Asset management
10 Jun 2005
Good asset management is synonymous with having a well-maintained plant in the first place, and that in turn requires reliable monitoring of equipment performance. This is where Fieldbus-based process control systems come into their own.
Digital communications with plant equipment can now handle far more information than is needed for control purposes — even over 4-20mA analogue systems, thanks to the HART protocol — with much of the excess bandwidth now routinely carrying diagnostic data about the health of the device as well.
That data is the raw material for today’s asset management systems, which are part and parcel of the latest generation of process automation systems.
This month, Emerson has extended its AMS capabilities to include the monitoring of rotating machinery such as pumps, compressors and turbines. Effectively, this gives plant operators real-time information about the status of their critical plant equipment — information that traditionally has been gathered by maintenance teams through their condition monitoring systems, and then passed on to plant managers for action where necessary.
Such real-time, on-line, ‘machinery health’ information should be a boon to operators of today’s increasingly complex process plants.
The same can also be said of the Procedural Operations system, introduced last month by Honeywell as part of its latest DCS system. With its capturing of operator best practice, and ensuring that this is carried out, such a system should be able to prevent operator-related incidents such as the recent explosion at BP’s
No plant will ever be made completely foolproof, of course, but at least we now have technologies to go a long way down that road.