Chemical Focus
production sites with distributed assets and those with centralised control rooms. For its part, the Premium Platform for Experion
Virtualisation Solutions leverages blade server technology to customise to the specific control applications needed by a customer. Premium Platform reduces setup time by up to 90 per cent, generates up to 40 per cent more energy savings and has 22 per cent greater density than alternative virtualised server platforms. In addition, the platform has a longer lifecycle,
reduced facility footprint and remote management capabilities in a package that is pre-configured, saving time to deploy.
Reduced energy usage Meanwhile Emerson Process Management’s support services have helped the MOL Group increase throughput, improve product quality and reduce energy usage at the Algyõ gas plant in Hungary. Control loop audits, advanced process control project management, and model predictive control project support have together helped MOL achieve savings of over €9 million (£7.6 million) since 2006. The Algyõ plant, located near Szeged, can process /d of gas. The plant includes three
up to 12 million m3
columns on each of the two distillation column trains. “The co-operation between MOL and Emerson has
resulted in great achievements, since distillation columns involve highly interactive, multivariable processes that are difficult to control,” said Károly Oláh, production manager at MOL. “Emerson has completed a number of major projects at our plant that have enabled significant reductions in process variability, provided large energy savings and reduced emissions.” The relationship between the two companies started in 2006, when MOL Group employed consultants from
Emerson’s control performance service to carry out a detailed audit of control loops, valves and instruments to identify areas requiring maintenance, replacement, tuning or redesign. The improved control loop performance reduced
the variability of key process parameters by 84 per cent. Loop optimisation also reduced re-boiler duty and heating requirements, saving €670,000 (£564,000) per year in natural gas equivalent and cutting carbon dioxide emissions by 4.3 per cent. In 2009 MOL took advantage of the DeltaV
system’s embedded advanced process control (APC) capabilities by adding Emerson’s SmartProcess Distillation Optimiser. This technology enables model predictive control for distillation columns and has yielded further benefits including better control of the product quality – which in turn enabled MOL to further decrease costs by reducing the quantity of product blending required.
Predictive control Emerson provided support for this project covering the operation of the unit when using model predictive control. The project was managed by Emerson’s European strategic services group, with support from the local Emerson team in Hungary. Emerson’s distillation solution has now been applied to five of the plant’s six gas distillation columns, reducing energy costs by €1,200,000 (£1,010,000) per year. The most recent project at the plant was a
performance audit of the model predictive control based on MOL’s current operation and plant operating objectives (Fig 1). Following Emerson’s recommendations, changes
have been made to the control system for two of the columns. The changes included modifying the structure of the regulatory control scheme; introducing a new
Expanding mobile information on the plant I
nvensys, now part of Schneider Electric, has acquired the SmartGlance mobile reporting product of Sarla Analytics. Founded in 2010, Sarla Analytics’ mission is to leverage the power of enterprise mobility to increase productivity, reduce costs and streamline operations. SmartGlance, the industrial mobile reporting business app, delivers secure, on-demand access to rich, graphical reports from any operations data source via mobile devices, allowing industrial personnel to make smarter, faster decisions from anywhere, at any time and on any device.
“Acquiring this technology accelerates our 22
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delivery of solutions that leverage the power of mobile devices and managed systems via cloud and SaaS models,” said Rob McGreevy, vice president of platform and applications software solutions at Invensys. “It strengthens our current leadership position in mobile industrial data reporting and reinforces our commitment to deliver access to information, analytics and key performance indicators to a user’s device of choice.”
SmartGlance provides connectors for accessing data from different manufacturing sources, including both Invensys and non- Invensys systems. This offers Invensys
customers real-time access to important business data alerts and notifications. It also allows them to view that information in a native mobile application optimised for any mobile device, such as smart phones and tablets.
SmartGlance supports quick and more accurate decisions, enabling the ability to take action, share data and collaborate with colleagues. Additionally, it permits the ability to push data from virtually any data source, including popular process historians and any SQL database. All this, with a very fast and simple implementation, small install footprint and no additional hardware required. ■
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