Honeywell UOP recently introduced a software-based service designed to allow refiners and petrochemical and gas processing plants to improve performance.
The new Connected Performance Services (CPS) offerings include applications to address critical plant challenges such as asset utilization, unplanned downtime and energy efficiency. The service continuously monitors streaming plant data and applies advanced analytics and machine learning, leveraging process models and best practices to find latent or emerging underperformance, alert plant personnel and make operational recommendations.
The system runs continuously with digital dashboards that provide intuitive context and actionable understanding of a plant's performance. The same dashboards are reported simultaneously to a dedicated process advisor who also monitors performance and can provide direction and resources.
"This cloud-enabled service makes plants smarter and more responsive," said Zak Alzein, vice president for CPS. "Problems that caused plants to be less efficient or less productive and that went undetected for weeks or months now can be resolved quickly and proactively, and decisions that used to take days now can be made in hours. For many plants, the avoidance of downtime and suboptimal performance, and better agility, can be worth millions of dollars per year."
In addition to identifying underperforming assets and anticipating equipment failures and process issues, the service can monitor and help manage energy use to support compliance with stricter regulatory standards while also bridging knowledge gaps among personnel who may not be fully experienced with their equipment.
"The unique feature to this solution is the combination of customer operating data and UOP expertise that provides plant personnel with early stage warnings that identify performance improvements," Alzein said. "Advancements in software, instrumentation and Big Data capabilities have finally converged, which makes it possible for the first time to offer a cloud-based IIoT solution that brings the connected plant to the oil and gas industries."
For more information, visit www.uop.com.
