Timing good for migrations
2 Mar 2010
Ian Heathcock of Siemens Industry Automation believes the economic downturn has opened a window of opportunity for engineers to make the case for control system upgrades:
In the economic downturn, a real issue facing UK process businesses of all sizes is where to direct hard-won funding for capital expenditure projects. In this context, engineering directors and production managers should now be banging the drum and arguing the strategic case for timely system upgrades and migrations.
Upgrades and migrations represent a significant step for most businesses in terms of both potential risk and cost, and most projects require careful planning and implementation to ensure success. Although changeovers on site sometimes can be reduced to a matter of days, the preparation and work before this can take many months.
However, many process companies across all sectors are realising the hidden potential of carrying out such system improvements in the current economic climate, which calls for better plant availability, increased efficiencies and the production flexibility to respond to marketplace needs.
While maybe not implementing a full-scale system migration project, some have adopted a staged-migration approach, or are using the downturn in production levels to begin active planning to address system upgrades - a process that can take up to two years to fully implement. This trend is especially noticeable in the speciality chemicals, energy and oil & gas sectors.
In more buoyant times, full order books have meant companies running at, or close to, maximum capacity, leaving little time to make improvements to their processes. Those now running at reduced production capacity can afford to consider a period of shutdown so that system attention can be undertaken with minimal risk to fulfilment of customer orders.
Sticking with a legacy process control system can undermine a company’s ability to produce a consistent, quality product in the future. Moreover, the risk of system failure increases with age, with potentially serious consequences for order fulfilment, cash flow and customer retention.
In contrast, modern control systems have advanced diagnostics and asset management features that improve preventative maintenance management of the plant. The latest systems not only enable monitoring of system components, but also other vital plant items such as heat exchangers and reaction vessels.
Operators can act on the information provided on screen and make maintenance requests that can be tracked and logged.
Improvements in the ease of configuring a system to meet specific needs mean companies can now achieve new levels of flexibility in terms of product portfolios.
By contrast, many legacy systems have been implemented with a large degree of “make do” to achieve the production aims of the business and so do not provide the right control strategies for the existing processes.
Meanwhile, new system enhancements such as Advanced Process Control improve the control of plants, including business priority areas such as reducing energy usage, increasing yields and throughput, and, at the same time, reducing deviation from specified product quality.
