Boardroom battles

The increasing role of IT, and indeed IT engineers, in control and automation could, some believe, lead to a diminished presence for the process engineer in the corridors of power of the organisations they work for.

The problem has been exacerbated by the general inabilty of engineers to communicate the importance of process projects to their companies’ financial managers. However, viewpoints from SABIC, a global end-user of control and automation systems, and major vendor Siemens Industry Automation sugggest some encouraging developments on both of these fronts:

Company managements are now seeing a much more powerful role for process engineers, according to Bart Schaminee, global strategic procurement manager (PA/E/I) at SABIC, based in the Netherlands.

“The role of process engineering is becoming elevated. Many managements want to have that. They see the need,” said Schaminee. Indeed, he added, there is also “a clear trend [for them] to say to IT ’don’t touch my process automation system’.”

Holding things back, however, is a communication gap between process engineers and senior management, Schaminee commenting that, “they don’t talk the same language.”

With wireless, for instance, the SABIC manager said that despite the many potential benefits, the process engineering sector has not been able security issues with the technology.

On a typical brownfield project, for example, he estimates that 30% of the cost is related to the wiring, cable conduits, etc; and another 25% is related to the engineering and the documentation of it.

Moreover, upgrades often involve major rewiring and costly reverse engineering if original parts, cabinets and documents are to remain. A better option can, therefore, be to strip out all the wiring and build new cabinets for only the relevant signals to be wired.

But, said Schaminee: “If you start talking wireless, managers say ’wireless is open, I think I don’t like it, don’t trust it. Guys, what are you doing in my plant? Go away’ These are the discussions that you are seeing.”

However, because of their basic nature, engineers usually avoid getting into these fights as they prefer to do only what they are asked to. “So they end up asking for something else, getting into budget issues with much more wiring than was expected from the documents, extended turnarounds, etc.”

Many senior managers are, however, now aware of the need to have middle management or people just below the VP (vice president) level to deliver their control and automation strategies rather than ’offering excuses of why things won’t work’.

“The problem is that most process engineers were never able to sell it. Now there is a need. Finding people with the level of experience to deliver this is now the real problem. There are not too many around.”

The lack of process engineering clout in the boardroom is also an issue for automation vendors, who are still struggling to persuade end-users to make better use of technology and move away from their inherent conservatism.

According to Brian Holliday of Siemens Industry Automation, a problem is that financial directors remain much happier to invest in IT systems, for example, than process projects. The challenge in all process-related sectors, he said, is to reach the accountants alongside the engineers.

“It is the changing way in which people work now,” said Holliday. “You can’t just convince a lead engineer that you have got the best solution, as a manufacturer you actually have to take additional steps to help him to convince his commercial colleagues that it makes sense too.”

Siemens, he said, is now invariably engaging in value-based discussion around what is the return on investment and whether there is a positive value from investment in the project.

“We have been able to work with customers to convince them both about the technology but also of the commercial benefits. Because this is not understood by the commercial community,” Holliday emphasised.