Increasing Gas Pipeline Operational Efficiencies with Agile Automation Podcast

Emerson Automation Experts

Emerson Automation Experts

46:52

Think you know ChatGPT's custom GPTs? 🤔 Probably not. Last week, we tackled the basics and what's new with OpenAI's refreshed GPTs. For this AI Working Wednesdays episode, we're getting into some advanced techniques to hep you win back time. ↳ using the crazy powerful o3 model to your GPT's advantage ↳ context stacking ↳ custom actions to connect to third party sites Yeah.... don't sleep on this one shorties. Ep 563: ChatGPT's New Custom GPT's: Advanced techniques to win back time Newsletter: Sign up for our free daily newsletter More on this Episode: Episode Page Join the discussion: Thoughts on this? Join the convo and connect with other AI leaders on LinkedIn. Upcoming Episodes: Check out the upcoming Everyday AI Livestream lineup Website: YourEverydayAI.com Email The Show: info@youreverydayai.com Connect with Jordan on LinkedIn Topics Covered in This Episode: Custom GPTs: Advanced Techniques Overview OpenAI's Context Stacking Strategy O3 Model's Thinking Capabilities Building Efficient Custom GPTs Custom Actions and API Integration Zapier Integration for Dynamic Data ChatGPT's Context Window Management Creating Evergreen Podcast Content Timestamps: 00:00 Custom GPTs: Evolution and Insights 03:23 "Mastering GPT Context Stacking" 09:31 "Context Stacking in Chat GPT" 11:20 GPT Context Switching Advantage 15:33 Customizable GPT Usage Explained 19:51 Evergreen Episode Update Strategy 21:44 Optimizing AI for Continued Learning 23:48 "O-Series Models: Advanced AI Capabilities" 28:41 Building GPTs for Episode Research 30:03 GPT Model Customization and Sharing 33:18 Securing API Keys in GPTs 36:55 Zapier Enhances GPT Email Capabilities 42:12 "Use Chrome Extensions for Tokens" 43:48 "AI at Work Wednesdays Survey" Keywords: OpenAI's custom GPTs, advanced techniques, save time, context stacking, o three model, ChatGPT updates, logic and reasoning, plan ahead capabilities, agentic tools, custom actions, third party data, API, building GPTs, leveraging AI, context window, transformer model, generative AI, organization usage, fine tuning performance, productivity enhancement, AI agents, AI tools integration, custom configuration, everyday applications, tech strategies, new rendition, midweek break, AI experts, smarter AI usage, AI-powered planning, AI transformations. Ep 563: Send Everyday AI and Jordan a text message. (We can't reply back unless you leave contact info) Square keeps up so you don't have to slow down. Get everything you need to run and grow your business—without any long-term commitments. And why wait? Right now, you can get up to $200 off Square hardware at square.com/go/jordan. Run your business smarter with Square. Get started today.…

2 years ago 22:14

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In this Emerson Automation Experts podcast edition, Martha Rendon joins Jim Cahill to discuss the role automation plays in driving greater operational efficiencies across the natural gas transportation and distribution supply chain.

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#Tech #Jim Cahill

Increasing Gas Pipeline Operational Efficiencies with Agile Automation Podcast

published 2 years ago

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64 episodes

#Tech #Jim Cahill

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Emerson Automation Experts

1
Teams of Life Savers Partnering to Accelerate and Deliver Therapies Podcast 8:58

5 days ago8:58

8:58

Manufacturers in the Life Sciences sector are increasingly challenged by the advancement of advanced therapies and personalized medicines, as well as the rapidly advancing technology landscape. Emerson’s Jordan Johnson and Rachel Wright join me to discuss these challenges and the role of Emerson and its “Life Savers,” who work closely with them to address and overcome these challenges. Give the podcast a listen, and visit the DeltaV YouTube channel and the DeltaV Systems and Software for Life Sciences section on Emerson.com for more on the technologies and solutions that drive improved operational performance. Transcript Jim: Hi, everyone, and welcome back to another episode of the “Emerson Automation Experts” podcast. I’m Jim Cahill. And today, we’re diving into a topic that’s close to our hearts, how innovation in Life Sciences is helping deliver life-saving treatments faster and more efficiently. The Life Sciences space is moving fast. Think advanced therapies, personalized medicine, and breakthroughs that have the potential to totally change lives. At Emerson, we’re proud to be part of that momentum. With our deep roots in technology and manufacturing, we’re helping Life Sciences companies bring these treatments to patients more quickly, safely, and reliably. And here’s the thing, we’re not doing it alone. We’re building a team of what we like to call Life Savers, people who are passionate about pushing boundaries, solving tough problems, and making a real difference in the world. Our goal? To be a catalyst for a healthier, more vibrant future for everyone. Joining me today to talk about how we’re making that vision a reality are two of those Life Savers, Rachel Wright and Jordan Johnson, both experts in life science innovation here at Emerson. Rachel, Jordan, great to have you with us. Thanks for joining us. Jordan: Thanks for having us. Rachel: Yeah, thanks so much. Jim: Well, let’s go ahead and just dive into things. Let’s start with the heart of today’s topic. When we’re talking about a Life Saver in the industry, what does that really mean to you, Jordan? Jordan: Honestly, for me, it really comes down to the impact that we make. In Life Sciences, even the smallest improvements, like saving a few days off production or making things a bit more consistent, can really make a huge ripple effect. It could mean someone getting life-saving treatments that much sooner. And when you’re the one waiting for that therapy, every single day matters. Rachel: Exactly. It’s not just about chasing efficiency for the sake of it. We’re focused on making a real difference. DeltaV for Life Sciences was designed with that urgency in mind. It’s all about helping our customers get life-changing therapies to patients faster and doing it with the quality and reliability that those patients absolutely deserve. Jim: Yeah, that’s a great point. So, Rachel, let’s talk about DeltaV for Life Sciences. What makes it different from other automation platforms? Rachel: I’m glad you asked. DeltaV for Life Sciences isn’t just another automation system. It’s built specifically for this industry. It covers everything from automation and execution to real-time scheduling and enterprise recipe management . And it’s designed to move with your processes, not against them, supporting you every step of the way from early discovery all the way through to delivery. Jordan: So, I would agree. The best part is that it’s all grounded in real-world experience. So, we spent a lot of time working closely with our Life Sciences teams, really listening to what they’re dealing with and what they need. And that insight has helped us build a platform that’s not just technically solid, but also actually helps them move forward their bigger picture goals. Jim: Yeah, I think that experience and applying that into the technology and working closely with these companies all these years has really focused that in. So, Jordan, let’s bring it back to the human side. How does this technology translate into real-world impact for patients? Jordan: You know, it really hits home when you think about people behind the process. For patients and their family, every single day matters, like I said. So, when we have a company speed up something like a batch release or make a tech transfer smoother, we’re not just improving that company’s workflow, we’re actually helping someone to get that treatment that they’ve been waiting for. And that’s what keeps us going. That’s what motivates us. And that’s the why behind everything we do. Rachel: And we’re not just thinking about what’s happening today. We’re looking ahead. We’re building a digital roadmap for the future with things like AI-powered biomanufacturing, smarter data integration, and systems that connect across the entire enterprise. To put it simply, we want to help life-saving therapies get to people faster, more safely, and with greater reliability. Jim: Yeah. And with technology changing faster than ever and AI coming on like a freight train, it’s important to work that in, especially with the applied knowledge to overcome the challenges that the manufacturers and the Life Sciences sector face. It sounds like Emerson’s mission is tightly aligned with your customer’s purpose. Rachel: It really is, Jim. At Emerson, we’re not just here to support our customers. We’re right there with them, step for step. This is a shared journey, and we’re working together to bring that vision of faster, safer, more accessible therapies to life. And as we go, we’re constantly listening, taking in feedback, learning what’s happening on the ground, and we’re using that to shape and improve our solutions. It’s about staying connected and evolving together to meet the real needs of people who are counting on us. Jordan: One of the big ways that we stay aligned with our customers is by focusing on what really drives value in Life Sciences. So, we’re talking about things like speeding up the pipeline, enabling more flexible manufacturing, maintaining operational integrity, supporting those real-time releases, and driving sustainable operations. And to unlock all that, easier integration of critical technologies across the development pipeline is key. That’s exactly what DeltaV for Life Sciences is built to do. It’s not just about delivering technology, it’s about making real, meaningful progress together. Jim: Oh, that’s a real good point, Jordan. So, I guess before we wrap up, what’s one key message you’d like our listeners to take away? Rachel: DeltaV for Life Sciences isn’t just a platform. It’s a true partnership. We’re here to help teams move faster, work smarter, and stay focused on what truly matters, which is getting those life-saving treatments to the people who need them. It’s all about purpose-driven progress. Jim: Yeah. And I know being a partner is important because all the Life Sciences manufacturers are figuring out how to move up their digital maturity model because of the complexity of what they’re making, and just the changing technology, and having to deal with all that. So, that partnership aspect is really important. And it’s important to us to advance the technology. So, we’re making sure we’re hitting the mark with what they need. I guess, Rachel, just to wrap things up, where can our listeners go to learn more? Rachel: Sure. If you’re curious to learn more, you can actually check out the DeltaV Automation Platform YouTube channel . You can find stories from patients like Chris White sharing his real-world experience. And you can also hear from other people on our team of lifesavers about what being a lifesaver means to them personally. It’s a really cool way to see the impact behind the innovation that we do. Jim: And I think that’s so cool that we have a big team of Life Savers at Emerson that’s, you know, just such a purpose-driven mission. It’s just a fantastic thing, and I know keeps everybody energized. So, I want to thank you both, Rachel and Jordan, for joining me today on the podcast and sharing your expertise with our listeners. Jordan: Yeah, we’re honored to be here. Rachel: Happy to join. Yeah, this was a great time. Thank you so much for having us. Jim: You bet. It’s been fun. -End of transcript-…

Emerson Automation Experts

1
Experience the Efficiency of Vanessa Triple Offset Valves for Valve Replacement Podcast 19:17

6 weeks ago19:17

19:17

Triple offset valves, such as the Vanessa™ Series 30,000 triple-offset valve and finding more and more applications, including the replacement of gate, globe, and ball valves. In this Emerson Automation Experts podcast, Andrea Sutti joins me to discuss the advantages of triple offset valve technology and why it continues to find homes in an increasing number of applications due to its capital expenditure and operational benefits. Listen to the podcast and visit the Gate, Ball & Globe Valve Replacement section on Emerson.com to learn more about how it outperforms traditional designs by offering greater durability, reliability, and cost-effectiveness. For those who wish to explore the topic in greater depth, we invite them to register for the ‘ Enhancing Plant Efficiency and Safety while Reducing Total Cost of Ownership with Vanessa™ Triple Offset Valves ‘ webinar. Transcript Jim: Hi, everyone. This is Jim Cahill, and welcome to another “Emerson Automation Experts” podcast. You know, valves bear the brunt of process conditions as they regulate flows for process manufacturers and producers. I’m joined today by Emerson’s Andrea Sutti to discuss gate, ball, and globe valves, and technologies available to replace them over time. Welcome, Andrea. Andrea: Hi, Jim, and thank you for this opportunity. Hi, everyone, and thank you for attending this podcast. Jim: Well, it’s great that you’re joining us for our conversation today. Well, Andrea, let’s begin by asking you to introduce yourself and provide some details about your background. Andrea: Yes, I am Andrea Sutti, the global product manager for Emerson and triple offset valves. A few words about me. I started my career in early 2000 in the automotive industry, and then I joined Vanessa in 2015, where I had the chance to rotate in different roles, gaining a lot of product knowledge by looking at it from different perspectives. And then I was appointed in 2022 as a global product manager in charge of product market positioning and the strategic initiatives aimed to boost product competitiveness. Jim: Well, I think that’s some great background for our discussion today. Well, what are some of the key challenges faced by industries when delivering projects with budget and resource constraints? Andrea: First, I will start with safety. The industry needs to respond to increasingly demanding requirements for safe operations. So implementing equipment and components that are capable to meet the highest safety standards is the key to face this type of challenge. And then, additional challenges driving the industry are related to the need to reduce the total cost of ownership of equipment and components while improving plant efficiency and productivity. So I know all together these challenges are quite relevant, and to face them, customers need to rely on trusted suppliers with a long history of proven-in-use applications and demonstrated capability to provide, on a timely manner, solutions that are designed and configured in order to meet the customer specifications and help them to face these relevant challenges. Jim: Now, I mentioned those different types of valves in the opening. Can you explain the key differences between gate, ball, and globe valves compared with triple offset valves or TOVs? Andrea: The valve industry can be segmented within two main categories. On one side, we have the manual isolation function, while on the other side, the actuated process control function. So the textbook manual isolation valve is the gate valve, while the valve that is typically adapted to perform actuated process control functions is the globe valve. And in this scenario, ball valves and triple offset valves have been developed in order to fulfill both functions, with the triple offset valve more oriented to the process control function than the ball valves. So understanding the industry segmentation and the product positioning is the key to properly address the valve selection according to the customer needs. So if the customer has the need to fulfill a pure isolation function, such as double positive isolation provided by the single valve, the gate valve is the go-to product. Conversely, if the customer has the need to fulfill the actuated process control function, the valve that is typically selected is the globe valve. And within this scenario, this is where the triple offset valve enters in the picture for applications such as process on-off, high cycling, emergency shutdown, blow-off, and many others, and are capable to outperform the traditional valve design because they recognize the superior characteristics. Jim: All right. That’s a great explanation of where the different valves are used. So what are the primary advantages that Vanessa Series 30,000 Triple Offset Valves offer over gate, ball, and globe valves for industrial applications? Andrea: Let me answer this question by mentioning the four key foundational elements of the Vanessa Triple Offset Valve that set this product apart from the traditional valve design. I will start by mentioning the quarter-turn rotation that ensures superior performances in terms of fugitive emission containment compared to the traditional resistance valves that tend to extrude the packing during the operation. The packing is the element that seals the shaft against the fugitive emission. And then the frictionless design. While the traditional valves experience friction during the operation, Vanessa Triple Offset Valve features no rubbing rotation, and this characteristic enables the third pillar, which is the full metal construction. That makes the Vanessa valve an extremely robust product, highly configurable for a wide variety of industrial applications, including the most demanding with minimum maintenance required. And finally, the torque seating. Differently from the position-seated valve, the torque-seated Vanessa Triple Offset Valve requires minimum torque and minimum actuator size to operate. And this makes the actuated Vanessa valve an extremely compact, cost-effective, reliable solution compared to the traditional position-seated valves. Jim: Well, that makes sense. Let’s look at things from a safety perspective. How do Vanessa Series 30,000 TOVs contribute to improving safety in a plant installation? Andrea: There are several aspects that make the Vanessa Triple Offset Valve, as I say, a preferred solution to respond to customer safety requirements. I will start by mentioning the full metal construction. As I said before, this ensures product robustness, longevity, but also makes the Vanessa product inherently fire-safe, and also ensures electrical continuity across all the components, avoiding the risk to have any electrical charge accumulation inside the valve that can suddenly result in a spark or fire ignition. And then the cavity-free design that avoids trapping particulate inside the valve, that can provide the risk of jamming. And this is a characteristic that is quite relevant for cryogenic applications because avoids liquid to be trapped anywhere inside the valve, that can suddenly result in a dangerous increase in pressure in case of gasification. And then I continue by mentioning the asymmetric design that allows the Vanessa Triple Offset Valve to leverage inline pressure that helps the valve’s behavior in case of an emergency application. So, for instance, for emergency shutdown application, when I install the Vanessa valve shaft side, the pressure helps the disc to close in case of an emergency event. And then I can continue by mention the capability of the Vanessa Triple Offset to open against a full delta pressure without any need for pressure equalization. And for all these reasons and more, the Vanessa Triple Offset Valve is increasingly selected by the industry to fulfill customer requirements because they recognize the capability and superior performances compared to the traditional valve design. Jim: Well, that sure sounds like it’s built for those safety applications, emergency shutdown, because of some of those characteristics, and especially important in LNG, as you mentioned, in that design. So can you explain how Vanessa Series 30,000 Triple Offset Valves combine isolation and control capabilities in a single product? Andrea: In some ways, the Vanessa Triple Offset Valve can be considered as a quarter-turn globe valve with a cone-to-cone sealing that happens instead of through the linear motion of the shaft through the 90-degrees rotation of the disc. And this allows the Vanessa product to combine in a single valve the capability to provide basic control functions while ensuring tight shutoff because the reduced cone angles compared to the globe valve. Cone angles that are in between the very narrow angles typical of a gate valve that is subject to the risk of jamming in case of temperature fluctuation or in general process condition variations, and the wider cone angle typical of a globe valve that is struggling to provide a tight shutoff. So the unique combination of the design features for a Vanessa Triple Offset Valve enables this product to release basic control functions while ensuring bidirectional tight shutoff. And this results in relevant benefits for the customers that can combine, in a single product, two very important functions, resulting in a plant layout, operation, and maintenance simplification. Jim: Okay. So we’ve talked about it from a safety perspective, and some of the big advantages there and flexibility that it can be an on-off and control applications. But looking at it from an economic perspective, how can upgrading to Vanessa Series 30,000 TOVs assist companies with budget constraints and limited resources in optimizing installation costs and plant layout? Andrea: When the triple offset valve is applicable and when the installation cost comes into the picture, this is where the Vanessa Triple Offset Valve can make a difference over the traditional gate, ball, and globe valves because the significant reduction in terms of weight and footprint provided by this product. Additionally, the reduced actuator size needed by Vanessa valve makes this product extremely cost-effective, providing tremendous advantages to the customer in terms of purchasing cost. Advantages that extend all the way to the installation because the lower cost of transportation, handling, lifting the valve, installing in line, and also insulation in case it is applicable. And I would say that these advantages continue to spread well beyond the product itself because the reduced need for a piping system support due to the lower weight of the Vanessa valve compared to the traditional gate, globe, and ball valves. And furthermore, due to the design characteristics of the Vanessa valve that is basically unaffected by the induced stresses from the pipeline, this helps the customer to further simplify and streamline the design and the architecture of the piping system. And I could continue for longer, mentioning the floating applications, the offshore applications, where the weight and the footprint containment is crucial. But I would conclude by mentioning again that when triple offset valve is applicable, whenever the weight and the size of the valves are playing a crucial role for the customer, this is where the Vanessa Triple Offset Valve makes a difference over the traditional valve design, providing significant benefits to the customer, thanks to the compactness of this product. Jim: Yeah, that seems like very important on the capital project side of things. I guess the other part of economics is on the maintenance side. So in terms of maintenance requirements and reliability, how does the Vanessa Series 30,000 Triple Offset Valve outperform ball and gate valves in the long run? Andrea: Ball and gate valves experience friction throughout the valve operation, and this results in more need for maintenance, planned downtime, and also expected shorter valve life cycle. The Vanessa Triple Offset Valves, thanks to its characteristics, the quarter-turn rotation, frictionless design, full metal construction, and torque seating, represent a very robust product, durable, highly configurable for a wide variety of industrial applications, including the most demanding, with minimum or no planned maintenance required. For severe services, there may be the need for some level of maintenance required over time, and thanks to the streamlined design of the Vanessa valve, the replacement of the disc, spiral wound gasket, the seat ring, the packing rings are relatively easy operation that can be conducted without the need of any special tool. So in short, the answer to this question is the best value proposition of the Vanessa Triple Offset Valve, a valve that is extremely robust, highly configurable, with minimum or no planned maintenance required. Jim: So Andrea, to begin wrapping up, can you mention some success stories of Vanessa valves replacing ball, gate, and globe valves? Andrea: I could mention several success stories of Vanessa Triple Offset Valve replacing gate, globe, and ball valves. If I have to select one, I would pick up the famous replacement of large gate valves installed in a piping system serving the New York Aqueduct with the Vanessa Triple Offset Valves. A success story that was even reported by “The New York Times,” and the article is still available online. And then moving from a spot case to an entire industrial sector, the LNG industry that is progressively moving away from the traditional valve design in favor of the triple offset valve, and the Vanessa Triple Offset is leading this transition and can claim the presence in every major LNG plant facility around the world. Jim: Wow, those are some great stories there. And I guess just to wrap it all up, where can our listeners go to learn more about Vanessa 30,000 Series Triple Offset Valves? Andrea: Our listeners can refer to the emerson.com website , which includes a lot of information about the Vanessa product, and then can refer to the local Emerson sales representative to access more information, such as product data sheet, instruction manual, drawings, and any other relevant documents they may need. Jim: Well, that’s great. And I’ll add some links in the transcript to those sites, make it easy for people to get to it. Well, Andrea, I want to thank you so much for joining us today and sharing your triple offset valve expertise. Thank you. Andrea: Thank you, Jim, for this opportunity. And thank you to the isolation valves and the Marcom team for the great support. -End of transcript-…

Emerson Automation Experts

1
Congratulations to Newly-Minted Hall of Fame Member, Duncan Schleiss! 23:12

9 weeks ago23:12

23:12

If you haven’t already seen the news, Emerson’s Duncan Schleiss was elected into ControlGlobal.com’s Process Automation Hall of Fame . He joins many other luminaries who have shaped and advanced our world of automation to enable manufacturers and producers to operate more safely, efficiently, reliably, and profitably. I’ve known Duncan from way back, even before we started the DeltaV development in the early-to-mid 1990s. Duncan led a team of product marketers, including me, that developed DeltaV from an idea into a control system that helped revolutionize how plants operate. Duncan and I sat down for an interview that included some fond memories from the early days, challenges and milestones along the way, and some make-or-break decisions made to advance the DeltaV system to where it is today. We hope you enjoy our conversation. Here’s the list of luminaries in automation who are members of the Process Automation Hall of Fame. Circled in red are our Emerson Hall of Fame members. Congratulations to Duncan and all the luminaries who have made a dent in the world of automation!…

Emerson Automation Experts

1
DeltaV Edge 2.0 Empowers Life Sciences with Easy Batch Data Access 19:00

13 weeks ago19:00

19:00

For manufacturers in the Life Sciences industry, data is critical in releasing medicines and therapeutics and in their time to market. Edge computing plays an increasingly important role in the collaboration required between organizations to accelerate the development and manufacturing processes. It enables a safe space outside the control and asset management systems to provide data in a secure way when and where it’s needed, including up to cloud-based applications. Emerson’s Nikki Bishop and Franz Valmonte join me to discuss innovations in DeltaV Edge 2.0 to help pharmaceutical and biopharmaceutical manufacturers reduce time to market and release times for the medicines and therapeutics they deliver to the world. Give the podcast a listen and visit the DeltaV Edge and Life Sciences sections on Emerson.com to learn more about how you can apply these solutions to improve overall performance. Transcript Jim: Hi, everyone. I’m Jim Cahill with another Emerson Automation Experts podcast. As technologies advance and enable automation architectures to continue to evolve to help drive greater manufacturing and production performance, the importance of edge computing devices continues to grow. I’m joined today by Nikki Bishop and Franz Valmonte to discuss advances in the Edge in the DeltaV automation platform for manufacturers in the life sciences. Welcome, Nikki and Franz. Franz: Hey, Jim. Nikki: Hey, Jim, thanks for having us. Jim: Well, thank you for joining us today. So Franz, let me start with you. Let’s start with the big news. What’s new in DeltaV Edge 2.0 ? Franz: Well, the biggest update, Jim, is that Edge 2.0 now includes batch events and recipe execution data from DeltaV. So now we’re at a point where we have most of the critical data from DeltaV because, in addition to batch, you also collect the configuration hierarchy and all the properties, the process values, the alarms and events, as well as SIS [safety instrumented system] module data. So now, with batch included, we’re enabling far more use cases for Edge users who typically operate at the enterprise or cloud level. So, for example, if you have a data analyst or a quality engineer, they’re looking to extract data. They can easily get the details that they need about batch operations, like exactly when a specific batch step was executed or maybe if a deviation occurred, so something like that. Jim: Wow, that sounds very comprehensive in the type of data that we’re collecting. And Nikki, why is batch data so important in life sciences manufacturing? Nikki: Well, in any business, time is money, but in life sciences, time is life. And so time to market means getting life-saving therapies to patients faster. And that might sound like trying to link that over to what we do with Edge data, but the faster you can get that data and the less latency you have in the process, the faster you can get those therapies to patients who need them. So data drives the world right now, and that couldn’t be truer also in life sciences. So unlocking that data with Edge is huge. I think we should have had more fanfare and celebration around Edge 2.0 with the batch data because it unlocks so much more than just data. It’s literally getting life-saving therapies to patients faster. Jim: Yeah, and I can see how it just opens up the collaboration, the speed of the data, getting a lot of intelligent people looking at it to make better decisions faster. That all sounds really good. So Franz, how does DeltaV Edge make accessing batch data easier for both OT and IT teams? Franz: I would say there are three keywords here. We provide secure, centralized, and simplified access to contextualize operational data from DeltaV. And that’s in almost real time. And we’re able to stream the data coming from DeltaV through a secure one-way communication. It’s very secure. There’s no way to write back to DeltaV. It does not impact plant operations, and it checks all the cybersecurity boxes. And the great thing about Edge is that it automatically mirrors the existing DeltaV hierarchy. That means that the data arrives already contextualized. No need to rebuild the hierarchy elsewhere. And the data can also be fed easily to applications, dashboards, your cloud systems, really anywhere where it’s needed. Essentially, your stakeholders at the enterprise level or on the cloud level could gain secure, easy access to the data like batch while maintaining compliance with stringent cybersecurity standards. Jim: Well, so not only comprehensive, but the way it’s contextualized and everything useful right away. That’s great. So I guess from a regulatory compliance perspective, Nikki, how does this help? Nikki: I mean, regulatory compliance are huge in life sciences. It’s something that you have to adhere to. There is a process to it. You have to make sure that you can go through auditing. It’s not something that you can fast-track, but what you can fast-track is extracting the data that you need to make those decisions and reach those checkpoints. Whereas in the past, it’s been, and it still is today, very much a manual effort managing and sorting through batch data to understand what happened, how did this batch go? If there are any deviations, how do you explore those? What Franz just described with simple, contextualized, secure data for life sciences. Again, that’s time, it’s time-saving, it’s ensuring that you actually can reach those regulatory requirements and reach compliance so that you can release that batch out to become medication and treatments for your patients. It is really a game changer when we talk about that contextualized data being readily available in a secure fashion. Jim: Yeah, that seems like it would really aid regulatory compliance efforts. I guess now that we understand a little bit more what DeltaV Edge is about, Franz, can you give an example of how a life sciences company could use DeltaV Edge 2.0 to improve operations? Franz: Sure, Jim. I would say, let’s say you have a quality engineer who needs to investigate a batch deviation, like an unexpected temperature alarm. Instead of waiting for manual reports, they can now immediately pull the batch event details, such as they know exactly when the alarm was triggered, the related batch step, and all the associated process values. That essentially speeds up the entire investigation, and that lets them resolve all the issues faster and keep their operations running smoothly. Jim: Yeah, it seems like if you can make course corrections as you’re going, it could save on a wasted batch and other things. So that’s pretty powerful there. Nikki, how does real-time batch data access improve decision-making? Nikki: I mean, you said the scary word there, like, running a batch or losing a batch. That’s absolutely what we try to avoid. And so having access to that data so that you can work through deviations before they become an issue for your batch is huge because if you wait until something happens, there’s a good chance you’re going to have to scrap the batch and start over. And that could be months and months of effort that’s gone into that. And so having access to that data to monitor and be proactive. It’s moving from being reactive to being proactive. And now that that data is available in a secure, simple, contextualized way to get to it, it means you can actually monitor those in real time now and not just wait for that adverse situation to happen. Jim: That seems like just being able to deal with it immediately is such an important thing that it can help with. Now, I guess as we turn to kind of looking at the enterprise side of the fence, how does DeltaV Edge simplify integration with enterprise applications and analytics platforms, Franz? Franz: Right now, Jim, we’re using the most common industrial interfaces. We’re using OPC UA, which we’re all familiar with as well as REST API, which a lot of these analytical tools that you’d want to use, like Power BI, Tableau, Excel, you name it are able to connect to. And that’s just the beginning. We’re going to be adding more protocols and data access mechanism. But essentially, we’re providing easy way to have access to the data. It’s pretty straightforward for an enterprise user to integrate their DeltaV data into their cloud platforms, their business intelligence tools, and their AI and ML models. They already have the data, they have an easy way to access it, and they don’t have to worry about how it would impact their operations because it’s read-only. Jim: I think, and having that AI models be able to help grind through really large data sources to offer suggestions and that kind of thing seems really powerful there. So, Nikki, is it just for engineers, or does it benefit other teams too? Nikki: Absolutely not just for engineers. When you think about DeltaV…and I was a controls engineer for many years, so I know the power of the data that lives within DeltaV. We’ve now unlocked that data for the rest of the enterprise. Whether it’s a data scientist, a quality engineer, Ph.D. student doing research and pulling out insights, having that data available in an easy, secure fashion lets your experts be the expert. They can be the expert in analytics, at deriving insights. They can be the experts at looking across the enterprise data to understand some of the maybe golden batch modeling, but they don’t have to worry about figuring out how to find the data or, to Franz’s point earlier, to manually contextualize. That’s done. We give them the tools that they need in an easy way to get to it and let the experts be the experts, whether they’re quality or regulatory or controls or analytics engineers. It’s really an exciting advancement for us. Jim: And I’m sure the OT guys are excited that they’re not getting themselves into the control side of it, trying to pull this data out. They’re more in a safer area to work with that, so they can really do the things they need to do. So how does this support digital transformation initiatives in the life sciences, Nikki? Nikki: As we move towards that agile, adaptive plant I think, and we’ve all looked through the models of going from 1 to 5 and those levels. This is a critical enabler for that. You mentioned IT and OT teams. I think any of us who’ve been in this space for any time period know how hard it can be just to get your IT and OT teams to talk to one another. Edge is that bridge. It not only bridges the culture of an IT team and the culture of an OT team, but it gives them that safe space to collaborate, and that’s critical for digital transformation. AI and agentic AI and all the things that are popping up are only as good as the data that serves them. And so you have to have the IT-OT coordination, Edge data, and have that available in a contextualized way to really move the needle. And we’re there now. We’re there now. We just got to get the parties talking to one another, using the data, and like I said, let the experts be the experts, and we could start moving. I think we’ve worked through a lot of that over the last 5 to 10 years of what does that safe space look like? How do you get IT and OT to agree on that? And Edge is a key enabler in that. Jim: Tt’s kind of putting them on a nice, neutral area in there where they can actually collaborate without going into each other’s turfs deeply or anything like that. So that’s a great thing. So I’ve heard so far the comprehensive nature, the fact that it’s contextualized, the fact that a lot of different audiences or roles can get at it and look at different ways to help advance there, and just the way it helps provide collaboration. So I guess, looking ahead, Franz, what’s next for DeltaV Edge? Franz: Well, Jim, I’m pretty excited to share that we are going to be launching our first Emerson-developed Edge app. The app is called the Edge Explorer, and we’re going to be launching it this month. Essentially, it’s going to be the main data interface for accessing DeltaV data on Edge. Essentially, for the first release, our users could navigate their DeltaV configuration hierarchy, just like in DeltaV Explorer. That’s where the name came from. But in addition to that, they can also analyze their process trends, monitor their alarms and events. And we’re caching a lot of time series data on Edge. Edge Explorer is a way for them to easily export all of that into CSV. If they want to do further data manipulation, scripting, and what have you it’s a lot easier. But in future releases for this app, we’ll also include batch review capabilities, as well as process correlation, which is pretty important for a lot of our life science customers. It’s going to grow into a powerful tool over time. And in the second app that we’re going to be releasing, and a lot of our customers are pretty excited about this, is DeltaV Live on Edge. And this is coming in July. This will bring all the DeltaV Live displays access beyond the control room. You could have a secure, read-only web access from any device without requiring any of your typical configuration, conversion that you’re doing with a third-party web display. This is more straightforward. You get exactly the graphics on Level 4, or on the cloud, wherever you want it. And beyond these, AI is also a key part of our long-term strategy. We want to empower our users to query, analyze, and gain insights from their DeltaV configuration and process data using natural language. It’s like a chat assistant that understands a DeltaV model. Jim: Well, that’s really powerful. You’re taking what before you had to go into the system for, all the Explorer information, being able to export that, the Live, being able to see what the operator sees in a safe, read-only environment. That’s really cool. And then, of course, AI-powered assistance. I’m amazed every day at how it can grind through huge amounts of data and distill it down, and offer some recommendations here and there. Just powerful technology. I guess, Nikki, if a customer is interested, what’s the best way to get started with DeltaV Edge 2.0? Nikki: The best way is to reach out to your Emerson sales representative , and they can connect you with more. And if you don’t know who your Emerson sales representative is, I’ll offer myself and Franz , who can also make sure that you get connected to the right people. Yeah. We are ready. We’re ready with this technology and look forward to people getting involved. Jim: Yeah. And I’ll put some links to the Contact Us section of the website where they can go. And, of course, links, right, to your LinkedIn so they can reach out directly to you there or send you an email or whatever. So I guess in closing, for you both, any final thoughts that you’d like to leave with our listeners? Franz: I can start. So just want to say that if you’ve been waiting for a reliable way to collect and use your batch data from DeltaV, Edge 2.0 delivers exactly that. We’ve built Edge to be the stable, scalable, and easy-to-implement solution. Yeah, just want to say that now’s the perfect time to take advantage of it. Nikki: I agree with that, Franz. And I’ll also say DeltaV was purpose-built for life sciences many years ago. And we’ve taken that same mindset when we look at the data that we’re pulling, the batch data that we’re pulling into Edge. And so if you’re in life sciences and you’re on this digital transformation path that we all are, and you’re thinking, “Data’s a little bit scary, I’m not sure where it sits or how it sits or how it serves my life sciences group,” Emerson’s developed solutions that are purpose-built for life sciences. It’s a great time to move forward with Edge and unlock that data so that, again, your experts can be your experts, and we can take care of making that data available to them. Jim: Yeah, where data is life sciences, probably more than any other industry, data is everything in what you’re manufacturing. But even if you came across this podcast, not in life sciences, that’s a lot of benefit to be able to get all that information that was previously down inside the control system that was closely guarded because you can’t just let anyone down into it. To have the Edge and this solution sounds tremendous. And I guess finally, so where can our listeners go to learn more? Franz: So yeah, Jim, our listeners can visit Emerson.com/DeltaVEdge . That’s our product page if they want to learn more. Jim: That’s great. And I’ll add a link in the transcript to that. Well, Nikki, Franz, I want to thank you both so much for spending some time with us today and sharing your expertise with our listeners. Thank you so much. Franz: Thanks again, Jim, for having us. It’s really been a great pleasure. Nikki: Yeah, great to be here. -End of transcript-…

Emerson Automation Experts

1
Adopting New Tailings Standards for Mine Sustainability Podcast 24:50

18 weeks ago24:50

24:50

Miners have always faced the challenge of how best to safely and sustainably manage the vast amounts of uneconomic material left over from the mining process, known as tailings. A new global standard charts a path for the industry to further improve its management practices. In this podcast, Emerson’s Steve Brewer joins me to discuss some of the challenges in adopting the new standard and the role of valve technology in managing tailings successfully. Give the podcast a listen and be sure to visit the application pages on Emerson.com for tailings pipeline & spigot isolation and tailings pump isolation . Here, you will find more information on the solutions engineered specifically to support more sustainable tailings management. Transcript Jim: Hi, everyone. I’m Jim Cahill with another Emerson Automation Experts podcast. Today, we’ll be discussing tailings in mining operations. What they are, what miners’ challenges are in dealing with them, and what are some ways these challenges are being solved. I’m joined today by Steve Brewer to discuss all these topics and more. Welcome to the podcast, Steve. Steve: Thank you. Thank you, Jim. Thanks for hosting. Jim: Well, we’re glad to have you here today to get a lot smarter about tailings. So, let’s begin by asking you to introduce yourself and share some of your background with our listeners. Steve: Okay. Right. Well, my name’s Steve Brewer, and I’m a business development manager for Emerson. I cover North American mining. So, I’ve been working with the mining industry for 25 years, and specifically with the Clarkson slurry gate valves and knife gate valve products. I’ve been involved in a variety of roles, regional product sales manager, export sales manager, and, like I said, now business development for North American mining. Jim: Well, that’s great background for our discussion. Let’s start. Can you give us a brief overview of what tailings are and their role in the mining process? Steve: Sure. So, tailings are basically a byproduct, or a waste material generated by the mining processes. So, simple way that this would work, miners extract ore from the ground, and they provide that ore to the mill. The mill goes through the processes of extracting the metals or minerals that they want, and everything left over is waste product, or tailings. And that tailings has to be moved or transported from the mill to a tailings storage facility. The vast majority of the ore going into the mill will end up as waste material. So, for example, a typical copper mine might have a 1% recovery rate, meaning that they’re recovering 1% copper, and 99% of the material that entered the mill will end up in the tailings storage facility. Jim: Well, that sounds like the majority of everything is this tailings in there. So, why is the management of tailings so critical to both the productivity and sustainability of a mine? Steve: Right. So, again, you have so much of the material going into the mill that ends up as waste product. If you don’t have a way to dispose of the waste, or if you can’t move the waste from the mill, production stops. So, that’s the first part. I mean, you have to be able to get rid of the waste material to continue production. Environmentally sound and cost-effective disposal of the waste material is just critical to the operations. It’s something we work on every day, right? Jim: Yeah. It sounds like, with those percentages of what you’re trying to get and what you need to dispose of, that, yeah, if you’re not doing that right, everything grinds to a halt. Steve: And nobody likes to stop production. Jim: Yeah, I know how that goes. So, can you explain the challenges associated with the transportation of tailings through pipelines and the role of valves in the process? Steve: You bet. So, we’re typically dealing with what we call slurry. So, it’s going to be solids material in a liquid, water in this case. And some of the difficulties, of course, your tailings, you’re going to have water and rocks, dirt, sand, you know, whatever is in that material. The tailings part of this process, it’s typically high solids content and very abrasive, transported often a long distance from the mill. So, abrasion and erosion resistance is critical for long service life and reduced maintenance intervals of the pipeline and the valves and the pumps. So, maintenance is a really big part of this process for the mills. Valves themselves provide control or isolation. In our case with Emerson, we’re doing mostly isolation for slurry valves. And valves are typically used for tailings isolation, tank isolation, pipeline isolation , pump isolation . And, again, it’s critical that these valves last a long time. That’s what customers are always looking for. And so, we designed these valves not only for long service life, but also ease of repairability, because these valves, when you buy a slurry gate valve, you’re buying a capital asset, and, basically, you’re able to repair or rebuild these valves over time because they are going to show wear. And customers are very aware of this slurry being abrasive. They’re very familiar with the wear issues, with pipelines and pumps and valves, of course. And so, that’s where we come in, providing those valves that are going to provide long service life and reduced maintenance intervals. Jim: Yeah, that sounds like a really tough kind of fluid going through the pipes, that slurry of it being very abrasive and maybe corrosive and everything else. So, that’s definitely a challenging application. So, how do environmental considerations shape the practices and technologies used in tailings disposal? Steve: Right. Well, everybody in every industry is very focused on environmental safety anymore, and especially in the mining industry. But for Emerson, you know, we’re always seeking new technology to reduce the negative impact of the mining practices on the environment. So, recently, Emerson introduced a new line of what we call severe service knife gate valves , designed specifically for very difficult tailings applications, again, abrasion-resistant, erosion-resistant products, and, again, products that can be repaired in the field at the customer site. So, again, trying to provide that long service life and reduced maintenance intervals, at the same time maintaining environmental safety. So, one of the things we’ll talk about a little bit later is the two different types of products that we typically provide for tailings isolation, and that is our new severe service valves and our traditional Clarkson sleeve valves , as we call them, push-through valves or slurry gate valves. We’ll talk a little bit about that in just a moment. But we do offer two different products, and, again, the new severe service valves are designed specifically to be a little more environmentally friendly, I would say. Jim: Well, that’s great, responding to the challenges the mining industry faces. Now, I understand that the International Council of Mining and Metals, ICMM , implemented the global standard on tailings management in 2020. Can you elaborate on what the standard entails? Steve: You bet. So, the ICMM is a group of mining companies that got together, trying to create and drive an industry standard to protect the environment, human safety, and all of this kind of revolves around reducing tailings production. I mean, their idea is to reduce tailings and, eventually, eliminate tailings all together. We have a lot of work to do before we get there. But this basic drive is going to improve tailings management design, and that is tailing storage facilities, you know, all the way from the, you know, the civil work and also the pipelines and transportation of the tailings themselves. But there’s a lot that goes into this. You know, we’re trying to reduce the environmental footprint and help companies be more environmentally sound. A lot of what they’re trying to do, like I said, where they’re trying to reduce or eliminate tailings, and they start by looking at the ore. And so, they talk about precision geology, for example, and precision mining and precision segregation. So, the precision geology, for example, is trying to identify not only where a particular mineral is, but how do we find, or locate, or identify the higher-grade ores, because the higher-grade ore, you know, the more product you’re going to be able to recover, and, obviously, lowers the amount of tailings you generate. The mining part, precision mining, if we can extract ore that is effective, not extracting the waste part of the ore in the first place, that doesn’t have to go to the mill, that, too, reduces your tailings. And then the other part is segregation ore recovery. You know, the more mineral we can recover from the ore, the less tailings you’re going to have. So, like I said, it’s just one of those things that they’re trying to do a lot, and a lot of this revolves around reducing tailings all together. Jim: Yeah. And I can just imagine that, you know, it’s not just reducing the tailings, but just increase energy efficiency, less digging for that ore, if you’re more precise somewhere to get it. And then, on the processing side, all that energy that’s in the processing side. So, yeah, that’s driving sustainability to much higher levels. So what are the key design changes in new tailings parameters? Steve: Well, right off the bat, you know, one of the, again, we’re very focused on the recovery of the mineral we’re looking for and obviously generating less waste. That’s good. But we also try to recover as much water out of the process as we can. And when you recover, or when you reclaim more and more water from what would be your tailings, the more water you reclaim, the higher the solids content of the tailings media becomes. So, we used to see tailings at about 45% solids, and then 55% solids. And now we see tailings applications up to 65% solids just by reducing the amount of water in the tailings. That’s a big part of it. We also talk about liquor recovery or efficiency. You know, we’re more trying to be more efficient in recovering the mineral we want, but again, reducing water, not only in the process and in tailings, but reductions in water evaporation or groundwater seepage, because the less water you send to tailings, the less water there is for evaporation, for example. Also, we’re looking at changes in the tailing storage facility and the pipeline. So one of the things we see is that, over time, we’re moving tailings further and further away from the mill to basically dispose of that waste material. But where they’re basically dumping or placing that material into a tailing storage facility, we’re adding more, what we call, spigot lines . So you’ll have a long tailings line moving towards the tailing storage facility, but you have discharge spigots where you’re dumping that material into the tailing storage, right? And you want to, in this new system, have more spigots, so you’re discharging more material across this tailing storage facility. Basically, a more even distribution of material, which is, again, good for the environment, good for human safety, just overall better practices for tailings. Jim: Well, that makes sense. And again, it seems like driving greater efficiencies there. Now, I know that valves are critical components in any tailings management system. What does the standard mean for valves? Steve: Well, right off the bat, I mean, we’re processing more solids at higher pressures and higher velocities. And again, these valves, you know, we use these in abrasive erosive process media. So we know we’re anticipating wear, with not only the valves, but pumps and piping, and pretty much everything involved. But we’re basically increasing the solids content that sometimes requires higher pressure and higher velocity to push that media down the pipeline. We’re also looking at customers wanting longer lifecycles and reduced maintenance intervals. So, basically, they’re increasing the wear rates, if you will, and asking for longer service life. So that, for valve manufacturers, that means that we have to really step up and provide better and better product as we go on with this new innovation. You know, not just for the tailings systems themselves, but for the individual components in the process. So things we work on, longer lifecycles for our products. Again, ease of field repairability for our products is really important. And also, you get, like I said, the turbulent flows. You get higher pressures, higher velocities, but we need to maintain somewhat of a turbulent flow to keep the solid suspension in the pipeline. Anytime you have solids and water in a pipeline and you’re moving it, you don’t want the solids to settle to the bottom of the pipeline. So you have to maintain a certain velocity through the pipeline for that. And then, the other thing for valves, we offer two different types of products. The original Clarkson slurry gate valves , or push-through valves , that we introduced almost 50 years ago. And then, our newer severe service valves , which are designed for the same exact applications, just a little bit different in how they operate. Last, I mentioned this before, but there are more valves required in the typical system now, as we add spigots for discharging waste material into the tailing storage facility. So again, increased piping layout, longer pipelines, higher pressures, there’s a lot that goes into it for valves in general. Jim: Yeah. Given all these challenges that you just described there, what innovations in technological advancements are being made in tailings valve designs to address these challenges? Steve: Right. So, as I mentioned, we developed and recently introduced a new line of severe service valves. So, severe service knife gate valves are designed, like I said, for high solids content, abrasive slurries like tailings. And these valves are typically higher-pressure valves. So these valves are rated for ANSI class 150, class 300, and class 600 for Emerson. And these are kind of a departure from the original valves we developed almost 50 years ago, the Clarkson slurry gate valves. The slurry gate valves are what we call a push-through or discharging-style valve. And so, these valves are designed for, you know, the most, I guess, arduous slurry applications we have. But these valves are designed to self-purge or self-clean when they cycle. So when they do cycle, they discharge a small amount of process media onto the ground. So, if these valves are located in the tailing storage facility or near a tailings thickener , that’s typically not going to be a big problem. But you have other areas where, in these longer pipelines, for example, that you might have transportation of slurry across environmentally sensitive areas, and there, you would not want a discharging valve. So that’s the new innovation, and the reason, one of the reasons, anyway, for the new severe service valves. And again, these higher-pressure valves, severe service valves, are rated for ANSI class 150, ANSI class 300, and 600, whereas the original Clarkson valves, when we developed those back in 1977, we designed those valves for low-pressure tailing systems at basically 100 PSI cold working pressure. You know, they’re not an ANSI class-rated valve. So we had the original Clarkson valves, we had those designed for 100 PSI, and then we moved that up to 200 PSI, and then 300 PSI. But we are seeing more and more high-pressure applications and a combination of both discharging and non-discharging valves. Jim: Yeah, it sounds like, one, you had to design for those higher pressures to deal with some of those challenges. And given the fact that it may cross environmentally sensitive areas, to have them be non-discharging. So those are some great innovations there. Steve: And again, as the, you know, this new standard for these tailing storage facilities, we’re seeing, you know, tailing storage moving further and further away from the mill. And when we do that, we need higher pressures to push that tailings media further away from the mill. And that’s one of the reasons for the higher pressures. But again, going from the mid-’70s to today, we’re seeing, you know, a great increase in pressures to move that tailings media. Jim: Well, that’s great news that our technologies have kept up with what’s required by the industry there. So, what advice would you offer to mining companies looking to improve their tailings management systems? Steve: You know, the first thing, we do travel around, and we go to the mine sites and offer, you know, maintenance training, for example. And we do these maintenance training events at mines all over the place. But one of the things I always start with is proper installation of valves, and this could be a new system, a new installation entirely, or, you know, replacement valves over time. But I always say that the first thing you want to do is make sure you install the valve correctly, as noted in the manufacturer’s instruction manuals. And the reason for that, if you install the valve correctly, you’re going to get the longest service life. You’re going to get the best wear out of your wear components and the valves, and you’re going to reduce your maintenance intervals. So, you know, for maintenance training, I always tell them, install the valves correctly in the first place. They will last longer. And that’s kind of the whole point of this. Other than that, you can maintain the valves per the manufacturer’s standards, and also, we recommend they use OEM, you know, normal OEM parts. We do run into, you know, pumps and valves run into this, that there are people that make non-OEM parts, and sometimes they work well, sometimes they’re maybe not up to par, but we do recommend following the manufacturer’s recommendations for maintaining the product and using those parts. And then train your people, and this is part of the training, but train your people to help them learn how to extend the life and reduce maintenance intervals. The other thing is, and I’ve mentioned this already, but we do manufacture a combination of slurry gate valves, which are what we call discharging valves, and severe service valves, which are non-discharging. And we do manufacture both, so we can offer a combination of those to best fit the applications required. Jim: Yeah, it seems like if you’re in the tailings area already, discharging valves are fine. So, having both those work. And I think that’s real important given that if the valve fails and you’re using non-OEM parts, you know, you’re basically stopping mining operations, which is not what you want and is quite costly in that case. Steve: Yeah, using non-OEM parts does not help extend the lifecycle and definitely doesn’t reduce maintenance intervals. So, just a basic recommendation from us. Jim: Yeah. And finally, if listeners want to learn more about this subject or implement best practices, where can they find more information? Steve: Well, I believe we’ll have some information in the show notes below that the customer can look at. But we also have a number of helpful resources on the Emerson website, Emerson.com. We do have, you know, product data sheets . We have drawings, instruction manuals, a lot of other information . We also have some toolkits that we can make available to people working with our products that help with the selection of valves and application of valves, and also sourcing product. Jim: And you’re absolutely right. I’ll add hyperlinks to where we discuss some of the different things throughout the transcript here and make it easy for people to get to the right area of Emerson.com to learn more. Steve: Got it. And then, of course, if you have any questions or immediate needs, reach out to your local Emerson representative, and we can get you in contact with the people, whether it’s tailings or application in the mill, or pretty much anything mining-related. We should have somebody to help. Jim: Well, that’s great. Steve, I want to thank you so much for joining me today and sharing your expertise with our listeners. Steve: Yeah, thank you for hosting, Jim. I do appreciate the opportunity. -End of transcript-…

Emerson Automation Experts

1
Unlocking Value Trapped in OT Data Podcast 27:58

23 weeks ago27:58

27:58

The complexity of operating manufacturing and production facilities continues to grow. Data is abundant but often siloed in many different applications. The need to drive improvements in safety, efficiency, quality and reliability often requires data from these many divergent sources. In this Emerson Automation Experts podcast, Hamza Malik shares a solution to these silos of data, to bring them together to turn data into actionable information in order to drive performance improvements. Give the podcast a listen and visit the Inmation—The Industrial Data Fabric section for more information on how you can build a foundation to optimize operations across your enterprise. Transcript Jim: Hi, everyone. I’m Jim Cahill with another Emerson Automation Experts podcast. For too long, companies have faced an ever-evolving challenge trying to unlock the value trapped within their operational technology or OT data. The variety and volume of data sources is growing and it was time for a solution that ties them together whilst keeping the total cost of ownership low. OT benefits and IT have a solution in their estate that’s easy to manage. I’m joined today by Hamza Malik to discuss ways to untrap this OT data with the Inmation application and drive performance improvements. Welcome, Hamza. Hamza: Thank you, Jim. Happy to be here. Jim: Well, it’s great having you here to share some of your expertise with our listeners. So, let’s dive right in and begin by asking you what exactly is Inmation? Hamza: That’s a very pertinent question to begin with. For a lot of our listeners, this is more than likely to be the first time they’re going to hear about Inmation. So, I tried very hard to summarize what Inmation is in one sentence, but I ended up with two. So, here it goes. Inmation is essentially a secure, scalable OT data platform, purpose-built for the ever-increasing variety and volume of data that our customers around the world, regardless of industry, are collecting. Within an architectural perspective, it bridges systems from the field all the way to the cloud and all the way back. Jim: Well, that gives it a good perspective, I think, of kind of where it fits for our customers. So, can you share some background on why it was created? Hamza: Sure can. So, the folks that developed the Inmation platform, the Inmation OT data platform, were working within a space where connectivity between different systems was their bread and butter. And about, I’d say, 12 years ago, they realized that, again, because of the variety and volume of data that customers are collecting and that there is trapped value within all of this data that customers are collecting, there is actually no purpose-built system that is easy to deploy, has a relatively low total cost of ownership, can drive a relatively quick return on investment. And from a connectivity platform, there is no single product that allows you to do this. So, essentially, Inmation was created to be the single product that this company makes so that it can handle the demands of a multitude of data-hungry applications within our customers’ organizations without the need to address the system and interface integration topic ever again. We have customers that we’ve been working with for decades. Teams change, priorities change, the amount of funding and resources available to our customers change. When these things happen, over the years, the architectural stack that our customers end up with can appear like a spaghetti, like a spaghetti diagram, which I think is a term a lot of our IT and OT customers will resonate with. Connectivity, interfacing, cybersecurity challenges, all of these are topics that keep coming up again and again and again whenever a new system needs to be brought online or a new data source is brought online so that customers can tap into their data. Inmation solves that problem at the very heart of it. As a very core competency of the solution, it allows you to handle all of this data without having to worry about that integration and that interface struggle ever again. Inmation DataStudio, the main client application for Inmation, is designed to be a secure and singular interface to access your entire data source network. Jim: Yeah, you’re right that there’s so many sources of data and it’s ever-increasing to have something in there kind of bring it together to help do what you need to do to improve performance. That sounds very important. So let’s get into it a little more. Can you share some examples of use cases it can help our customers realize? Hamza Yeah, so I’ve got two that I wanted to talk about today and I believe again just based on experience, conversations with a multitude of different customers across different sectors, these two tend to come up as challenges that a lot of our customers, if not all of them, are constantly dealing with. They’re not like one and done, they keep coming back up for reasons which our customers will know already. So out of the two, the first one is about data integration and having a centralized OT data platform. So Inmation can collect and integrate data from different sources across the organization. I’ve already said that but here’s where I’ll mention what some of these data sources typically are. And they’re not limited to these but they’re just some of the most popular data sources that I’ve come across in my experience. So these could be your traditional data historians or your time series historians. These could be sensors, these could be PLCs, these could be HMIs, these could be IIOT devices and of course, there’s now a plethora of them available on the market and our customers are making use of them because they provide a valuable function. But the list goes on. These data sources, Jim, can also include process control systems, LIMS, so your laboratory information management system, your environmental monitoring systems, as well as your enterprise resource planning system, so your ERP systems. By centralizing the data from all of these data sources into a central location, it becomes easier to access this data and then to analyze the information from various stages of the production process. One of the most common challenges I’ve heard directly from customers is that when you’ve gotten teams of multiple people, now those could be belonging to the same department, just certain different geographical locations, or they could be folks based in the same geographical location but working across two different teams. Let’s say there’s the process engineers and the maintenance engineers, but they’re working on the same problem and that happens a lot. One of the most common questions they’ll ask each other and it becomes a hindrance when they’re trying to crack this problem is they’re asking each other, are you looking at the same data that I’m looking at? And then are you looking at the most current data? Because my timestamp for data is this, what’s your timestamp? And just aligning on the same data set takes time, effort, resources, and what is it delaying? Solution to the problem. Inmation solves that head-on by giving everyone access to the same, sorry, by centralizing data from all data sources in the same place. You’re no longer relying on different systems and different databases, so it harmonizes together. So the first one in summary is around data integration and a centralized OT data platform and the benefits that that brings. The second one Jim that I wanted to focus on today is predictive maintenance. Now, prescriptive maintenance is also a part of this, but the first step of course is trying to have a system that can predict when a process is going out of bounds and of course that can vary process to process, company to company, sector to sector. Or when a process is about to fail or when a particular asset is about to fail. Of course, these are extremely powerful capabilities for our customers to empower themselves with. So by leveraging the external machine learning algorithms and the predictive analytics capabilities, Inmation can enable predictive maintenance over a range of scenarios. It can expose data from equipment sensors and historical maintenance records, for example, to a predictive maintenance engine to help identify patterns that indicate potential equipment failures. So it will ingest data largely from your maintenance records and also from data sheets pertaining to particular sensors or assets and also data from the traditional historian that almost all of our customers have in place. Once it’s ingested all of that data, the machine learning algorithm now is empowered and trained to a degree where it can look at historical performance and then project where those failures are likely… or sorry, when those failures most importantly are likely to occur again. So no longer are you focused on let’s say, calendar-based maintenance, rather you can optimize your maintenance spend on condition-based maintenance, which is a move almost all of our customers are trying to achieve. So in essence, this allows proactive maintenance interventions, reducing downtime and improving overall equipment effectiveness. Jim: Well, that sounds like a really powerful use case, that predictive maintenance and being able to take advantage once you have that data, the machine learning to be able to help you identify bad situations that may be coming up. So how is, just to make sure we’ve got this here, how is Inmation different than a traditional control system historian? Hamza: That’s a very pertinent question. You know, whenever you talk to anybody about something new, no matter what it is, it doesn’t have to be work. It could be outside of work. They need a benchmark. They need context. They need something to compare this new idea, this new solution, this new product to, because it allows them to digest that information a lot quicker. So whenever I’ve spoken about Inmation, and I know some of my other colleagues have faced the same questions, the most common question we get is this, “Hamza, we have a traditional control system historian in place already. We have an OT database. We have a traditional time series historian in place. How is Inmation different?” And it’s a very, very valid question because Inmation does bring new capabilities to the market, to our customers. So to start off with the types of data that our customers are collecting has extended way beyond or much beyond type series data. Inmation is purpose-built to handle all these types of OT data, and it is also therefore purpose-built to handle the volume of all these types of OT datasets. It is a highly and easily extensible, distributed, parallel, object-oriented, soft real-time system with horizontal scaling on multiple layers. It also has with it a hybrid in-memory and document database. And it allows you the ability or gives you the ability to historize your data. And because it is scalable, extensible, horizontally, the historian, the embedded historian of choice within the Inmation solution is MongoDB, which is the NoSQL database. And the reason that was chosen by the developers of Inmation is because of its scalability. We’ll come on to some customer examples later, but the feedback from the market was that if your solution is going to be this scalable, the historian, the embedded historian within Inmation needs to be just as scalable. And that’s why, as I mentioned, Jim, the developers of Inmation went down the route of MongoDB. And all of those capabilities coming together make it starkly different in terms of the capabilities it’s going to empower our users with than a traditional control system historian, which has its place. But like I said, they’re addressing very, very different worlds as it were. Jim: Yeah. That makes sense that it’s not just that time series, it’s everything else. And I guess the sheer amount and speed that scalability would require something that’s not SQL to be able to do that. So can you share some customer examples of how Inmation has been applied? Hamza: That’s right. I mean, I sure can. And I think there’s nothing better than actually sharing these examples because of course, everybody would say and would like to say, hey, my solution is the best thing since sliced bread, but there is nothing better than actual customer examples. So I’ve got three and I’ve tried to diversify them across different sectors. So I’ve got one from the chemical sector, one from the pharmaceutical life sciences sector, one from the oil and gas sector, the energy sector. So let me start off with BASF, a huge German chemical company that’s been around for decades. So BASF actually uses Inmation to connect information from a variety of different data sources, including legacy historians from over 130 globally distributed sites, to provide an IT/OT integration backbone. It’s handling upwards of 2 million inserts per second currently, and that’s growing. And it is ever expanding as additional facilities and processes are brought online. Performance by BASF, they’ve been using it for over a decade now, I believe. So the performance that has been benchmarked by BASF is between 10x to 100x that of a traditional enterprise historian. So if we go back to the benchmarking that we were talking about, the previous question where people tend to compare Inmation to something, it tends to be a traditional historian, whether that’s site-specific or whether it’s enterprise, BASF over 10 years. So you can have confidence in a qualitative and a quantitative amount of data on which they base this benchmarking. They believe it’s 10x to 100x that of a traditional historian. My other example comes from the Japanese life sciences giant Takeda, Jim, and they’re using Inmation to broker data between hundreds of plant historians and their IT data lake, with which it provides clean and contextualized data. When you’ve got different plant historians, they are coming from different sites, whether those sites were brought online via acquisition, what baggage or legacy historians those sites are going to bring with them, it can take years and truly years, Jim, to harmonize all of those to bring them on to the same level of automation maturity. But there is trapped value within those historians in the case of Takeda specifically. So you’re trying to achieve one thing, but the data those systems can save is entirely valuable. With Inmation, there is no longer the need to harmonize all of these different systems to bring them on to the same level of automation maturity. As they are, you can tap into that data, pull it into Inmation, and they’d send it on to your IT data lake readily. So you can go about unlocking that trapped value from day one. My third example, Jim, is a major oil and gas company, which is using Inmation to harmonize data from various vendors that have been put in place over decades. Within Inmation, they’ve been able to turn these systems, their instrumentation asset management systems in particular, they’ve been able to turn these systems into more than engineering tools. They now have a way to protect their old investments. As I mentioned, these systems have been put in place over the decades, and they’ve enabled the direct benefits that this implementation has been able to unlock, is reduction of unplanned downtime, increased maintenance efficiency, and better turnaround scoping. In the words of one of the individuals I work with on a very close basis at this particular company, they said it’s enabled them to climb further the autonomous operations staircase. And I think when it comes to autonomous operations, not least due to the challenges we’ve faced over the last three or four years where people had to have the ability to connect to their sites remotely without being able to go on the site. I think a lot of our customers are trying to enable autonomous operations in some degree, to some level of maturity. And Inmation has allowed this particular customer to achieve that. Jim: Yeah. And I think the people in the oil and gas industries are at the forefront, just given the spread out, whether it’s onshore or offshore, in doing that and driving it. So, those are great examples from a breadth of industries there. Let’s switch gears a little bit. I know people are very concerned about standards, compliance, and everything. So, how does Inmation follow the global OPC UA standard? Hamza: Yeah. Again, a very pertinent question, not least, Jim, because of the proliferation of this OPC UA standard in industry. It’s been happening for a number of years, and it’s only going to continue. It’s only going to gain pace. Now, Inmation have actually taken the OPC UA data models as an inspiration for the entire core design of the system, but the standard is strictly adhered to on the interface level, so between the client and the server. A bonus positive outcome of this, which is not always obvious in the initial stages of evaluation of the Inmation system, is that it turns any exposed object in the model hierarchy into an OPC UA-compliant item in the Inmation server interface. What that means, as a result, is that by this intrinsic conversion, any solution to facelift, or… yeah, to facelift really, legacy interfaces is obsolete. This in itself is a significant value add. So, if you combine this with object-level security, this creates a very flexible global UA namespace, which can be leveraged by UA clients in multiple use cases. Another area where Inmation follows the global OPC UA standard is the data aggregation in its historian, i.e. MongoDB. So, they provide all the specified historical aggregates according to the OPC specifications. A number of customers come to me to say, Hamza, great that this supports this, this, and this. Well, we’re moving towards OPC UA, but we’ve got a lot of redundancy. We’ve got a lot of interfaces that we’re worried will not help set us up for the future, so we’re not future-proofed. This is where this positive, like a bonus positive outcome, as I mentioned, Jim, comes into its own. These guys are launching extremely expensive and resource-intensive products to, like I said, modernize, facelift all of these legacy interfaces. But because of this core competency within Inmation, they don’t have to do any of this. And as I mentioned, we want our customers to be empowered to make use of their data, no matter where it’s coming from, from day one, so that their total cost of ownership, their ROI, starts taking place from day one. And this core competency of Inmation allows them to do that. But that’s OPC UA. But of course, a lot of our customers have not taken a leap yet into that area. So I do want to point out that it’s important to note that Inmation also provides support from any common legacy interface technology with a significant install base. A lot of these, if not all of them, will resonate with our customers. These could be classic COM-based. It could be OPC DA, so OPC Classic. These could be HTTP-based interfaces, native PLC communication for the likes of, say, Siemens S5 or S7, and Allen-Bradley Logix 5000, etc. So we’re not leaving anybody behind. It’s just that we’re realizing that OPC UA is where a lot of folks are standardizing. So we want to be there for them. We don’t want to leave anyone behind. So we’re supporting all of the interfaces and protocols that have a significant install base. Jim: Yeah. That breadth is really important based on what people may have from a legacy perspective. But you’re right that OPC UA is just becoming more and more and more prevalent out there. Now earlier, we touched on scalability. But can you tell us a little bit more about how Inmation works from a scalability perspective? Hamza: So, when we look at industrial use cases, oftentimes they have a common goal, better decision support, higher degree of automation, reduction of abnormal situations, etc. The list goes on. But real-life requirements to implement these use cases vary depending on individual system landscapes, different forms of master data, the standards, which we just spoke about that are in place, the desired products that are, again, available at that point and that the folks who are evaluating this have an inclination towards, and technologies to use, policies to respect, and so on and so forth. As such, a global data integration platform therefore must be extensible, scalable, infinitely adaptive. In other words, it must be elastic. Inmation is such an elastic system. The Outer Execution Environment is the single Inmation component service, i.e. a connector. So the verbiage used for this interface is connector. Each instance of such a connector can embed as many user code tasks as required. So the scalability is immense just from that one area. What needs to be ensured, however, is not something on the Inmation side. It’s actually on the other side, which is that the processing power and the memory resources of the host computer, so the server, whether it be virtual or on-prem or hybrid, and its limitations do not hinder the performance of the Inmation system. So the connector is infinitely scalable. You can embed as many user code tasks as required. In other words, you can get a lot out of a single connector. It just needs to be ensured that the demand that you’re putting on the system, let’s even say the demand you’re putting on the Inmation connector in this example, Jim, is not hindered by limitations, whether they be processing power or memory resources of the host computer. As long as those match, and I’ll call it hardware, as long as the hardware matches the demands you’re putting on the Inmation system, the Inmation system will not fail you. Jim: Well, that makes sense, that matching it to the capabilities of that hardware there. So I guess as we begin to wind down here, so how easy is Inmation to deploy? Hamza: So Jim, over the last couple of minutes, or last few minutes, sorry, spoken about the scalability, the horizontal scalability, the ability to adapt, the extensibility, the elasticity of the system. That’s a very pertinent question, because some listeners might be thinking, my goodness, it can do all of this. So that means implementing it is going to be, or deploying it is going to be tasked in a project within itself. Thankfully, the folks at Inmation have already thought of this. Again, when they were developing the system, they realized that if it’s not easy to deploy, the benefits will become a secondary consideration for our, in this case, our IT folks, because they’re typically the ones who are evaluating the implementation of the solution into their route, into their estate, into their IT estate for the OT folks to make use of. So Inmation’s services are distributed in the form of a single file. So it’s one binary, which hosts all the code for all the service facets. There are no dependencies whatsoever. There are no DLLs. There’s no .NET dependency. Normally, the product setup will be used to install a component service, which only takes a couple of minutes and a few mouse clicks. Once up and running, it will be further managed, monitored, and engineered through the central workbench Inmation, and that’s named Inmation Data Studio . So to summarize, there’s two things there. The installation is a single file, and to get that up and running takes a couple of minutes. I have first-hand experience of sitting with customers on calls, and they’re new to Inmation, a little bit nervous, they need a little bit of hand-holding, Jim. I’ve been on calls with some of our engineers and the customer and their IT team to actually see this play out in person. They’re constantly surprised by how quick it is to deploy the system. Then the question comes towards actually maintaining the system. As I mentioned, there is a single dedicated central workbench within the world of Inmation named Data Studio, in which you can see the performance and status of your entire system. The companies I mentioned a few minutes ago, the Takedas of this world, the BASFs, the major oil and gas company I gave the example of, Jim, all of these folks have sizable, significant Inmation implementations, but they’re entirely being managed through a single component, a single workbench called Data Studio. It makes the whole process of deploying it and then managing the deployment a lot less resource-intensive, which will, of course, music to our customers’ ears. Jim: Well, that sounds pretty straightforward that you’re not having to futz around with .NET stuff or DLLs and all that kind of stuff, and then managing through the Inmation Data Studio. So, Hamza, I guess to wind down, where can our listeners go to learn more about Inmation? Hamza: Yeah. So, my first recommendation, Jim, to our listeners would be to speak to their local Emerson salesperson . That is the best place to start. If it is a question they cannot answer, it will find itself to someone like myself who focuses on our industrial software portfolio. And Inmation is a key part of that. So, yeah, speak to your local Emerson salesperson. There’s also a website link that I can share for customers who want to do some pre-reading. And that may spark some questions in itself they can raise with their local Emerson salespeople. Jim: Yeah. And we’ll add a hyperlink in the transcript so people can get right to the site for Inmation. Well, Hamza, thank you so much for joining the podcast today and sharing your expertise with our listeners. -End of transcript-…

Emerson Automation Experts

1
Innovations in Multiphase Flow Measurement Podcast 17:32

24 weeks ago17:32

17:32

Oil and gas producers have always faced the challenge of measuring the oil, gas, and water content in the produced fluids coming from the wells. Traditionally test separators have been used to periodically separate and measure each of the fluid components. Multiphase flow meters have enabled these measurements to be done online and continuously as the produced fluid flows continue to be processed and readied for sale. In this Emerson Automation Experts podcast, Kelda Dinsdale joins me to discuss innovations in multiphase flow measurement with the Roxar 2600 Multiphase Flow Meter and Roxar 5726 Multiphase Transmitter to enable easier setup and installation, and ongoing accuracy. Give the podcast a listen, and visit the Roxar Flow Metering section on Emerson.com to learn more about improving your oil & gas measurement and production operations. Transcript Jim: Hi, everyone. I’m Jim Cahill with another “Emerson Automation Experts” podcast. I’m joined today by Kelda Dinsdale, product marketing manager, to discuss Roxar Multiphase Flow Meter technology advancements and their benefit for oil and gas producers in real-time well fluids measurements. Welcome, Kelda. Kelda: Thank you very much. Thank you for having me. It’s a pleasure to be here. Jim: Well, it’s great having you here and having a chance to share some of your expertise and wisdom with our listeners. So, why don’t we get started by letting me ask you to share a little bit about your background with our listeners? Kelda: I’ve been working in Emerson for about 16 and a half years now, based in Bergen in Norway. I started as a document controller, which was a really nice way to get to know the product actually. And I’ve had quite a number of roles since then, both commercial and technical, most of which have been supporting the Roxar Multiphase Flow Meter . And as you mentioned, I’m currently the product marketing manager, and I support the Roxar 2600 Multiphase Flow Meter and the Roxar Watercut Meter . Jim: Well, that’s great. I know those are very important in the oil and gas production industry. So, let’s open up by asking you to share some information about the Roxar Multiphase Meter, what it does and how our customers use the meter. Kelda: Absolutely. In a nutshell, the Roxar 2600 Multiphase Flow Meter provides flow rates for oil, water, and gas without the need to separate the flow first. We have two key aspects to that, I would say. The one is the raw data measurements and the other is the software as for how this works. We take a number of raw data measurements, pressure, differential pressure, temperature, impedance, and we have a mixed density measurement either using a gamma system or with our non-gamma approach. I should probably mention we have both gamma and non-gamma versions of the multiphase meter available. Both are full range covering 0% to 100% gas volume fraction and 0% to 100% water liquid ratio. So then we have the raw data measurements, and we add to that what I consider the joy and the art and the expertise of multiphase measurement, which is in the software, the interpretation of the raw data measurements, the algorithms. We have over 30 years of field experience, and all of that is rolled into our embedded software, which is called Roxar Rapid Adaptive Measurement. So, between the raw data measurements and the software algorithms, we’re able to provide oil, water, and gas rates for the customers. As for how and where it’s used and the types of applications, there’s actually quite a wide range of applications for multiphase metering. All are upstream before flow is separated, and the meters can be used for production optimization, for allocation purposes, well testing, can support flow assurance. Installation can be onshore or on offshore platforms. The meters are used in the conventional oil and gas industry as well as unconventional wells for shale wells. For oil assets, gas assets, the meters can be installed on a fixed location or used for mobile well testing. And if they’re used mobile, that could be, for example, that the meter is mounted in a skid and that skid is moved around periodically, or even the meter could be mounted on a skid on the back of a truck so that it can be moved much more easily and much more frequently. The meters can be used single well, where they’re providing real-time continuous measurement on an ongoing basis on a single well, or the meters can be used rotating around multiple wells for a single meter. So, there’s a lot of variety in the applications and the metering philosophies that the operators use multiphase meters for. Jim: Yeah, I think what you mentioned on the mobile part of that is really important, especially in areas here in Texas like the Permian Basin where we’re spread out over vast distances to be able to plug in and do the well testing on that. That is a good idea and saves a lot of test separators around everywhere. With that introduction, which was great, I’ve heard there’s an enhancement to the meter that’s just been released. Can you tell us a little more about that? Kelda: We’ve recently released, as you mentioned, an enhancement to the 2600 Multiphase Flow Meter, and that’s with regards to the electronics hardware. We have an enhanced design now for our electronics hardware, and all of that is encased within the Roxar 5726 Multiphase Transmitter , which is mounted directly onto the meter, giving us an all-in-one solution. Previously, we’ve had a remote flow computer enclosure that’s mounted separately from the meter that’s housed the majority of the electronics hardware. We’ve done a redesign on the electronics hardware, enhanced that, modernized that, and it’s now mounted directly on the meter in what we’re calling the Roxar 5726 Multiphase Transmitter. Jim: Well, that sounds like it simplifies the design and installation quite a bit. How does this change how the meter works? Kelda: The short story is it doesn’t very much. The principles are very much the same as how they’ve been. I think it’s important to note that this isn’t a new product. It’s an enhancement to an existing product. We’re not losing anything. Nothing’s experimental, nothing is unknown. We still take all of the same raw data measurements that we have in the past, and we still use the same software algorithm approach. Roxar Rapid Adaptive Measurement, that’s still in use. A lot stays the same. What we’re adding to this is a new modern electronics hardware design, which adds robustness, and it adds resilience, and it adds future capability potential as well. The short story is it doesn’t change how the meter works. Jim: Well, that’s got to be comforting given all those years of runtime with the design. I mentioned the installation process. How does the Roxar 5726 Multiphase Transmitter change the installation process? Kelda: It does simplify it. You’re absolutely right with that. Previously, our electronics hardware, we’ve had some mounted in our field electronics enclosure directly on the meter, but the majority of our electronics hardware has been in a flow computer enclosure mounted separately. Now that we’ve redesigned the electronics hardware and it’s all in the Roxar 5726 Multiphase Transmitter, that’s mounted directly on the meter, so you have an all-in-one solution. You only have to install one part. You don’t have to install two parts separately. There’s a smaller footprint. It’s easier, and it’s just, in general, a more compact physical installation. Jim: How did the cabling needs change with this design? Kelda: It’s a good point you raised there. All of the internal cabling between our meter body and our electronics hardware is completed in our production facility before our meters are delivered. All of that internal cabling, there’s no need to do anything with that in field because it’s that all-in-one solution, and that’s already done. In field, the cabling needs are related to power and communication cabling. When you receive the meter in field, there’s the mechanical installation into the pipeline, and then grounding, connect power and communications cable, and you’re ready for commissioning. Jim: Wow, that does sound simpler instead of dealing with separate things. The interconnect wiring between them, everything else, all that goes away. That’s really good. What locations and environments is the meter suitable for? Kelda: The meter is suitable for extreme weather conditions, both hot and cold. There’s modern electronics hardware design, which is both robust and resilient. We have a wide certified ambient temperature range, and on the cold side, that goes down to minus 30 degrees Celsius. I don’t speak Fahrenheit, but I did check, and that is minus 22 degrees Fahrenheit for those of you in locations where Fahrenheit is more meaningful than Celsius. In short, the electronics design is robust to winter storms and generally cold conditions. Then on the hotter weather condition ends, we’re also robust there. We’ve used modern electronics components within the 5726 Multiphase Transmitter. And as a result, there’s very limited heat generation from the electronics components themselves. Roxar 2600 MPFM Multiphase Flow Meter with sun shield In addition, the enclosure has good heat transfer. We also offer a sunshield as an option, which we recommend if there’s very warm ambient conditions with a lot of direct sunlight. That sun shield shades from the top and three sides of the enclosure. If you visualize the electronics hardware enclosure mounted directly onto the meter body, the back is shaded by the meter body itself, and you have a sunshield on the top and three sides. It’s open to the bottom. There’s good airflow capability throughout and within that space. You’ve got limited heat generation, good heat transfer, and what you end up with is a very good solution with good protection from sun and resilience to warm weather conditions, in general. Jim: Well, that’s great. I think our friends out here in the Permian Basin have very hot summers and very cold winters, so it sounds like it’s designed to handle either case right there. I guess as we get into working with the meter itself, how do our customers interact with the Roxar 2600 Multiphase Flow Meter? Kelda: Within the meter software, Roxar Rapid Adaptive Measurement , we have a high degree of automation in order to reduce the need for human intervention. I think that’s important to mention as we discuss interactions with the meter. If you’re interested in taking a look at that, I think looking at the animation that we have available on our website for Roxar Rapid Adaptive Measurement would be a good place to start to get an understanding of the automation built into our meter software. Of course, some interaction is needed, some things might need updated. There’s always going to be some level of interaction with the meter. What we have is a web user interface. It’s highly intuitive, wizard-based, and even if it’s the first time you do an activity, it just leads you through all the interactions required basically. There’s no unique software needed, and the interface is compatible with desk computer, laptop, tablet, or smartphone, whichever is most convenient for the customer. Jim: Well, that sounds like a web user interface is very familiar, and the fact that you walk them through the steps that need to interact with that sounds very user-friendly right there. I guess as we start to wind things down a little bit, let me ask you, what is next? What is there more to look forward to in the realm of multiphase meters? Kelda: Emerson is always striving to meet and exceed expectations, and the needs of a market are ever-evolving in reality. We fully expect to continue to develop in order to continue over time to meet and exceed our customers’ expectations. We believe we’ve got really robust building blocks now. By that, I mean with the raw data measurements that we take, with our embedded software, Roxar Rapid Adaptive Measurement. And now with this enhanced electronics design, the Roxar 5726 Multiphase Transmitter, we’ve got very robust building blocks. When we think about the 5726 Multiphase Transmitter, we’ve got extensive storage capabilities and extensive processing power. We’ve got more than we’re currently using, more than we’re currently utilizing with the processing that the meter is doing right now. That was a deliberate choice. We’ve left that space because we want the building blocks we have now to be capable of supporting future features, capabilities, diagnostics that will come, and whatever other needs may come in the future. Customers purchasing the Roxar 2600 Multiphase Flow Meter now can do so, safe in the knowledge that the hardware solution they’re purchasing now is suitable and will be suitable for the needs and developments that may come in the future. If you think about it, usually when operators are installing a multiphase meter, they’re doing that when a new well is coming online and starting to produce from a new well. That well is going to be producing for, say, 25 years, and the meter’s lifetime is 25 years. You want to be able to take advantage of the developments that may happen over that time period so that you can truly get the best out of that instrument for the full lifetime of your well. We’ve kept that philosophy, that metering philosophy very much in the forefront of our minds as we’ve been working on this recent development for the Roxar 5726 Multiphase Transmitter. Jim: Well, that’s really good that you have that extra capacity in there with the way technology is changing and there’s always the opportunity to get it even more accurate and handle the widest range. You already said it handles up to 100% gas fraction, so it’s already very much in there. But just having that in there to be able to, as technology advances, take advantage of that, that’s excellent. So, let’s wrap things up. Where can our listeners go to learn more about the Roxar multiphase meter? Kelda: I would recommend taking a look at our website , and you can visit that at www.Emerson.com/RoxarMultiphaseFlowMeasurement . There’s a lot of information on there about our multiphase meter. And for example, if you’re interested in learning more about the Roxar 5726 Multiphase Transmitter, you can jump to or scroll to the video section and take a look at the animation there. That’s probably a good place to start. Jim: And I’ll also add links throughout our conversation directly to that video and some of the other things that came up here today. So, Kelda, I want to thank you so much for joining us today and sharing your expertise with our listeners. Thank you so much. Kelda: Thank you very much for having me. -End of transcript-…

Emerson Automation Experts

1
Engineering Superior Valve Solutions for the World’s Largest LNG Project Podcast 24:00

26 weeks ago24:00

24:00

Liquefied natural gas (LNG) production facilities require rugged, reliable valves for safe, efficient, and sustainable operations. It’s also critical to reduce complexity and use the right valves for the application across the facility’s lifecycle, from initial engineering through construction, commissioning, operations, and ongoing maintenance. Emerson’s Andrea Sutti and Massimiliano Franco join me in the Emerson Automation Experts podcast to discuss the role of these critical valves and actuators in the world’s largest LNG project. They share the importance of selecting and testing the actuated valves to meet the requirements of safety, isolation and control applications. Give the podcast a listen and visit the Valves, Actuators and Regulators for the Entire LNG Value Chain section on Emerson.com. Transcript Jim: Hi, everyone. I’m Jim Cahill, and this is another Emerson Automation Experts podcast. Today we’re on another episode in a four-part series that explores the role of control technologies in helping drive efficient and reliable LNG production. Emerson’s valves, regulators, and actuators empower the entire LNG value chain from the liquefaction process to transport and terminals, and from project startup and commissioning to long-term facility operations and maintenance. Today I’m joined by Andrea Sutti and Massimiliano Franco to discuss a successful installation, commissioning, and operations of a massive Middle East LNG facility. Welcome, gentlemen. Let’s begin by having you introduce yourselves. Andrea: Hi, Jim, and thank you for this opportunity. Hi, everyone. My name is Andrea Sutti. I’m the Global Product Manager for Vanessa Triple Offset Valves. Max: Hello to all of you. My name is Massimiliano Franco. I’m working for Biffi, a plant located in Italy. I’m responsible for the actuators in the actuation technologies SBU. Jim: Well, with that great background, that’ll really help in our discussion today. So Andrea, let me start with you. Can you give us an overview of this massive LNG project in the Middle East? Andrea: Yes. We are talking about the largest LNG plant to date. It is located in the Middle East, consisting in four mega-trains of LNG production. Each of them has the capacity of 8 million tons of LNG per year, a gigantic installation that is made even bigger by the fact that, differently from the conventional LNG facilities, this one also includes the gas treatment plant being located nearby the gas field. And by the way, there is also plan for further expansion adding two more production mega-trains. Jim: Wow. It’s big already and about to get a lot bigger. That’s very impressive. Can you tell us some of the key challenges that this customer was facing in building this massive LNG facility? Andrea: The customer challenges are reflecting the overall challenges of the entire LNG industry. We know the importance of the LNG for the global energy supply and the importance of the LNG as a key transitional greener fuel for the journey to net zero. All elements that put the LNG industry under the spotlight in terms of production capacity, efficiency, and reduced impact on the environment. All challenges that are reflected into demanding requirements for all the equipment and the components that are part of the LNG facility, among which the actuated valves play a very important role. Max: Yes. Thank you, Andrea. Regarding the actuators in front of the customer, the responsibility to guarantee the performance and the delivery is a key factor. And that means you need to have a very strong cooperation between the actuator maker and the valve maker. Then these aspects, the synergy, and their ability to provide the solution is a crucial role on that type of project in general, but especially when you have mega projects. And Biffi and Vanessa have more than 50 years of cooperation together. And regarding the capability to provide what is requested by mega projects, just to give you some numbers, Biffi in the LNG in the last three years delivered more than 4,500 actuators per year divided by electrical actuators, pneumatic, and hydraulic type. Just to tell you, in terms of U.S. dollar, we are talking about for a total of $120 million. Jim: Wow. That’s an impressive amount in what was sold there. Now, this project used thousands of Vanessa valves and Biffi actuators. Can you tell us about the type of applications they served? Andrea: Yes, I will start by mentioning the emergency actuated valves that are protecting the personnel and the equipment in case of an emergency situation, and for which the quick and reliable response is crucial in order to guarantee safety. And then the on-off actuated valves operating molecular sieve process, that are required to perform thousands of cycles under very demanding process conditions, such as temperature fluctuations and the presence of particulates inside the gas. And finally, the core of the LNG facility, the liquefaction column where the natural gas is liquefied before being handled for transportation. For all these applications, the customer selected the Emerson Vanessa Biffi actuated valves because the recognized capability to release engineered solutions able to meet the demanding requirements of these critical applications. Max: Yes, 100% agree, Andrea, with you. If an actuator valve fails, you can start to have dangerous situations and you can start to lose money. These two aspects in a big project is important, but when you have a mega project, it is a massive situation to avoid. Then the reliability of the actuator is crucial. And then you need to perform the correct sizing selection and the correct actuator selection according to the safety level requested that is different in each part of the plant. Just to give you an example, and Andrea explained and mentioned that is the molecular sieve. In that specific case, you have an extensive number of cycles requested, and then you need to guarantee the combination of actuator and valve with the capability to reduce as much as possible the maintenance interval between each maintenance activity. And the selection is crucial in term of torque and in term of other features. Then you need to know what is requested, you need to know what is the valve performances and the actuator that you can combine. Jim: Yeah, now given all those Vanessa series 30,000 triple offset valves and being such a major component of the project, can you explain what sets these valves apart from traditional valve technologies? Andrea: Let me answer this question by mentioning the four foundational elements of the Vanessa Triple Offset Valve that set this product apart from the competition of the traditional valves design. Starting from the quarter turn rotation that ensures superior performances in terms of fugitive emission containment compared to the traditional raising stem valves. And then, the frictionless design combined with the full metal construction make the Vanessa valve an extremely robust product, versatile, and capable to adapt to a wide variety of industrial applications with minimum maintenance required. And finally, the torque seating design, Vanessa valve requires minimum torque to operate. And this makes the package of Vanessa Biffi actuated valves more compact, cost-effective and reliable compared to the traditional position-seated valves. Jim: Well, those are pretty four strong reasons why there’s so many of those in that project. And I know I’ve seen pictures that this also featured the largest Vanessa Series 30,000 Triple Offset Valves ever constructed. And maybe I’ll sneak in a picture when we post this to the blog. Can you describe the challenges in constructing these gigantic valves and what makes them necessary? Andrea: Yes, we are talking about multiple units of 66-inch double flange cryogenic Vanessa valves configured for a class 600 piping. A gigantic 15-ton valve required special operations to perform cryogenic testing at the manufacturing location. And then 120-inch double flange valves with the largest cast body ever produced for a Vanessa triple offset, for which the best of the foundry technology had to be leveraged in order to ensure compliance with the dimensional, superficial and volumetric customer requirements. And finally, multiple units of the 126-inch valve with fabricated body, the largest ever produced Vanessa triple offset. I mean, for this valve, everything is just extraordinary. If you think about the common operations performed on conventional valves, such as components machining, assembly, testing, painting and so on and so forth, here they’re just becoming extraordinary. And they required accurate planning and study in order to ensure a flawless manufacturing and on-time delivery. Jim: Well, that’s an impressive engineering feat in doing what’s required for such a massive facility. Let’s talk a little bit about Biffi’s role. How did their electric and pneumatic actuators complement the Vanessa valves in this project? With over 1,300 Vanessa valves with Biffi actuators installed in the project, it seems with such a massive order, coordination is key. How did the synergy between Vanessa and Biffi streamline the production and delivery of this complex solution? Max: Yes, apart what Andrea described just now regarding how is important the valve and the performance, another aspect that is really necessary to take in consideration is that for mega projects, you need to consider a high number of pieces for valve and actuators. But these are just a limited part of the total amount of goods involved. Then if you have a huge effort for the big project, when you have a mega project, you have an exponential effort. That means you need to be capable to manage a massive number of suppliers. That means if you can limit, if you can reduce the number of partners as much as possible, this can guarantee a better selection, an easy management on the project at the beginning and during and also at the ending, and also more uniformity in the solution proposed. And then these aspect is very crucial. Another aspect is that you need to have a supplier capable to provide the number of pieces. Then this is also important to reduce the number of suppliers. And how you can do it, then you need to be capable to work correctly with the valve maker in this case, because at the end in front of the customer, the package is an actuator plus a valve always. And you need to be capable to provide what they expect to receive from actuator point of view. The capability to work together between Vanessa is confirmed by a very long historical presence and order during the last 50 years. And this cooperation started thanks to these two factories founded by two brothers. These two factories are very close to each other. This can also help to speed up the discussions as much as possible and clarify all the technical aspects. Another element is the capability to produce the number of pieces and the type of actuators for enough applications. Biffi can provide this capability in terms of production and in terms of the variety of actuators available in the same plan. And then, you can provide, as a single production point, the complete set of actuators used on this specific project. Then, in this case, it is pneumatic, electric, hydraulic, linear, and quarter turn. You can combine these three aspects. Close cooperation, capability to provide the huge number of pieces, and the complete product range requested by the project. This means to guarantee a reduction of suppliers and this is another value for the EPCs and for the end users. Jim: Yeah, and it’s handy that the 2 plants are 10 kilometers apart to have that close collaboration and be able to really meet the challenge of just the sheer scale of this project. Now, I know that safety is always a major concern in a large-scale LNG project. How did the Vanessa valves and Biffi actuators address safety considerations, I guess both in terms of operation and emergency scenarios? Andrea: There are several aspects that make the Vanessa Triple Offset Valve a superior solution in terms of response to customer safety requirements. For instance, the asymmetric design that allows Vanessa valve to leverage in-line pressure to trigger different valve behaviors in case of emergency applications. And then, the cavity-free design that avoids liquid LNG to be trapped anywhere inside the valve that can dangerously result in a sudden increase in pressure in case of temperature fluctuations. And then, the full metal construction that means inherently fire safe, but also means electrical continuity across all the components with no chance for electrical charges to be accumulated anywhere inside the valve that can result in a spark or a fire ignition. So, for all these reasons, the customers are increasingly selecting Vanessa Triple Offset Valves because they recognize their capability to respond to the increasingly demanding safety requirements from the industry. Max: Yes, the safety level is a key point. And it is not always the same all around the plant. Then you need to combine what is necessary according to what is requested. You cannot over-configure the solution, okay? Because you also need to balance the cost and the complexity to manage that type of cost. Then you need to understand how to correctly configure the actuator solution to combine the features described just now by Andrea with the actuator’s performance. Generally, the safety of the LNG project or the ESD, the emergency shutdown, or the BDV blow-down valves is the capability to move in failure guaranteed by a solution made with springs. This means with a mechanical capability. Actuator with a mechanical capability to move in the fail position when requested. But on top of it, the correct combination between the valve & actuator is the point that gives you these added value in terms of safety capability. Jim: Yeah, that’s very important to match it and meet what’s required for that safety instrumented function. This LNG project includes two future expansion trains that you mentioned earlier. What did Emerson do to ensure that our solutions would be adaptable to the expansion? Were there any specific design features with scalability in mind? Max: The mega project involved a lot of aspects, but for sure costs that are related to how long it takes to complete the project, how is the complexity that you have to manage are aspects that you need to take into consideration. If you can reduce as much as possible the complexity and you can repeat as much as possible what you already successfully complete in the previous train and then you can use these experiences in the next train is the added value that it is to be usable and to something that Emerson can provide. Because we perform it as Biffi and Vanessa according to the expectation and the solution can be used, okay, with a reduced number of clarification and clarity. And this can speed up as much as possible the return on investment, the management of the other trains. This is the added value that Emerson can provide starting from the past successfully experience that can be translated on the additional trains that arise in the near future. Jim: Well, that makes a lot of sense that, you know, you build on the success of what’s there and carry over as much as possible that fits the requirements of the new part there. So I guess let’s start winding things down a little bit. What lessons can be learned from this project for future LNG or large-scale energy projects? Andrea: The LNG industry is progressively moving away from the traditional valve design to triple offset valves to fulfill the increasingly demanding needs. For large scale projects, the customers recognize the need to partner with trusted actuator and valve suppliers that are capable to leverage synergies and have a long history of proven in use successful applications. So, for all these reasons, the customer selected Emerson Vanessa Biffi actuated triple offset valves to fulfill the needs of the world’s largest LNG facility to date. Max: Yes, I think that it is not more to add what according to what Andrea clearly explained. I think that the trend for the mega project is to reduce as much as possible or to use a defined set of suppliers because you already know what you have to do. The EPCs and the end user can trust about you. They know what they can ask. Do you have a defined channel? If these can be the added value to reduce the uncontrolled situation. And finally, you can have the result that you expect. And this is really important in general, but when you have a mega project that you need to multiply by two, by three, the dimension of the project, this aspect is very crucial. Jim: Yeah, that’s a really critical point there that there’s already so much complexity in a project of that size. You don’t want to add to it by having a bunch of different suppliers and trying to figure out and finger-pointing if things aren’t working the way they should be able to go to one supplier, Emerson, for the critical needs of the valve and the actuator to meet the requirements of the service. Yeah, that just helps reduce the overall complexity in there. Well, this has been a great discussion. I want to thank you both so much for joining us today. And for our listeners, if you want to learn more about these valves and actuators and a whole lot more around the entire LNG value train, go to Emerson.com/LNGvalves to learn a whole lot more. Andrea, Max, thank you so much for joining us today and sharing your expertise with our listeners. Max: Thank you to you and goodbye to all. Andrea: Bye everyone. -End of transcript-…

Emerson Automation Experts

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Episodio 53: Innovación y Digitalización en Elementos de Control Final 24:22

30 weeks ago24:22

24:22

Descubre por qué el control de válvulas es clave en diversas industrias y cómo las nuevas tecnologías están revolucionando este campo. En este episodio, Jaime Alvarado nos presenta innovaciones como Valve Health App, una herramienta avanzada para la medición y monitoreo de válvulas, y analiza su impacto en la eficiencia y sostenibilidad industrial. ¡No te lo pierdas! Suscríbete a nuestro canal y mantente actualizado con las últimas tendencias en automatización y tecnología industrial.…

Emerson Automation Experts

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Boosting Efficiency and Safety: The Power of Digitalization in Greenfield LNG Projects Podcast 33:40

32 weeks ago33:40

33:40

The liquefied natural gas industry is active in building new greenfield facilities. These new facilities have the opportunity to take advantage of technological advances in automation and the digitalization of work processes. Valves, actuators, and regulators play a crucial role in this challenging cryogenic process’s overall safety, efficiency, and reliability. In this podcast, Emerson’s Riyaz Ali and Tom Mullins share the story of an LNG producer and how they applied digitalization in their project design and installation to deliver integrated solutions to improve the project schedule and ongoing operational performance. Digitalization enables predictive maintenance practices to avoid unplanned downtime and optimize maintenance budgets. Give the podcast a listen and visit the Valves, Actuators and Regulators for the Entire LNG Value Chain section on Emerson.com for more information on the broadest portfolio of valves, actuators, and regulators with critical isolation and control technologies. Also, visit the LNG Success Podcast page to listen to other podcasts in this series. Transcript Jim: Hi, everyone. I’m Jim Cahill with another “Emerson Automation Experts” podcast. Today we’re on another episode in our four-part series that explores the role of control technologies in helping drive efficient and reliable LNG production. Emerson’s valves, regulators, and actuators empower the entire LNG value chain, from the liquefaction process to transport and terminals, and from project startup and commissioning to long-term facility operations and maintenance. Today we’re talking about digitalization, enhanced efficiency, and safety in an LNG project. And we’ll look at the very compelling customer success story. Our guests today are Riyaz Ali and Tom Mullins from Emerson. Riyaz is a senior director for FIELDVUE Business Development and a subject matter expert for Digital Solutions for Basic Process Control Systems and Safety Instrumented Systems. Tom is the director of Projects and Strategic Accounts with Emerson’s Actuation Technologies business. Welcome, gentlemen. Tom: Hey, Jim. Good to be here. Riyaz: Thank you, Jim. Pleasure to be here. Jim: Well, it’s great having you both with us. So, Tom, I’m going to pick on you to start with. Can you give us an overview of how digitalization is transforming the LNG industry? I guess particularly in Greenfield projects, what role does it play in enhancing efficiency and safety, for example? Tom: Sure, Jim. Today we’re going to be talking more about isolation valves and actuation on top of those valves. And specifically to that point, over the last 10 to 15 years, what’s really changed is our customers are starting to ask for more stringent closure times and opening times around these big valves. That’s derived from the safety instrument loop there that’s being required. So every data sheet now has a specific safe closure time. And now every actuator on every valve needs to meet, or exceed, or do better than what that time is. So 15 years ago, you didn’t see closing times on every valve actuator assembly or data sheet. Now you do. So with that and the use of some of our equipment, like the DVC SIS we’re going to talk about today, we’re able to not only meet and exceed the closing times but also track the fact that the customer, you know, met those times, which is very important to test the safety instrument loop. So that’s some of the ways we’re starting to see just simple on/off valve actuation now gets much more complicated, but not only complicated, the ability to track with our equipment on top. Jim: Oh, that’s interesting about how that’s changing in that way. So, Riyaz, we said we want to talk about a particular success story here. Can you give us a little more information about the customer? Riyaz: It’s a Greenfield Energy project. It’s in North America. It has got two liquefaction trains, two storage tanks, and associated facilities. Jim: Oh, okay. So that’s a pretty good-sized facility. So given their setup and what they had, what were some of the main customer challenges that they faced? Riyaz: As we know that the plant has got a lot of on/off assets and those assets traditionally are non-communicating and the customer are really facing issues because it cannot be integrated closely with the control whole system. Second thing, they would like to have the digitalization diagnostic because the field diagnostic is very key. Like, all we see right now and currently all the digitalization impacts on our regular life, how the digitalization is making those differences. And similarly, they would like to have those kind of information coming out with the field assets directly to the control system to make the operation easy, quick action by button and the better decision-making for them to get the plant highest availability. Jim: Okay. So one of those challenges was the lack of visibility for on/off valves in traditional systems. So how did digitalization help solve this issue in this particular Greenfield LNG project? Riyaz: Yeah, as these devices earlier were non-communicating type, with the digitalization, what we need to, the customer, what they want to manage now is not only the on/off valve body and actuator, plus the associated instrumentation. Now traditionally, the on/off valve and actuators are mechanical item, so they need to have a special skill set for the instrumentation. So their challenges right now is how do we manage multiple vendors with valve body, actuator, accessories, instrumentation and have the skill set so that the package is completely integrated perfectly with the seamless functioning of all the objective they would like to gain through the digitalization. Plus, they would like to standardize and make sure that the plant is uniformly working across all the units with the same kind of instrumentation, same kind of pneumatic schematics, and they get full benefits out of these field assets. One more problem came out was the expertise in the instrumentation required a lot of setting of the parameters and other stuff. And the challenge was how do we make all those things where they can copy-paste all those configuration and parameters across the plant. And the biggest requirement was that how do we get this whole complete integrated package with one reliability assessment report. It means that whosoever supplies me the components of the valve body, actuator, everything, we need to have one complete reliability assessment report coming for the whole final element. And at the same time, they would like to meet the project specs, which means if there is certain guidelines with the project required, is there any way then when they hand over the plan, can they have a kind of a performance certificate for the whole element and single source, single component, single reliability, single guarantee? So that is how they are looking one point of contact with expertise for the whole package. Jim: Yeah, it sounds like that standardization of it was very important, and that single source that you mentioned there at the end, very important to this project. I guess diving a little bit into the technology, what was the impact of the digital valve controllers , the Fisher FIELDVUE DVC6200 ? Can you explain how their predictive capabilities contributed to the plant’s operational efficiency and safety? Riyaz: Absolutely. The DVC6200 digital valve controller is exactly like what you have your iPhone, and handheld, and other stuff, where you have your visibility of the information 24/7. And that’s what the digitalization for the field asset is offered through the DVC. The information which you can get from the movement of the valve, every time the valve moves, anything goes, movement into the control valve, or safety valves, or on a valve, the digital valve controllers are completely alive and provide all this information. At the same time, you are able to now get the diagnostic of the device online by reducing the maintenance budget, because everything online through the operating screen can be known, and at the same time it will reduce the field trips because now the operator have more better visibility and then decision power has been given. So before the valve trips, the operator has a better decision power to make whatever the necessary correction or adjustment to make the plant availability highest. And one of the major achievement of digitalization is the mechanical X-ray of the valve, which means which particular part of the valve is having a problem. It’s a part in the mechanical movement in the plug side, in the actual size, in the shaft area, in the instrumentation area, in the pneumatic area or supply area. So it is very clear X-ray which will provide you pinpoint where exactly is the problem. That makes easier to keep the things running into a plant availability rather than taking the valve out of the line for finding out where exactly problem is, taking it to the workshop, opening the valve, checking each and every component, and then determining where exactly is the fault. So this particular mechanical X-ray is a great added help for the digitalization of these on/off assets. Jim: Yeah, that seems really critical because a cryogenic process is such a difficult process and the valves really have to take a lot of that. So having that digitalization to really know what’s going on inside them is, yeah, that seems just critical. Well, Tom, let me turn to you. I guess with valves often in a static or dormant state, what specific performance issues do these digital controllers help monitor and how does that enhance overall reliability? Tom: Yeah, I think for the most part, the hardest service for an on/off valve is I’ll call it the sitting service, right? Where the valve actually stays in the fully open position, the spring’s compressed in the actuator for a long period of time. And this is most of these valves, right? Most valves in an on/off service don’t stroke very often. That can be the hardest service, right? You have the actuator that’s been sitting in one position. You’ve had the valve sitting in one position for a long period of time. And what the customer is trying to determine, is it going to work when we trip, right? When something bad happens, is this valve gonna close? What these smart devices do, the DVC6200, is it allows you to perform a partial stroke test easily and on a schedule and it won’t stroke the whole way. It strokes 15%, let’s say. During that process, it allows you to give diagnostics on was it the timing to go from fully open to this 15%. Did it take longer than it should have, right? We’ll tell the device, hey, this should take 25 seconds. And if it takes 40 seconds, we’ll make some determinations. Hey, this is not performing the right way. So the fact that these online devices now can give you, like Riyaz said, the ability to use some preventative maintenance. I see a problem. It’s still closed. Just not the right period of time. Let’s go check it out. So those are some of the things. But that is the hardest part is the dormant state. We’ve used this device on control valves for many, many years, right, with a lot of success. But that service is a lot easier when things are just moving all the time. You know, we kind of know that it’s working. So that’s the big point. The static state build up in the valve. You could have, you know, seizing in bearings. You could have a build-up of process inside of the valves that could cause the valve to not work right. Jim: Yeah, I know. If I sit here at the desk too long, I can get being static for too long. Isn’t too good for me either. So I can appreciate that. So having a single supplier for the valve operating system or VOS is a key factor. So how does this streamline safety, reliability, and the maintenance processes? Tom: Yeah, that’s the same thing, right? Emerson’s in a unique position in the fact that we have valve actuators and the control device. But as Riyaz mentioned before, these devices require some higher level of instrument engineers and instrument techs to understand how they work. So in the end of the day, if you order from Emerson with Emerson equipment, it goes to ultimately the actuator manufacturing location. A Bettis or Biffi location would take the 6200 DVC, mount it to the actuator, perform the test, upload how you want the device actually set, okay, with software, and then ultimately ship to where the valve’s done or, and this really adds. I mean, for example, Riyaz and I just were on a phone call this morning with a customer about the fact that, hey, we want to make sure all the HART tags are on every DVC so that when you crank up your control system, it automatically reads the fact that that’s the right tag. Those are the simple things we do with an Emerson actuation package with the DVC6200 that are simple to us because we have a process. So it allows it very simple to be able to integrate to be able to commission very simply is set up properly when it gets to the field. So those are just a few of the ways that that one package helps. Jim: Yeah, that sounds like that that just will simplify the process once it gets there on site, all that work that’s been done in advance. So that’s, yeah, I think a real big benefit right there. Riyaz, let me turn to you. So what role did proper valve assembly configuration and instrumentation play in reducing commissioning time and accelerating the plant startup? Riyaz: Absolutely. Since the digitalization word itself has been given and it’s playing important role right now in not only your home front or day-to-day life, but the same expectation has been set by end user that when they get these kind of devices, can it reduce their workload? Can the smart digital instrumentation can do remote configuration and calibration? Can it do copy and paste the configuration from one device to other device saving them considerable time during the startup of the plant? Can the auto set of wizard allows easy calibration and make the process intuitive. At the same time, as earlier Thomas mentioned that these digitalization can allow you to run a concurrent batch, which means that you just give a one command and a batch of complete set of valves with the digital solution mounted on them can do an auto-calibration , all those kind of diagnostic, the valve signature test, everything in one click of start. It means the 15 or 20 valves which is being combined in one batch to do this job simultaneously each valve is doing on its own rather than doing one by one valve saving a considerable time for the commissioning as well as bringing the plant startup quickly much more than waiting for so long to go through each and every individual items. Jim: Wow, that sounds like being able to batch it would really accelerate that whole process. That’s really good. How do the microprocessor-based digital controllers provide predictive maintenance capabilities? Can you share any specific examples of how this prevents equipment failures and reduces downtime? Riyaz: Yeah, I’ll just provide one example and then certainly Tom can provide you. Since these digital valve controller has got inbuilt travel, pressure, velocity, and all those sensors which provides a predictive capability for the complete valve assembly. So I’ll give you an example. One of the refinery had a critical 24-inch size ball valve for safety application and that mandated them to check the integrity of the mechanical movement of that particular valve. So the customer was using a traditional approach which was recording the valve travel to check the rotary motion of the actuator. Now this traditional approach because these valves are rotary lying horizontally the output shaft has got an indicator and that’s how the customer concluded that the valve is mechanically moving. But all of a sudden an accident occurred and what they found that valve did not close during the safety demand. The reason being what happened that the output shaft was moving but the plug shaft integral to the output shaft was not connected. So that’s how they came back to us and this is, is digital valve controller smart enough or does it have a sensor which can provide a friction value or the torque value. If the output shaft and inbuilt shafts are not connected the torque value will be very small. So for a mechanical valve the yardstick of the health indication is a friction or torque and that’s how the diagnostic algorithm within the digital valve controller can provide easy description and the statement and the cause of the problem and what is a possible solution to act while the valve is still in operation. So all these tests, what we have been doing for critical valves are online in service and having identified right corrective action by digital valve controller it can avoid any unnecessary valve trips, at the same time, it can increase the plant uptime and make the reduced maintenance costs and saving a lot of man hours. Tom: Yeah, absolutely, Riyaz. I mean, there’s another example in an LNG facility that we just went through with a customer and they had some 72-inch valves. Jim, these are big valves, which means the big, that means they’re huge actuators, but they were not getting the performance they wanted out of our competitor’s actuator. Okay? And ultimately, the first step they did was actually buy the DVCs, put them on the valve to look at the performance. Once they saw that they weren’t getting the performance out of those valves, they said, “Hey, well, what’s going on?” So we helped them start to troubleshoot based off of what came out of the ValveLink software and determine that really the valve operating system, which is the things on top of the actuator that make the pneumatic actuator go, you know, that’s solenoids, boosters, and time. We determined A, number one, they don’t have enough air, right, a couple of different things, and ultimately they ended up replacing the actuation assemblies in the valves. Ultimately, say, “Look, this is such critical nature. Here’s what we got to do. We had our engineers look at it.” But it all went back to the fact we had the diagnostics to say we know it’s not performing and here’s why. Yeah, it took people with some knowledge to take a look at that, right? But the reality is once you print that out and send it to the right people at Emerson, we can look at it and probably tell you here’s why you’re not getting what you want out of the valve. Jim: Yeah, without those, you know, diagnostics to be able, it just seems like even trying to troubleshoot it, find it, you’re just shrinking the time, especially as you say, you get it in the hands of someone that really understands the diagnostics and can pinpoint the things that need to be done. Well, those are great examples. I guess, Riyaz, in terms of plant safety, how does continuous monitoring of on/off mechanical valves enhance the ability to respond to potential issues as they escalate? Riyaz: Yes, digital valve controller, as I said, it’s a communicating device and it’s continuously monitoring. So immediate attention is drawn to the operator should anything deviate from the normal operating condition. So that’s one of the biggest takeaway. The second thing, these valves, on/off valves, and specifically if these are on critical app safety application, because of the dormant state and because of the process build-up because that is one of the biggest concern for the customer whether these valves will be available during the immediate need when a safety demand occurs. So for that, we have already partial stroke test which assures that valve will be available should a safety demand occurs. So you can see there is a small movement of valve but there is a big leap in the safety of the complete safety instrument function loop. But at the same time, the partial stroke test, once you have conducted, it will provide you the capability to store and compare in future. So now suppose if there is any deviation from the normal state of providing any…if there is a deviation from the normal state of valve operating condition it will provide a big clue for maintenance team for corrective action before the safety event occurs. So that can improve your plant safety considerably, plant safety & reliability. Jim: Okay, and Tom, what can you tell us about the actuators involved in the project? I know we touched on them briefly here. How did they harmonize with the Fisher digital valve controllers? Tom: Yeah. I kind of mentioned this earlier, Jim, but Emerson’s on/off actuation brands are primarily Bettis and Biffi for this space. These are 50, 60-year-old products that have been in the market for a long time, and we’ve sold hundreds of millions of dollars of actuators in the LNG space. You know, it’s one of our largest markets. But the reality is as we’ve done this over that period, the last 30 years or 40 years of selling into LNG, we’ve gotten that much better of integrating the stuff on top of the actuator which includes the DVC. So, when you buy an Emerson actuator from Bettis or Biffi and say, “Hey, I want this integrated with the DVC6200 SIS,” we have a plan, we have a strategy to… And we know exactly what we’re doing when we mount these all together. Jim: Yeah, putting the whole integrated space especially in that for a safety instrument function, it just seems such a critical thing to do just to make sure it’s all in there and you’re getting the right diagnostics that you need out of them. So I guess turning a little bit to, you know, the costs and labor efficiency, remote commissioning and access are mentioned as benefits of digitalization. How do these features reduce labor costs and improve operational efficiency for an LNG plant? Riyaz: Certainly, Jim, as you know, the digitalization, the expectation of the customer is to reduce the workload whether it’s the home front or whether we are doing on our day-to-day process, or any manufacturing process, or any plus, wherever you are bringing the digitalization, the purpose is to reduce not only the work documentation, not only the time plus the manpower plus at the same time can these kind of things copy-paste for the multiple operations. So, configuration template is one of the biggest takeaway from the digital valve controller, which allows you to completely take the same configuration and make it for the same, for other valves, reducing time and man hours. At the same time, digital valve controllers can store the complete specification sheet for future reference and that will be stored in the non-volatile memory of the microprocessor that can reduce the documentation and improve the plant efficiency. Meeting the project space complies because all the Greenfield project, they have certain compliance, so when you hand over the plant, the digital valve controller signature provides as a benchmark for the mechanical performance of that complete assembly with a graph and assurance report for the plant making plant commissioning faster through the…make the plant start up quickly. And as we already discussed, the auto-calibration, the auto-scheduling, all those kind of thing can reduce considerable time and at the same time, provide efficiency and more time for more other fruitful work in the plant. Jim: Yeah, it sounds like if you can really automate, bring that data together and you free up time to do more valuable activities than some of that. Riyaz: Okay, the biggest takeaway is taking away the human error because by digitalization, you’re removing the human error and that is one of biggest takeaway for digitalization by elimination of the need of technicians. We are not trying to completely eliminate, but we are trying to make sure the technician is allowed during that time to do other major work of the plant startup. Jim: Yeah, that’s a really important point. Human error can be, you know, a large part of the bad things that happen in there, so whatever you can do to reduce that that’s a great thing. I guess looking ahead, what do you see as the next steps for digitalization in LNG projects, and how might emerging technologies further enhance efficiency, safety, and reliability? Riyaz: So digitalization offers us mechanical on/off asset which is one of the biggest plant asset in any operating plan, the digitalization is just a baby step towards future automation technology moving towards data mining. So with future, the customer or end users would like to have some kind of mechanism where all these data can be utilized through some kind of machine learning or some kind of a program which can allow them to predict or prognostic of the life of the mechanical item by crunching the data through the defined algorithm and retune it mechanic, make it more better, recalibrate for the prediction purpose. And that way, they can accurately determine what is the mechanical SIS life and that how the robot’s artificial intelligence, all those kind of thing is anticipated in their minds. So in the future, the customer would like to have only one of physical body in the field whereas all the work should be done by artificial intelligence, machine learning, and everything. And if there is any problem, it commands will be sent either robots or human being can go and just replace without any expertise required in the field. And at the same time, it makes sense to digitalize one of the largest field assets which is on a valve to take advantages of upcoming developments in the robotics AI driven technology for the increased efficiency and improved product quality as well as plant uptime and safety reliability. Jim: Yeah, it seems like turning AI loose on all this data created in there to be able to really pinpoint problems and send out the people, or the robots, or whatever we’re going to have there in the future, that’s an exciting future. So let’s wind it all down, and maybe can you all share some of the key takeaways for our listeners from what we’ve talked about today? Tom: Yeah, I think I could do that, Jim, I mean, me and Riyaz. But I mean, I think the summary is, like I said, these smart devices, they’re here and coming, right? You’re going to see more and more of them. And you know, as we begin to track the health of these valves, and as Riyaz says, if you have one versus now you’ve got 1000, you can really start to pinpoint what the difference is between the 2. And so that’s kind of what I see. The key takeaway is when you work with Emerson, it’s going to be a fully integrated package, right, and it’s going to make it much easier to commission and we’re going to help the end user get really what they want out of the project. So, and that starts with communicating and talking up front and getting, you know, and understanding the requirements and what they want out of it. Riyaz: So digitalization, as Tom said, is becoming as a need rather than a choice. And each automation industries are looking for streamlining the process whether it’s installation, commissioning, documentation, compliance to the project specs, certification, auditing, and storage of data. So you can name any of those kind of an activity, they just would like to have a click of button to reduce the cost and manpower using the digital power of the microprocessor-based smart instrumentation. And at the same time, the digitalization reduces maintenance cost, increases plant productivity, and it has got less load on the workforce, and at the same time better future integration to the developments in the technology as the technology is moving exponentially in microprocessor. And these kind of technology movement, they have to start having them now on the ground so in the future it will be easily upgraded or it can be easily migrated to the new ways how the digitalization takes shape. And as Tom said, the one integrated package from the complete Emerson digital solution can solve multiple angles of project including the reduced procurement cost because now you have one vendor versus multiple vendors to coordinate, there will be only single certificate for the complete assembly. And then there’s a one vendor to contact for future any support, and the biggest thing is a single warranty certificate for the whole product. Jim: Yeah, I don’t think we can stress that enough that integrated from the valve through the actuator to the digital valve controller, riding on top, making sure it’s all working seamlessly and providing the diagnostics for it running over time, that’s a really critical point there. And for listeners, you can go to Emerson’s LNG Valve Solutions page, and that’s at Emerson.com/LNGvalves , and we’ll add some hyperlinks into the transcript that we put with the post. Well, Riyaz and Tom, I want to thank you both so much for spending some time with us and sharing your expertise with our listeners. Thank you. Tom: Thanks, Jim, enjoyed it. Riyaz: Thank you, Jim, and you’re very welcome. Appreciate taking us through the journey of digitalization and LNG specifically for the on/off assets. -End of transcript-…

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