ELECTRONS IN THE AIR – THE ROLE OF DIGITALISATION IN IMPROVING EFFICIENCY, SAFETY AND THE ENVIRONMENT
On the 29th of August 2018 the US technology stock index, the NASDAQ Composite, reached a new all time high at just above 8109. The world is going digital and there is money to be made by those that are winning the race to innovate with the right ideas. The momentum in this topic is phenomenal perhaps most importantly because the changes are transforming people’s lives and industry for the better. Water treatment companies can trouble shoot odour emissions. Refi neries can detect gas leaks in the knowledge that their wireless sensor network will function with utmost reliability. Service engineers can travel to engagements with the right spare parts in their van, having received diagnostic information prior to leaving their depot. It all adds up to increased effi ciency, improved safety and has many positive environmental benefi ts.
QR Codes Help CEMS Service Engineers Get it Right First Time
The holy grail of any CEMS installation is to achieve 100% measurement accuracy 100% of the time. FTIR instrumentation is commonly used for the most complex CEMS applications, for example waste incineration or the co-combustion of fossil fuels with biomass or waste. A blue chip standard in this sector could arguably be the ACF5000 from ABB. With more than 1700 installed units worldwide and an average availability exceeding 98%, this technology is well on the way towards the 100% uptime target. Marjus Seubert, Head of Product Management for Continuous Gas Analyzers at ABB Automation GmbH is proud that “the reliability of our FTIR is already very high and we continue to innovate to take it even higher.”
Digital advances are playing a role in the next step up the ladder to 100% availability of the CEMS. The ABB FTIR instrumentation is often supplied to the end user with a maintenance
contract. Much of the service work can be done using a planned preventative maintenance schedule to ensure that problems are avoided. However, on occasions there are also reactive call outs for the service team and a rapid response on site with the right spare parts can mean the difference between 97 and 98% uptime… a small change in the performance but a big difference in terms of legislative compliance for the CEMS system operator.
Dynamic QR codes are making this step change in performance possible. Seubert explains how: “we can display Dynamic QR codes on the control panel of our latest FTIR instrumentation and all products of our complete portfolio. In addition to static information for system identifi cation, the Dynamic QR code displays the latest system confi guration data and the real-time analyser health status. It is compatible with standard QR code reader APPs that end users will have on their mobile phone or tablet. It also communicates with our proprietary APP called ‘my Installed Base (myIB)’. The idea is that the instrument owner can send our service team real time information so that our engineer can respond immediately with remote support or with a site visit and fi x the issue. The days of our engineers arriving, looking at the instrument and then driving back to the depot to pick up the relevant spare parts are history!”
Some of the most hotly debated topics in this digital age are the issues of data privacy and data security. This issue is more topical than ever with the recent introduction of the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) on the 25th of May this year and the
IET November / December 2018
www.envirotech-online.com
controversy surrounding Facebook that came to light one month earlier. Marjus Seubert refl ects on how the ABB technology is sensitive to this issue when he adds that “there is no permanent data transfer from the FTIR unit to our systems. We are not collecting data about emissions levels and the operator is fully in control of the information that they share with us through this Dynamic QR code system. We really did our homework to understand the needs of our customers when we developed this technology and the early feedback from our end users is tremendous. ‘One step further towards 100% up-time’: that seems to be the phrase we hear the most.”
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100 |
Page 101 |
Page 102 |
Page 103 |
Page 104 |
Page 105 |
Page 106 |
Page 107 |
Page 108
