PROCESS SAFETY


big data. With process safety, it provides analytics platforms for achieving significant improvements in safety performance. A key feature of the current digitalisation wave is that the automation system can be designed in-house by company employees, using computer tools supplied by the software specialists. This enables companies to differentiate themselves in the way they use the new technology. BASF has embarked on an ambitious digitalisation programme with the aid of a supercomputer installed this summer at its main site at Ludwigshafen (C&I, 2017, 6, 15). A primary purpose of the supercomputer is to boost the company’s R&D performance; but it will also make a substantial contribution to advancing process safety. ‘We can use it in a lot of ways to


upgrade out safety performance and concepts,’ Martin Brudermueller, BASF vice-chairman and chief technology officer, said at a press conference at Ludwigshafen in June 2017. ‘We can use the mass of data to


develop new ideas in the running of reactors to cut costs, raise efficiencies and improve safety. As long as we have the data we can use the supercomputer to analyse the causes of process safety incidents. But we are more likely to use it to introduce safer process systems – how we can predict and prevent accidents happening with the help of sensors. We will be able to work out, for example, the level of seriousness of warning signs from sensors, particularly in relation to the degradation of materials.’ Meanwhile, German speciality chemicals company, Evonik has seen its rate of incident frequency more than halved since 2008, likely due partly to the application of digital technologies. It wants to use automation to identify and prevent process safety risks.


‘Digitisation can indeed further


increase safety, for example by virtualisation and sensor technologies,’ says an Evonik spokesperson. As part of its digitalisation


strategy, German polymers and coatings producer Covestro has started collecting data from its plants worldwide on every incident of loss of product containment (LoPC) or


leaks, as well as minor and near- miss incidents. The data are carefully analysed to determine causes, with the results and corrective actions being publicised throughout the group. ‘The criteria, for example, very small quantities or non-hazardous material leaks, were selected so that even material and energy leaks that have no impact on employees, neighbours or the environment are systematically recorded,’ according to the company’s 2016 annual report. Through the digitalisation strategy, gaps in the collection of data, how it is put into the context of plant and site conditions and the way it is converted into actionable information will be evaluated. This should result in ‘faster and more cost-efficient roll- out’ of information and new data- driven applications across the group, Felix Hanisch, Covestro’s former head of global process control, told the 2016 European user conference of OSIsoft, the US digitalisation software company.


Chemicals and other process industries have a long history of collecting, interconnecting and analysing data to gain added value, Hanisch pointed out. But OSIsoft has warned that the large amounts of data yielded by digitalisation will be a big test for existing IT systems, which are not suitable for handling the big volumes and complexities of the new data.


‘Industry 4.0 technologies will


propagate more data, from more locations, in more formats and from more systems than ever before,’ OSIsoft recently reported. However, some process safety specialists fear this could lead to the workforce, especially technical staff like operators, becoming disengaged from safety issues as responsibilities for checking equipment outside control rooms become automated. ‘To be successful, digitalisation


projects in areas like process safety need to be matched properly with human factors,’ explains David Embrey, a consultant at Human Reliability in Dalton, Lancashire, UK. ‘Some schemes can be too technology centric, with not enough consideration of interaction with people. ‘The introduction of new


technologies always brings new risks,’ he continues. ‘For a start, will the digital technologies be accepted


by the workforce when they are replacing tasks done by humans? Another danger is overloading operators with too much data from sensor-based alarm systems.’ Some of these problems can be


40%


Estimated reduction in maintenance costs by digitalisation, according to McKinsey Digital. It can also reduce total plant downtime by 30-50%.


BASF has embarked on an ambitious digitalisation programme with the aid of a supercomputer at its Ludwigshafen HQ. The machine is ranked number 65 among the world’s 500 largest computing systems


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avoided by involving employees in the design of localised digitalisation projects, he says. ‘This is a way of ensuring people still feel engaged by being given new safety responsibilities. Humans are not so good at doing repetitive monitoring tasks. But they are good at, with the right knowledge, working out what’s gone wrong and then solving the problem.’


The ultimate objective behind digitalisation is analytics. Huge amounts of data can be accumulated to create algorithms that tell companies what to do to increase productivity and raise efficiencies, for example, through big cuts in downtime as a result of decreases in process safety incidents. ‘It is not enough to know what


Number of reported incidents by the US chemical industry in 2016 – covering leaks, fires, explosions and injuries – the lowest for 10 years, according to figures from the American Chemistry Council’s Responsible Care programme.


Industry 4.0


represents the fourth generation of industrialisation which will rely on digitisation. It has the potential to revolutionise the whole value chain in chemicals and other industries, particularly the manufacturing stages.


went wrong, or even what will go wrong,’ says Matthew Littlefield, president and principal analyst at Cambridge, Massachusetts-based LNS Research in the US. ‘Executives need to know what actions to take now based on (the analytics).’ Systems for predictive maintenance,


for example, are based on data from a number of sources. They may include original plant engineering documents, such as the three dimensional computer aided design (CAD) created when the plant was engineered. In addition, engineering and maintenance workers would be surveyed to collect their know-how about specific parts of plants.


This information will be then be


combined with hard data gathered from thousands of wireless sensors to form a detailed database of asset conditions that can be monitored instantly, and which is actionable in real time. Faulty equipment no longer needs to be accessed to decide how to put it right. Digital data alone are sufficient. Looming on the horizon,


meanwhile, is the major after- effect of digitalisation. Engineering, maintenance and other technically qualified staff could be disconnected as a lot of their know-how becomes redundant. Ways need to be found to use


their expertise to add greater value in the production process.


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