Huntsman starts up major industrial wireless system
4 Dec 2009
Houston, Texas – Chemicals major Huntsman Corp. has installed what is claimed to be one of the largest industrial wireless networks, at its Port Neches, Texas site. The system was installed by a team comprising industrial wireless company Apprion, Industrial Mobility, a provider of field applications for the process manufacturing industry, and Motorola Inc.’s Enterprise Mobility Solutions business.
The installation was part of a project, called Project Zero, to eliminate injuries, product defects, and environmental releases at the Port Neches facility. The intiative involved empowering operations and maintenance personnel to capture defects, track work progress and make process and safety related decisions in real-time.
“At Huntsman, we strive to achieve the highest levels of safety and operations excellence in chemical manufacturing”, said John Prows, vice president of manufacturing excellence for Huntsman’s performance products division. “Our goal with Project Zero is to eliminate defects, safety incidents and unscheduled downtime at our facilities.”
For the project, Industrial Mobility contributed its MobilOps field mobility software that enables field operators to execute electronic “smart” rounds and checklists, enter real-time defect elimination work requests in the field, monitor and control standard operating conditions (SOCs) for each piece of equipment, and access the most up to date Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) for execution in the field including consequences of deviation (CODs) and corrective actions (CAs).
A key requirement for Huntsman was to centralise and manage safety critical information in one place rather than building nested safety data into each round, checklist or procedure. MobilOps contains an SOC database engine that provides safety critical data to operators and mechanics at the point of decision making in the field. All field executable procedures, rounds and checklists pull their safety critical data from this same central source. Legacy information such as process and instrumentation diagrams, process flow diagrams, drawings, procedures, incident reports, etc are also immediately available on demand in the field.
To ensure that Huntsman personnel have a reliable, high performance, mobile platform to run MobilOps, as part of its ION System, Apprion selected Motorola’s industry-leading, MC9090 rugged mobile computer. Motorola’s MC9090 is a versatile device - empowering mobile workforces with the reliability and performance to provide real-time visibility into business-critical information. The computer offers support for multi-mode wireless connectivity to ensure maximum accessibility to personnel and business systems.
Using Motorola’s MC9090 mobile computers, Huntsman personnel connect anywhere throughout the four square mile plant via the Apprion ION System - a Class 1, Div. 2 rated wireless application network. The Apprion’s ION System provides easy wireless application deployment (applications include video, voice communications, energy efficiency and condition monitoring) and a centralized dashboard that brings together application data, wireless regional maps, and equipment status and maintenance views and reports.
“Manufacturing IT executives view mobility as strategically important to their business,” said Tom Gleason, MSSI vice president for sales, Motorola Enterprise Mobility Solutions. “Together with its ecosystem of partners, Motorola is helping manufacturers streamline operations, improve quality control and empower their personnel with real-time information when and where it is needed.”
With real-time wireless tracking of the rounds activity, the number of pumps requiring daily inspection has been reduced by 50% - allowing more time for other crucial inspection areas. Defect elimination work requests are initiated in the field in real time. The process automatically identifies redundancies, makes work planning more effective and will lead to significant reduction in the average “time to closure” for each request. Real-time monitoring of SOCs have led to significant process improvements and cost savings due to increased uptime and longer equipment lifetime.
“By increasing the speed and effectiveness of our defect capture process, we are now able to see beyond the tip of the defect “iceberg”, said Prows. “The operator scans the RFID tag with the handheld, pulls down a defect pick list, and punches the enter button. It is that quick. Capturing and eliminating defects while they are small will drive down maintenance costs, eliminate redundant work, and ensure Project Zero goal delivery while the improvement in overall equipment effectiveness will increase both production quality and quantity. Most importantly, Huntsman now has a tool that drives safe operating data to the personnel in the field, right at the very time they need the information, to ensure that the safest approach to each task is followed.”
