EDGE COMPUTING
PUT YOUR ENERGY INTO EDGE
Greg Hookings, head of business development – digitalisation, Stratus Technologies, explains how Edge Computing offers a window into the operational status of stranded assets
without costly infrastructure changes. Energy use in the sector is no exception and is an important way to improve efficiency and reduce unplanned plant downtime. No matter where a machine is, whether in a
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purpose-built pharmaceutical facility or facing the elements on an offshore platform, properly maintained equipment uses less energy. And to have a properly maintained machine, there needs to be a steady stream of information keeping managers updated about its operational health. However, a good portion of equipment in a
process plant is remote from the IT capability required to maintain real-time monitoring of its energy usage.
Stranded Assets An offshore platform is perhaps the most extreme example of a stranded asset – or perhaps more accurately, many, many
rocess industries face certain challenges that come from strict regulations and the constant need to be more efficient
stranded machines. Equipment on an offshore rig is designed to be operational for a long time, but as that equipment ages, it becomes less energy efficient and suffers more maintenance-related downtime. Without an effective maintenance programme using actual machine usage data and real-time monitoring and visualisation, the rig quickly becomes much less productive and much more expensive to run. However, the kind of maintenance required
relies on an active data link between the equipment and the enterprise management software, which is usually a long way from the rig. Traditionally with offshore enterprises, this communication has relied upon satellite communications, but this connection is not fast enough for actionable changes to be made in the name of energy efficiency, and the knock-on consequence is a lack of visibility into deteriorating parts and minor faults that can cause failures and shutdowns. With the maturation of Edge Computing, this traditional limitation is being overcome, and
Edge Computing, executed well, empowers
operators and managers at the machine level to make better decisions about machine upkeep and tuning based on live information
maintenance cost savings are now within reach without fundamental redesign or large capital expenditure. While extreme, the offshore example is applicable for any industry that has stranded assets. The same principles apply whether those assets are at sea, or remote from the rest of the network for any other reason. In short, if an enterprise doesn’t have visualisation of live data from all of its assets, its capability to run a proactive maintenance strategy is compromised, and it is unlikely to be as energy efficient or resilient to unplanned downtime as it could be.
Empowering operators Intelligent decentralisation of certain IT capabilities can reduce the need to move as much data and remove the lag that prohibits timely decision making. It does not prohibit a data strategy that continues to centralise less time sensitive data which enables other effective digital transformation approaches to improved operations, such as those which require the processing capability of cloud
50 JUNE 2021 | PROCESS & CONTROL
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