Activity

  • Debunking Condition Monitoring Misconceptions

    Jim Cahill
    The personnel landscape of processing plants has changed. Yesterday’s deep bench of experienced personnel has given way to leaner, more nimble groups supporting a wide variety of disparate technologies, often across an entire fleet. But while these teams are often smaller, they are also made up of digital natives—highly technical engineers who are used to constant access to critical information. The best plants are…

  • Political Dilemma in the Plant

    Jim Cahill
    Anchovy Rice, Banana Flower Salad, and the Instrument Technician You would think that for an industry as technical and geeky as Process Instrumentation and Condition-Based Monitoring, workplace politics would not be nonexistent right? Well, you would be wrong. In my age of innocence as a younger marketing guy, I learned some interesting lessons in a refinery that is not too far away. I knew we had the best solution…

  • Guardian Digital Experience is an Evolution in Support

    Jim Cahill
    The Emerson Exchange Users’ Conference is all about Emerson users, and perhaps no session better exemplified that sentiment than the Transformation of Guardian presentation on day three. Nina Golder , vice president of Emerson’s Lifecycle Services, shared with the audience that user feedback, requests, and experiences are all behind Guardian’s current evolution from a service portal to a comprehensive digital experience…

  • Software Simplifies Technology Transfer

    Jim Cahill
    The life sciences marketplace is changing faster than nearly any other industry. Gone are the days when companies focus on a single treatment to drive their entire business. Today’s life sciences manufacturers are challenged to bring new treatments to the marketplace as quickly as possible—a trend that was magnified during the COVID-19 pandemic . As a result, innovation is key today. And innovation requires technologies…

  • Streamlining Proof Testing Procedures

    Jim Cahill
    Click to enlarge Safety instrumented systems (SISs) require periodic proof testing of all of their safety instrumented functions (safety loops) which include the sensor, logic solver, and final element. An out-of-the-box proof testing solution from Emerson, ProofCheck , is available to provide all the aspects of proper SIS testing in a single solution, including field devices, wiring, signal conditioners, safety logic…

  • Four Best Practices for Condition Monitoring

    Jim Cahill
    It is easier than ever to store massive amounts of data. The cost of wireless sensing technologies has dropped dramatically, making it much easier to instrument every asset in the plant and ensure that no performance aberration goes unnoticed. However, bringing in all this data carries with it the risk of information floods. If data is collected and stored without a plan, it can easily become overwhelming. To help organizations…

  • Driving Operational Performance and Workforce Efficiency Improvements

    Jim Cahill
    Let’s take a quick look at how to boost business performance with enterprise-level software that fully integrates operational technology (OT) data, optimizes operational health and performance, and fosters a more informed and productive workforce. This quick 2:19 YouTube video, Plantweb Optics: Driving Operational Performance and Workforce Efficiency to New Levels , provides an overview of how this application help enable…

  • Innovation Days Showcase Software Solutions to Drive Operational Gains

    Jim Cahill
    Process and manufacturing organisations are increasingly harnessing advanced industrial software technologies to drive their journey to digital transformation and help them achieve their business and sustainability targets. With our extensive portfolio of innovative software solutions and renowned expertise, Emerson is the ideal partner to help companies implement data management and control architectures that provide…

  • Three Strategies to Drive Improved Reliability

    Jim Cahill
    A rapid decrease in the cost of sensing equipment has driven many reliability teams to implement even more automated condition monitoring across their facilities. A wide variety of new technologies are both easy to implement and full of robust features to increase visibility of asset health. There are many ways to plan and implement a condition monitoring program, but across all those options there are a few core strategies…

  • Get Expert Operating Analysis with Remote Valve Condition Monitoring

    Jim Cahill
    Emerson’s Lifecycle Services Business Development Manager John Carlow recently published an article in the March/April 2022 edition of Process Instrumentation. The article is titled Get Expert Operating Analysis with Remote Valve Condition Monitoring . It describes how plants can unleash the power of their installed equipment to avoid unplanned outages by utilizing remote monitoring services. A summary of the article…

  • Plantweb Optics New Release Podcast

    Jim Cahill
    The Plantweb Optics platform continues to advance in the mission to securely and efficiently connect and collect global operational technology (OT) data from manufacturing and process control applications & systems, and from IT systems to contextualize and transform this data into actionable information for decision-makers made available on any device, anytime, at any location. I recently had the opportunity to sit…

  • Make the most of your reliability workforce

    Jim Cahill
    Today’s plants frequently have limited personnel but still need to find ways to do more work and meet increasing goals and quotas. This dichotomy frequently causes a problem when it comes to asset monitoring, which is traditionally performed by technicians manually inspecting equipment with handheld devices on a regular schedule. In the current environment, plants are faced with a dilemma: do they reduce the manual rounds…

  • Improving Mining Shovel Performance

    Jim Cahill
    In mining operations, mining shovels do the heavy lifting in digging and extracting ore in surface mining operations. They are used in coal, copper, gold and other ore mining operations. In an Engineering and Mining Journal Article, Shovel Service Suppliers Help Cut Costs, CO2 , Emerson’s Tom Francisco joins other mining experts to describe ways to extend the life and improve maintenance practices on these critical…

  • One Protocol to Simplify Growing Sensor Deployments

    Jim Cahill
    FDI combines the best features of EDDL and FDT packages. Historically, differing asset monitoring devices, even if mounted on the same installation, might have very different ways of sending their data or configuration methods. Such a situation leaves project teams in a bind—do they stick with only one type of sensor, potentially eliminating their ability to use devices that are a better fit, or do they support multiple…

  • Predictive Maintenance Practices Help Mitigate Supply Chain Issues

    Jim Cahill
    One only has to search “supply chain issues” in the news to understand how widespread and disruptive these issues are across many industries from automobile manufacturing right into our world of automation. Electronic components are one particularly hard-hit area. I caught up with Emerson’s Tinh Phan about some ways manufacturers and producers can address some of the long lead times that they may be experiencing from…

  • Joseph Fourier is Way More Cool than Louis Vuitton or Christian Dior

    Jim Cahill
    I have always been very intrigued by the phenomena and science behind vibration condition monitoring. It is a branch of engineering study that intricately combines material science, motion & dynamics, instrumentations and advanced mathematics. When I finally understood how a plot of amplitudes versus frequencies can provide different insight than the usual amplitudes versus time, it was a major “Wow, Fourier was a genius…

  • Operational Analytics for Effective Pump Health Management

    Jim Cahill
    As technology continues to advance, the capability to continuously monitor more assets in a manufacturing or production process grows. In this short 2:53 YouTube video, Ensuring Pump Health , Emerson’s Logan Woolery describes how to avoid downtime by extending condition monitoring beyond just critical pumps to a wide range of other pumps to get a better picture of their overall health and receive early notification of…

  • Driving Reliability Improvements by Monitoring Assets Plantwide

    Jim Cahill
    Reliable plant operations begin with healthy assets used in the production process and monitoring their health levels over time as they slowly degrade. In this 4 ½ minute YouTube video, Ensuring Reliability Through Enterprise-wide Asset Monitoring , Emerson’s Alessea Lane describes how technologies in the Plantweb digital ecosystem help to improve the overall reliability of operations to meet production targets, ensure…

  • Prescriptive Maintenance-Prescriptive Analytics and Predictive Maintenance

    Jim Cahill
    Maintenance programs come in many varieties—reactive maintenance, preventive maintenance, predictive maintenance, and reliability centered maintenance to name some major ones. But what about prescriptive maintenance (RxM)? In a Process Worldwide article, Prescriptive Maintenance: A Cure for Downtime , Emerson’s Jonas Berge describes the new term as, “…a mashup of prescriptive analytics and predictive maintenance.” …

  • Advanced Analytics for Detecting Anti-Friction Bearing Faults

    Jim Cahill
    The PeakVue machinery health diagnostic technology filters out traditional vibration signals to focus on impacting signals, which provide a much better indicator of overall asset health on any type of rolling element bearing machine. In a new paper, Using PeakVue Plus Technology for Detecting Anti-Friction Bearing Faults , Emerson’s Stewart Bowers describes how PeakVue Plus analytics innovation to PeakVue automates…

  • Safe, Reliable and Efficient Crushing and Grinding in Mining Operations

    Jim Cahill
    In mining operations, the comminution process reduces the mined solid materials through crushing, grinding and other means. SAG and Ball mills are one of the most critical pieces of equipment for the process. Mining operators need to optimize grinding mill performance, and reliability to ensure tight shutoff. This process equipment can have unexpected shutdowns and production loss, high reprocessing rates, high operating…

  • Pump Health Monitoring Interactive Virtual Webinar

    Jim Cahill
    While processes have been monitored with sensors for many decades, advancements in technology, especially with the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) , has made monitoring for improved safety, efficiency, and reliability much more achievable than in the past. For example, in many plants, pumps that are considered non-critical are not monitored. These are either infrequently manually inspected or run to failure. Today…

  • Seven ways to use WirelessHART for applications other than conventional process variable monitoring

    Jim Cahill
    In a Hydrocarbon Processing article, Emerson’s Andrew Cureton looks at a variety of ways Wireless HART can support asset management strategies. If we go back in time to Emerson’s introduction of its first Wireless HART enabled instruments, they were all process instruments, such as temperature and pressure transmitters. But it didn’t take long for users to recognize that there were many more ways to use Wireless HART…

  • Improving Mining Critical Asset Performance

    Jim Cahill
    In an earlier post, Condition Monitoring of Critical Mining Conveyors , we discussed the importance of conveyor reliability in mining operations. But it’s not just conveyors. The most common cause of downtime in mining operations is critical equipment failure. These failures can cause safety risks to personnel, unplanned downtime, and reactive maintenance practices to try to quickly return to normal operations. To drive…

  • Future Proof Your Remote Asset Monitoring

    Jim Cahill
    One of the many problems associated with the COVID-19 pandemic has been the even greater stress it has put on process manufacturing companies related to personnel. When things started shutting down in March last year, many companies were already struggling to maintain adequate plant staffing, and the pandemic made things worse. When we talk to customers and prospects, the situation has made the case for automating manual…

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