Leadership in Condition Monitoring
Published on : Tuesday 30-11--0001
The ISA –Maharashtra Section recently hosted a Leadership Development Meet together with a Technology Conference on Condition Monitoring in Process Industry.
As conferences go, this one was a bit different from the regular ones that are packed with a lot of serious topics deliberated upon in lengthy sessions. The Leadership Development Meet 2019, organised recently at an idyllic resort in Goa (February 1-3, 2019), by the International Society of Automation (ISA) – Maharashtra Section, was an ideal blend of work and play, learning the leadership mantra together with the intricacies of ‘Condition Monitoring in Oil & Gas, Power, Fertilizer & Process Industry’.
Neeraj Agrawal, Society Delegate, ISA – Maharashtra Section and Associate Director (C&I) Nuclear Power Corporation of India Ltd, ably coordinating the proceedings, welcomed the co-organiser, Meggitt, and the delegates who had arrived from all parts of the country. “Condition monitoring in industry is done on basis of data collected from machines and equipment running the plant or process, which in turn facilitates predictive maintenance,” said Agrawal in his opening remarks. “Today in the age of IoT a lot more intelligence is going into data gathering. Are we using this data appropriately? Also as we are moving from card-based analytics at the instruments level to HaaS-based analytics in the Cloud, can we shift some of the knowledge and diagnoses to the instruments which are rapidly evolving into self-calibrating, self-healing and even self-effacing devices once reaching the end of life,” he asked, setting the tone of the conference.
Next, Helge Huerkamp, President Energy Business – Vibro-Meter Products, Meggitt, presented an overview on ‘10 years of Meggitt and its Future in India’. “You probably heard about us in connection with instrumentation, vibration control and condition monitoring in engineering industry, but we are the No. 1 company in the world in keeping the planes in the air,” said Huerkamp. Every commercial aircraft flying today has some Meggitt product – sensors, components or some equipment – that ensures the aircraft is flying safely. With 11,200 employees in 16 countries across 5 continents, the Swiss headquartered company operates in 3 core sectors of Aerospace, Defence and Energy.
Elaborating on Meggitt’s vision, Huerkamp said, “Our vision is 100% predictability, from sensors to decisions. Talking about decisions, how do we know to do something or not? It is based on monitoring of equipment. Our mission is reliable monitoring and with our experience in aerospace where safety is the No. 1 priority, safety is also our No. 1 priority. That is something we are very proud of and it is a very ambitious mission for us, which starts at the plant level with the monitoring, to ensure that the machines are fit and healthy.” Sensing and monitoring is a Meggitt speciality and the company’s sensors are even used by its competitors in their systems.
With 10 years of direct presence in the country, Meggitt has over 100 customers in India and has completed 76 projects with over 1200 machines monitored, 10,000 plus sensors installed and supporting more than 50GW of power capacity. Its revenue has grown three-fold during the last three years, as has its team size, led by L J Swaminathan, Director, MSS Energy-Middle East & India. “India is a very important market for us, a country that is developing very rapidly. Meggitt has equipped 13 nuclear plants in India with vibration monitoring for turbines, and it cannot get safer than that. About 95 million households in India depend upon Meggitt technology for reliable power supply, and that is something we are very proud of,” said Heurkamp. “We can grow a lot bigger in India and see a big opportunity in developing key products in India as it has so much capability, technology and manpower that we want to capture. And we want to support the vision of the prime minister of India – 24x7 power supply to all,” he summed up.
A panel discussion with followed with Helge Huerkamp joined by Richard Coughlin, Vice President, Energy Sales & Marketing, Vibro-Meter Products and L J Swaminathan, Director, MSS Energy-Middle East & India on the one side, and some members from the delegates on the other. These included Rajiv Gupta, Dy GM, EIL; Chandan Bhattacharya, GM, PDIL; T Paramasivam, Dy GM (E&I), BPCL; Sushil Kumar, DGM, GAIL India; and B Sudarshan, Chief General Manager (I&E), MRPL. The discussion moderated by Neeraj Agrawal, Associate Director (C&I), NPCIL, centred around two points – first the advisability of connecting vibration monitoring data to the IIoT and whether it serves a purpose and the second point following from the first about such data compromised in the absence of effective cyber security. What followed was a lively discussion pitching the end user perspectives and apprehensions and these in turn being addressed effectively by the vendor, in this case by the Meggitt team. This was followed by a Q&A with the delegates in the audience. A presentation of mementoes and a vote of thanks ended the proceedings of Day One.
As the delegates assembled for Day Two, Vivek Tyagi, Service Business Leader, AiM Region, Meggitt, conducted a session on API 670 – Safety & Cyber Security. It was a lively session on a standard that covers the minimum requirements for machinery protection, illustrated with appropriate slides and some interesting observations. Often maintenance engineers and plant operators are aware of most of the essentials but it is not always the case that the priorities are always adhered to. In such cases, presentation like these help put matters into perspective. For example, what are the primary causes for system failure? It may surprise some, but almost half the time it is caused by wrong specifications, the next major cause being changes made after commissioning!
Another interesting session was on IIoT based Integrated Performance Monitoring and Predictive Analytics, a joint venture initiative by IIT-BHU and Imagenous Engineering Pvt Ltd, a company engaged in providing end to end solutions in the field of control and automation for process industry. The presentation initiated by Deepak Jaiswal, Director, Imagenous focussed on data analytics and how to retain the accumulated expertise and knowledge of professionals who leave the organisation for improved maintenance operations by better documentation of machine trends information. Dr Sanjay Kumar Singh Professor, IIT-BHU, Varanasi elaborated upon this work-in-progress initiative that promises an integrated approach to accurately assess plant condition.
The final session was the Leadership Development Programme, a lively and interactive session with the audience presented by Biji Thomas, Customer Success Manager, Meggitt. ‘You cannot teach a man anything; you can only help it find within himself’, Galileo had said centuries ago. Taking off from this, Thomas introduced the High Performance Culture (HPC) followed at Meggitt and how it helps deliver results when combined with Values, Vision and Strategy in terms of Customer Success, Best Workplace and Profitable Growth. The interactive session engaged the delegates in groups to solve simple looking but complex puzzles of separating two interlocked objects, the simple idea being how collaboration makes problem solving easy.
But that was not the only ‘play’ part of this event. A cultural programme by the pool side on Day One with a multicultural programme that only Goa can provide with Russian Dancers and African acrobats not to forget Goan folk dancers, and a visit to the beach on Day Two to watch the sun go down provided the ideal foil to the technical sessions.
Captions
Pix1: Neeraj Agrawal, Society Delegate, ISA – Maharashtra Section and Associate Director (C&I) Nuclear Power Corporation of India Ltd
Pix2: Helge Huerkamp, President Energy Business – Vibro-Meter Products, Meggitt
Pix3: The Meggitt delegation at the Leadership Development Meet 2019 at Goa.
