Reducing Valve-Induced Unplanned Downtime

Emerson's Shawn Anderson


Valves are the critical components in any process manufacturing and production operation that touches what is being produced. As such, they are subject to wear and tear.

An ARC View report, Leveraging IIoT Technologies to Reduce Valve-Related Unplanned Downtime highlights key points from a presentation by Emerson’s Shawn Anderson at the ARC Advisory Group’s 20th Annual Industry Forum.

Here is the recap of the report:

ARC-View-Valve-IIoTAt ARC Advisory Group’s 20th Annual Industry Forum in Orlando, Florida, Shawn Anderson, Senior Research Specialist for Fisher Valves, a division of Emerson Process Management, gave a presentation on how the company is leveraging the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) to help end users reduce valve-related unplanned downtime.

Mr. Anderson’s group at Emerson initially began looking at adopting IIoT technologies as a way to collect more valve health data from the field and provide more realistic valve failure information than could be generated in a lab. It soon became apparent that IIoT technologies were a natural fit for developing a remote monitoring service to help optimize customers’ valve maintenance practices. ARC observes that other leading companies also appear to be heading down a similar path; leveraging IIoT-enabled technologies to deliver new and more effective predictive or prescriptive maintenance services for critical assets.

In his Forum presentation, Mr. Anderson shared Fisher Valve’s strategy, benefits achieved, lesson learned, planned enhancements, and recommendations for others considering adopting IIoT technologies to optimize maintenance.

In the process industries, one of the most important, yet often over-looked assets, are control valves. Without reliable control valve operation, most processes quickly become uncontrollable leading to unplanned downtime.

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Shawn noted that while smart valve diagnostics are available for many plants, these diagnostics are not fully understood and maintenance personnel fall back on traditional reactive maintenance practices.

What’s needed is actionable control valve health information. In some cases, suppliers can supply this “Expertise as a Service” (EaaS) for remotely monitoring and diagnosing the health of the valves across the facility. By working with the on-site team, problems can be found and fixed before they lead to unplanned downtime or quality-related issues.

The report explores how complexity leads to reliance on reactive practices, how the valve diagnostic technology is advancing and simplifying toward more actionable information, and how services fill in the gaps in current maintenance practices in order to become more proactive.

The report concludes with looking at the opportunity to increase reliability and uptime as a key element in the justification process for the smart valve diagnostic technology and combination of remote valve expertise and local service providers to confront and solve problems before they cause downtime and quality issues.

Read the full report or contact the ARC team to procure a copy of the report.

You can also connect and interact with other valve experts in the Valves, Valve Controllers & Positioners and Operate & Maintain groups in the Emerson Exchange 365 community.

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