Professional Services Leverage Technology

We want to help Yokogawa users reap the most benefits of their investment and help them continually improve safety and increase the productivity of their plants. Our objective is to help our clients leverage their investments in the industry’s most reliable monitoring and control systems.

Overloaded operators, poor product quality and a record of ‘near-misses’ or actual safety incidents indicate the need for inspection and evaluation of alarm philosophy, alarm design and scheme of operation.

 

If there has been significant personnel turnover or if the client has indicated a trend of ‘baby-boomer’ retirements in their Operator, Maintenance or Engineering resources, this can also be an indicator of a near term, if not immediate, need for Alarm Rationalization and other ongoing Services.

 

Any plant which is sensitive to or actually engaged in a 6 Sigma project will be interested in Alarm Rationalization services as a method for continuous improvement in safety and productivity.

Of course every call for Alarm Rationalization is unique to the facility, but many plants have similar symptoms that call for action. Yokogawa uses a consistent project methodology and typically begins with the client articulating their intents, goals and Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) so we can judge the future success of the alarm system. A good alarm rationalization project establishes a goal (stated in terms of KPIs like alarm reduction, alarms compared with best practices, etc) with performance milestones and dates. We use a number of software packages to address specific best practice alarm management, fundamental nuisance alarm reduction and operational state-based alarm management solutions. Since most processes change over time, we recommend regular periodic alarm audits to assure best performance.

Rigorous Alarm Rationalization has helped our clients discover malfunctioning transmitters, reduce alarm flooding, and design efficient systems.  The goal is to make the alarms meaningful to the operator, so they can focus on the actions required to avert an event. Yokogawa has preformed more than 500 Alarm Rationalizations worldwide and we have records of clients reducing alarms by up to 90% through changes in alarm thresholds, resizing control valves and improving control methods. A refiner reduced nuisance alarms over 60% by understanding and changing alarm settings with modified DCS sequencing.

Any Yokogawa client who has an active Annual Maintenance Contract has the opportunity to avail themselves of this useful tool. It consists of an evaluation by a Service Engineer who estimates the levels of Operational Efficiency, Asset Reliability, HSE (Health, Safety and Environmental) efficiency, Cyber Asset Security, DCS Operational Environment and Process Performance – Alarming. The Service Process Assessment (SPA) serves to highlight any areas that may need attention and helps a plant manager or maintenance manager design a plan for continuous improvement based on an order of priority. The assessment is also a great visual tool to help justify annual budget requirements for improvement projects.

 

The Service Process Assessment is especially useful to establish a base line for project success and annual audits or to assess requirements for integration of a recent acquisition.

Well tuned PID loops can reduce energy consumption and the associated negative affects on plant assets caused by fluctuating energy supply. Plants with difficult start ups can find improvements by tuning for shorter process settling times and reduced process overshoot. Processes with long cycle times can be reduced, and blending, mixing and reactor turnovers can be improved with csTuner.

Typically installation is performed in a short time on site with knowledgeable process engineers who gain valuable on-the-job exposure (not a replacement for training). The Yokogawa Service Consultant can be scheduled for a number of days while critical loops are evaluated and tuned. This process often leads to suggestions for resizing valves or reengineering parts of the process.

 

csTUNER Tuning Report

A number of users in Chemical, Utility and Oil and Gas Processing industries have documented increases in throughput of 2% - 5%, yield improvements of 5% - 10% and decreases in production-related defects of 25% - 50%, many while reducing energy consumption.

The purpose of the Advanced Remote Monitoring Service (ARMS) is to remotely service and support Yokogawa’s client systems and instruments at the plant and perform continuous monitoring for symptoms that might predict future problems in control systems and analytical instruments. The service provides continuous, proactive care by Yokogawa and provides instant notification to the Yokogawa client of critical control equipment and analytical issues.

There are a number of things that make this service a good fit for customers including the need for predictive, preventive and proactive maintenance. They can monitor remote and/or sparsely staffed locations and augment internal resources that can then focus on the process, and improve systems uptime.

ARMS requires no changes in configuration to the customer configuration. Secure, high speed communication is established for encrypted data communications (functional information only) of outbound information sent to the Yokogawa Global Response Center. This is a nonintrusive approach and the Yokogawa Customer has full control and audit trail of all remote activity.

 

 ARMS Data Viewer Screen

A number of large process companies use this technology to augment their staff so they can focus on maintaining an efficient and effective production process and leave the proactive maintenance to the support groups. Both controls and advanced analytical instruments can be monitored so symptoms of creeping changes like performance degradation due to disk overloads can be evaluated and corrected before the issue becomes a critical problem.

The services we have discussed so far form the core to our offerings. As we continue working closely with our customers we will incorporate their feedback and suggestions into our future offerings of basic services, life cycle services and consulting services.  We look forward to sharing new development at next year’s Technical Conference.