The latest in our series of Q&A posts leading up to Emerson Exchange 2014 is a discussion of asset reliability with Offshore Oil & Gas Director Nikki Bishop and me.
1. What are the major trends impacting reliability in refining today?
Workforce retirement tends to mean that there are fewer qualified equipment specialists among plant staff. Run-to-failure incidents are costly and dangerous; safety and reliability are directly correlated. The trend toward increasing regulations for HS&E means plants must be more reliable and safer.
2. What are the major challenges/barriers to reliability in refining operations?
Most equipment is originally specified with only the minimum instrumentation needed to operate. The measurements necessary to monitor equipment health, such as vibration, are typically missing on rotating equipment. Wiring costs have been the primary reason refiners have not implemented online vibration monitoring on non-critical rotating equipment.
3. What are the largest opportunities in reliability today?
WirelessHART makes it easy and cost effective to add missing measurements. Adding missing measurements provides the data necessary for condition-based maintenance practices. Condition-based (planned) maintenance allows equipment to be serviced before it fails and improves process uptime while mitigating the risk of safety and environmental incidents. Note: In April 2010, WirelessHart was unanimously approved by the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC), making it the first wireless international standard as IEC 62591.
4. How can operators get ahead of the challenges and take advantage of these reliability opportunities?
Refiners can easily identify missing process and asset health measurements and install wireless to capture business critical data to monitor the health of plant assets. With the wireless infrastructure in place, monitoring solutions can be implemented to analyze the data and alert operators of abnormal operation or imminent failure. Timely, actionable information allows plant assets to be serviced before they fail.
For more, make plans to attend the following sessions at Emerson Exchange, which will be held Oct. 6-10 in Orlando, Florida.
Also don’t miss this year’s Refining and Petrochemical Industry Forum in Orlando on Mon., Oct. 6, at 2:30 pm, and the Refining Industry Mixer on Monday evening from 8:00 to 10:00 pm.