosity meters can confirm simple characterisations. Topology and near-infrared (TopNIR) analysers and models can be used for full characterisation.

Simple characterizations include crude oil density, viscosity and water cut. Full characterization includes:

…API gravity, sulfur, temperature boiling point curve, TAN [total acid number], carbon-hydrogen ratio, asphaltenes, and yields.

Models help to allow fewer samples to be required to interpolate compatible crudes by providing:

…a library of crude clusters grouped by chemical characteristics and properties.

Read the article for more on how the simple and full characterizations combined with advanced process control can help maximize the use of opportunity crudes and avoid the operational impacts of non-compatible crude blends.

Visit the Refining section on Emerson.com for more on the technologies and solutions to drive top quartile performance. You can also connect and interact with other refining industry experts in the Refining group in the Emerson Exchange 365 community.

The post Optimizing Opportunity Crude Usage while Minimizing Operational Risks appeared first on the Emerson Automation Experts blog.

Optimizing Opportunity Crude Usage while Minimizing Operational Risks

Jim Cahill — Wed, 04 Dec 2019 15:24:07 GMT

Meha Jha

Julie Valentine

For refiners, opportunity crude is crude oil available on the spot market that are typically much lower cost than crude oil received under long-term contracts.

They open describing the challenge in processing opportunity crudes.

As using expensive crudes can limit the profit margins of a refiner, there is a trade-off between the cost of crudes and the risk of operational impacts they can have on the process.

If the opportunity crudes are not blended to the right ratios for which the refining process has been designed, these operational impacts can include:

…risks such as corrosion, fouling, bottlenecks and slowdowns.

They provide an example of what the use of operating crudes can financially deliver.

An increased usage of just 1% of opportunity crudes could save US$5 million for a 250 000 bpd refinery at a differential of US$6/bbl…

Even the composition of long-term suppliers of crude can change.

Furthermore, crude assays from known suppliers are not always consistent as changes in the conditions at the source can affect the crude over time.

These changes include adopting technology to provide online crude characterization and inline blending to accurately measure each component according to a target recipe, enabling real time blend adjustments based on the online crude analysis.

Instrumentation such as [hyperlinks added for more information]:

Flow, density and viscosity meters can confirm simple characterisations. Topology and near-infrared (TopNIR) analysers and models can be used for full characterisation.

Simple characterizations include crude oil density, viscosity and water cut. Full characterization includes:

…API gravity, sulfur, temperature boiling point curve, TAN [total acid number], carbon-hydrogen ratio, asphaltenes, and yields.

Models help to allow fewer samples to be required to interpolate compatible crudes by providing:

…a library of crude clusters grouped by chemical characteristics and properties.

The post Optimizing Opportunity Crude Usage while Minimizing Operational Risks appeared first on the Emerson Automation Experts blog.

Assuring Single-Phase Vapor Sample for Gas Chromatograph

Jim Cahill — Tue, 03 Dec 2019 20:30:38 GMT

Laura Schafer

Gas chromatographs analyze the composition of hydrocarbon mixtures in process and natural gas applications. For online natural gas chromatography, the samples must be reliably conditioned to produce a single-phase vapor.

In this 5:42 YouTube video, How to Select a Vaporizing Regulator for Your Sampling, Emerson’s Laura Schafer explains how the TESCOM 44-6800 Vaporizing Regulator helps refiners and petrochemical producers to solve challenges such as inaccurate analytical results caused by gas sampling and conditioning issues. These inaccuracies can lead to wasted time and money for these producers.

The vaporizing regulator must add enough heat to assure a single-phase vapor state gas sample. In addition to measurement inaccuracies, heavier hydrocarbon liquids can contaminate the gas chromatograph.

Beyond maximizing the surface area to transfer heat to create the single-phase vapor state, the TESCOM 44-6800 vaporizing regulator includes a PID [proportional-integral-derivative] controller to accurately control the temperature based on the processing requirements from 50-400 degC.

This innovation replaces the lengthy wattage and source sample temperature variation calculations traditionally required in order to provide enough heat to assure a single-phase vapor sample. Closed-loop temperature control eliminates the need for these efforts.

Laura describes how the sampling cabinets are often heated and sometimes the required heat exceeds the transmitter specifications. With this Tescom regulator design, the transmitter and regulator can be separated where the temperature transmitter is housed outside the enclosure enabling great cabinet design flexibility and size reduction.

From a safety standpoint, a secondary thermal cutoff has been added to the regulator to shut off power to the vaporizing regulator in a thermal event.

Check out this video and visit the TESCOM 44-6800 Series Vaporizing Regulator page on Emerson.com for more on this innovative technology.

You can also connect and interact with other process and gas chromatograph experts in the Measurement Instrumentation group in the Emerson Exchange 365 community.

The post Assuring Single-Phase Vapor Sample for Gas Chromatograph appeared first on the Emerson Automation Experts blog.

Assuring Single-Phase Vapor Sample for Gas Chromatograph

Jim Cahill — Tue, 03 Dec 2019 20:30:38 GMT

Laura Schafer

From a safety standpoint, a secondary thermal cutoff has been added to the regulator to shut off power to the vaporizing regulator in a thermal event.

Check out this video and visit the TESCOM 44-6800 Series Vaporizing Regulator page on Emerson.com for more on this innovative technology.

You can also connect and interact with other process and gas chromatograph experts in the Measurement Instrumentation group in the Emerson Exchange 365 community.

The post Assuring Single-Phase Vapor Sample for Gas Chromatograph appeared first on the Emerson Automation Experts blog.

Assuring Single-Phase Vapor Sample for Gas Chromatograph

Jim Cahill — Tue, 03 Dec 2019 20:30:38 GMT

Laura Schafer

From a safety standpoint, a secondary thermal cutoff has been added to the regulator to shut off power to the vaporizing regulator in a thermal event.

Check out this video and visit the TESCOM 44-6800 Series Vaporizing Regulator page on Emerson.com for more on this innovative technology.

You can also connect and interact with other process and gas chromatograph experts in the Measurement Instrumentation group in the Emerson Exchange 365 community.

The post Assuring Single-Phase Vapor Sample for Gas Chromatograph appeared first on the Emerson Automation Experts blog.

Refinery Digital Transformation Case Study

Jim Cahill — Thu, 14 Nov 2019 14:00:00 GMT

Ergon’s Steve Elwart (l) and Emerson’s Marcelo Carugo (r) discussing Ergon’s digital transformation journey

Advancing technology has enabled productivity gains in both capital projects and ongoing operations for manufacturers and producers. Ergon Refining‘s Steve Elwart and Emerson’s Marcelo Carugo collaborated on a case study presentation on digital transformation at the Ergon Vicksburg, Mississippi refinery for the ERTC conference in Warsaw, Poland.

For a 500-metric-ton refinery, projects required between 5,000 and 10,000 man-hours in 1990. Today, this same design can be completed in 1,500-to-2,000 man-hours by taking advantage of available digital technologies. This productivity increase is due to increasing the number of tasks that can be performed in parallel and the broader collaboration enabled by communications and storage technologies.

On the operations side, the reliability and integrity of refinery assets can be improved with additional sensors, combined with real-time operational analytics, to enable earlier warnings of developing issues that could lead to unplanned outages if not addressed. This shift from preventive to predictive maintenance helps to improve process efficiency through automated planning and manufacturing, and process controls.

By combining these technologies with redesigned and streamlined workflows for plant staff, business performance improvements can be achieved, enabling strategic advantages in the global marketplace. Encouraging employee involvement throughout the digital transformation process has been key to its successful adoption.

Ergon is currently working to eliminate the last of their manual procedures. By tying into their enterprise business process, they can now streamline their order-to-cash process and ensure customers receive exactly what they ordered.

Ergon’s digital transformation journey is an ongoing evolution. Starting in one area of the plant, they used lessons learned from those upgrades and updates to expand the technology migration to another area of the plant. So far, their transformation has included hardware modernization for the control and process monitoring systems, asset management, an upgraded blending system, electronic marshalling, electronic log books, pervasive digital field networks, enterprise resource planning system integration, and mechanical integrity analytics systems.

Based on Steve’s experience, the journey to improved business performance through digital transformation programs involved seven steps that all companies can put into practice. These steps include:

Do the basics first
Provide adequate support
Transform IT and OT into partnered business leaders
Take your time
Be open and honest
Stress the “why”
Build momentum

Based on their digital transformation journey to date, Ergon has seen improved product specification performance, reduced process alarms, reduced instrument installation costs and commissioning times, streamlined financial reporting, and improved staff productivity in terms of increased production levels and skill sets.

By starting with business objectives to improve productivity and collaboration to drive business performance, Ergon Refining delivered quantified business results and increased their competitiveness in the global markets.

For more information about the technologies and solutions that drive improved business performance, visit the Refining industry section on Emerson.com. You can also reach out to Marcelo Carugo and Steve Elwart, as well as connect with other refining experts in the Refining group in the Emerson Exchange 365 community.

The post Refinery Digital Transformation Case Study appeared first on the Emerson Automation Experts blog.

Refinery Digital Transformation Case Study

Jim Cahill — Thu, 14 Nov 2019 14:00:00 GMT

Ergon’s Steve Elwart (l) and Emerson’s Marcelo Carugo (r) discussing Ergon’s digital transformation journey

Based on Steve’s experience, the journey to improved business performance through digital transformation programs involved seven steps that all companies can put into practice. These steps include:

Do the basics first
Provide adequate support
Transform IT and OT into partnered business leaders
Take your time
Be open and honest
Stress the “why”
Build momentum

The post Refinery Digital Transformation Case Study appeared first on the Emerson Automation Experts blog.

AFPM Summit Crude/Vacuum Distillation and Coking Q&A

Jim Cahill — Wed, 16 Oct 2019 13:14:01 GMT

One of the key parts of the AFPM Operations & Process Technology Summit is the Q&A Panel sessions. I attended the Crude/Vacuum Distillation & Coking Q&A session with a panel of experienced refiner professionals.

The first question was about meeting H2S specification in the vapor space in the shipping or receiving points in shipping intermediate streams from refinery to refinery. The one panelist noted that they were using a zinc-based scavenger to keep the levels within specification. Another panelist noted that metal-based and triazine-based scavengers have their advantages and disadvantages that need to be weighed depending on specification requirements.

A question came in about how one optimizes the dosage of scavengers. A panelist noted that trial & error is the approach they use to monitor the H2S space and arrive at the optimum quantity of scavengers to use.

Another question was about eliminating the use of anhydrous ammonia and chlorine. While substitutes such as biocides for cooling towers have effectively replaced chlorine use, anhydrous ammonia is still used in various applications.

Crude analysis is important when blending multiple crude unit feedstocks to avoid downstream fouling. Analytics are still quite complex and being refined. It’s not just the chemical compatibility of the different crudes but the thermodynamics (pressures, temperatures, flow rates) of the process to keep the asphaltenes from precipitating out of solution.

One refiner in the audience noted that refiners should assume the crude coming into the plant is a blend and you’ll be right 90% of the time. You have to have anti-fouling mitigation strategies to deal with the asphaltenes. Also, refiners use assays in the purchase of crude, but if the assay is more than a few weeks old, consider it not valid. You’ll need a sample of the crude in transit to the refinery. About have the session attendees use online analyzers and half use models to detect crude incompatibilities.

The next question came in about the best way to mud wash to prevent solids build up in the desalter. One panelist did trials doing continuous mud wash, intermittent mud wash and no mud wash. The continuous mud wash kept the desalter bottom fairly clean, while both the intermittent and no mud wash methods had build-up. Their decision was to use continuous mud wash as part of their operational procedures.

Another panelist noted that intermittent mud washing work OK for the light, sweet crudes, but heavier crudes with salts likely will need continuous mud washing. The source of the wash water is also very important.

Unfortunately this is all I could capture before attending another session.

The post AFPM Summit Crude/Vacuum Distillation and Coking Q&A appeared first on the Emerson Automation Experts blog.

AFPM Summit Crude/Vacuum Distillation and Coking Q&A

Jim Cahill — Wed, 16 Oct 2019 13:14:01 GMT

Unfortunately this is all I could capture before attending another session.

The post AFPM Summit Crude/Vacuum Distillation and Coking Q&A appeared first on the Emerson Automation Experts blog.

State-based Control Case Study at AFPM Summit

Jim Cahill — Tue, 15 Oct 2019 19:21:11 GMT

Dustin Beebe

At the 2019 AFPM Operations & Technology Summit, Emerson’s Dustin Beebe teamed with a professional with a global chemical producer. Their presentation was case study was on applying state-based control on one of their production processes.

Procedural automation addresses the various states in which a continuous process resides. Some examples include startup, upset recovery, planned shutdown, and emergency shutdown.

Procedure automation includes operational procedures and the automation of aspects of these operational procedures, typically at a unit operation scope. The operational procedure includes administrative control, a formal sequence of instructions executed by the process operators. This sequence of instructions is task oriented and helps to reduce the likelihood of human error.

Here’s an example of how the informational flow for an operational procedure when incorporated into procedure automation.

Incorporating procedure automation begins with assessing operations. The goal is to improve situational awareness, unify operational understanding, capture the knowledge of experienced operations staff, enforce best practices, reduce human error, and improve overall operational performance.

The development process has 4 phases—define & capture, interpret & design, implement & test, operate & audit. Requirements are formalized through the collection of information from a cross-functional team of subject matter experts (SMEs). Areas of expertise for these SMEs include Operations, Process, Technology, Safety, and plant equipment.

Opportunities are identified based on criteria such as frequency of operator interventions, impact on safety, and impact on performance. Here’s an example justification matrix:

For this chemical producer, state-based implementations we developed for the compression, reaction, vaporization, and distillation units. The states included inputs, transition functions, next states, output functions, and outputs.

For this project, 26 unit-operations were assessed and five selected for implementation. These five had a high degree of interaction and a large I/O scope of impact.

The project had observable value created with faster process startups that were more predictable and repeatable. These startups helped increase annual capacity by 1.5% and reduce the loading on the operations staff through fewer interventions.

Beyond increased capacity and lower risk startups, this chemical producer can more easily incorporate state-based alarm management to further clarify what is happening in the process.

The detailed review of current operational practices also helped unify the understanding of process operations across functional organization and help the cross-functional team assess the “as-written” interpretation of these operational practices.

Visit the Control & Operator Performance section on Emerson.com for more these technologies and solutions to improve operational performance.

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