Industrial Automation Magazine India

Intelligence at the device level will increase functionality, performance and reliability

Published on : Tuesday 05-03-2024

Sharul B A Rashid, Head, Technical Excellence and Group Technical Authority, Instrumentation and Control at PETRONAS.

How process industries have historically automated with sensors, actuators, instrumentation and control in their operation?

Process industry is defined as an industry (such as the oil refinery and processing plants), which is concerned with the processing of bulk resources (such as crude oil) into other products (such as gasoline, kerosene, diesel, lubricants, etc).

Typical liquefaction, refining, processing and petrochemical plants comprise complex equipment (furnace, pumps, compressors, exchangers, distillation columns, tanks, etc.), with extensive network of pipings where products are produced continuously which requires 24-7 system monitoring via pressure, flow, temperature and vibration, etc. Process Industries especially Oil & Gas is a high risk business where Risk Management based on ALARP (As Low As Reasonably Practicable) principle is adopted.

 

To ensure safe, reliable and efficient running of these complex plants, the following supporting functions and systems are in place:

• Process automation and control system

• Safety critical including Fire & Gas, Emergency Shutdown, Burner management etc

• Maintenance systems

• Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP)

• Manufacturing Executions Systems (MES).

 

These process industries have been historically automated with sensors, actuators, instrumentation and control in their operation to enable plant operators to continuously monitor the entire plant process to operate within the safe operating region, aided by engineers who would monitor efficiency of the process and optimise or redesign whenever necessary and maintenance staff who would ensure equipment is well maintained.

 

What are the examples of specific technologies or methods that process industries have used to enhance automation in their operations?

‘Automation’ describes a wide range of technologies that reduce human intervention in processes, mainly by predetermining decision criteria, subprocess relationships, and related actions, as well as embodying those predeterminations in machines.

Depending on the complexity of the process industries, certain levels of automations are designed, constructed, tested and commissioned to enable excellence asset management and reliable plant operations including managing the supply chain better in response to business and market needs, safeguarding employee safety and ensuring environmental compliance.

As customers look into innovation in the products and user experience, leveraging technology and digital as they are maturing and advancing is key for survival. Examples of areas where technologies and digitals have been in use to enhance automation in their operations are the followings:

·         Wireless Communication – Wifi, 5G/6G, Lora-Wan, WirelessHart, ISA100

·         Mobile workforce

·         Wireless instrumentation

·         Physical security and access control

·         Turnaround

·         Remote expert mentoring

·         Inventory management & custody transfer

·         Data analytics towards preventive and proactive maintenance/asset monitoring

·         Location tracking (people, assets, vehicles)

·         Digital procurement

·         Digital database for asset study

·         Digital tools for asset inspection and diagnostics 

·         IIoT platforms

·         Human machine interfaces

·         Augmented reality/virtual reality

·         Big data analytics

·         Additive manufacturing

·         Drone and robotics for process automation

·         AI/ML

·         Blockchain, and

·         Edge analytics.

 

What role does digitalisation now play in the transformation of process industries with the convergence of IT/OT (Information Technology/Operational Technology)?

Digitalisation may refer to digital transformation, the adoption of digital tools to create new or modify existing products, services and operations.

Operational Technology (OT) is hardware and software that detects or causes a change, through the direct monitoring and/or control of industrial equipment, assets, processes and events whereas Information Technology (IT) is a set of related fields that encompass computer systems, software, programming languages and data and information processing and storage.

With the unprecedented challenges faced by process industries in the next decade, as the process industries are preparing themselves towards the Energy Transition and Sustainability agenda, the three pronged strategy of People-Process-Technology needs to be quickly adopted.

IT-technology injection into the OT space to achieve asset operational excellence is a necessity. The need for remote connectivity to allow for company CEOs, for instance, to closely monitor the performance of their industrial processes requires that critical plant data be made available on the internet. Thus moving assets to be monitored and ultimately operable remotely – Remote Autonomous Operations concept is next generation asset for process industries

As process industries are bringing together OT and IT as part of their digital transformation journey, they must align security strategies and work closely to ensure security is to be looked at from a single enterprise lense. IT and OT staff are brought into the same classroom to share and learn from each other as both sides have to acknowledge and understand the difference in priorities of three elements of security, i.e., Confidentiality, Integrity and Availability.

 

How do low code, edge computing, and cloud computing contribute to the flexibility and modularity of plants in the context of process industries?

Edge computing and cloud computing in the OT space is still at an early stage for adoption. 

Process industries automation suppliers are now extending virtualised products into their OT space following server virtualisation technology that had transformed the IT data centres 15 years ago to the cloud native and software-defined data centres of today.

With the adoption of modern server virtualisation, dedicated function server hardware was replaced with common server hardware that ran the same set of applications but in virtual machines. This shift greatly reduced the number of physical servers/hardware therefore the support as well as energy consumption and provided enhanced visibility and manageability of IT operations.

Server virtualisation was the first step toward today's software defined data centre and cloud computing infrastructure of which Process Automation Virtualisation and virtual machines is already adopting, e.g., the thin client devices that replace the multiple PCs used for operator panels are far easier to maintain and support over their lifecycle.

The most obvious possible business advantages of virtualised controllers include greater observability, higher security, easier software maintenance due to its modularity, far greater software flexibility, and more rigorous control software development and testing.

 

Could you elaborate on the specific benefits that the integration of cutting-edge technologies, such as digital twins and artificial intelligence, bring to process industries?

 

The cutting-edge technologies and digital brings about the following possible business benefits:

·         Realtime access to new data source (including used to be stranded data):

-High visibility into every aspect of process industries operations

-Insightful data for fast decision-making based on real time information.

-KPI dashboard with rich data visualisation

·         Data analytics:

-Proactive and preventative maintenance

-Higher wrench time

-Increased asset utilisation     

-Reduced non-productive time

·         Standardised platform, open standard architecture for wired and wireless infrastructure:

-Flexible implementation of advanced applications, and reduced time to deployment of devices, avoiding expensive cabling

-Better management of resources and assets with digital worker

-Streamlined management and administration.

·         Pervasive, accurate location-based services and tracking:

-Improved safety for personnel and asset

-Less logistics and cost-effectiveness

-Safe time from manual searching

·         Cyber and physical security:

-Increase resilient to cyber attack

-Greater regulatory and security compliance

·         Digital worker/worker mobility:

-Improved turnaround time and cost savings

-Access to remote expert 24-7 round the clock

·         Remote autonomous operation.

 

How does the trend towards more flexible and modular plants align with broader industry goals, and what are the potential implications for the future of process industries?

Process industries automation systems have a huge installed-based physical equipment with 10 years lifetime or longer. Its provision for retrofit of existing systems and their migration to the new architecture overtime to extend the longevity (useful lifecycle) must exhibit the following attributes:

·         Portability – Software tools and agents can accept and correctly interpret library elements (software components and system configurations) produced by others

·         Interoperability – Device can operate together to perform autonomous and/or cooperative function as defined by international standards

·         Configurability – Device and their software components can be dynamically configured (selected, assigned location, interconnected and parameterised) by multiple software tools and/or software agents

 

Trends of the automation systems are becoming more software intensive and software defined, which increases their flexibility.

Intelligence at the device level will increase functionality, performance and reliability that facilitate its integration into a more complex production system via network connectivity and web services.

 With the web server embedded into each device, remote control access to authorised clients is made possible. System orchestration together with system management is the next generation process industries automation that will facilitate flexible manufacturing that enable rapid integration and reconfiguration of assets to be autonomous and intelligent.

 

(The views expressed in interviews are personal, not necessarily of the organisations represented.)

 

Sharul B A Rashid graduated in Bachelor of Science from University of Miami, Coral Gables Florida in 1988, and in Master Engineering from University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida in 1990.

 He has been serving with PETRONAS, Malaysia for 22+ years in various Oil & Gas facilities, Transmission (Pipeline) Operations Division, Segamat; Liquified Natural Gas (LNG) Plant, MLNG, Bintulu; Integrated Refinery and Aromatics Plant, Kerteh; Principal Engineer, Instrument & Control, leading an Instrumentation group for PETRONAS Refinery in East Coast of Peninsular Malaysia. Sharul was appointed as Custodian Engineer and later as Group Technical Authority, Instrument and Control in charge of safeguarding, shaping and steering PETRONAS in Instrument and Control areas. He was appointed as Head, Technical Excellence under TDEX, GTS (PD&T) focusing on technical excellence in safeguarding and shaping of PETRONAS Group towards asset operational excellence and growth in decarbonisation.

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