Chemical Engineering May 2019 - 18

Newsfront
Smart Sensors Enable
Industry 4.0
Coupled with advanced analytics and networking capabilities, today's smart sensors help
processors optimize the facility
Yokogawa
IN BRIEF
THE FUTURE OF
INDUSTRY 4.0
THE CURRENT SITUATION
DRIVING TOWARD
INDUSTRY 4.0
SENSORS: THE HEART
OF INDUSTRY 4.0
NEW SMART SENSORS
P
icture a piece of
equipment not just
monitoring its own
health, but also automatically
ordering the part
it requires and, when it notes
that the part has been received,
sending an alert to
the maintenance technician
to come fix it, while also providing
detailed visual instructions
on how to perform the
repair virtually via a handheld
device. Or, imagine management
in a petroleum refinery
using realtime data and information
to determine, on the fly, whether
they can take advantage of bargain-priced
opportunity crude or low-cost natural gas to
positively impact the profitability of the plant.
Both these scenarios - and many others
like them - portray the ultimate vision of Industry
4.0, and are the anticipated result of
integration between machines and humans.
Workers will be armed with realtime data
that has been analyzed and contextualized
to provide actionable information which can
be used to positively impact the profitability
of the process, facility or entire enterprise.
And, at the heart of it all are smart sensors,
which are evolving, alongside other
technologies, such as data analytics and
connectivity, to provide meaningful data to
those who can use it to make well-informed
business decisions.
The future of Industry 4.0
Whether you call it Industry 4.0, big data or
the industrial internet of things (IIoT), the future
undoubtedly includes the integration of
ground-level data that can be shared with
appropriate parties, from maintenance technicians
all the way up to top-level management,
and used to make decisions that impact
the overall performance of the business,
says Marcus Trygstad, consultant, Advanced
18
FIGURE 1. " The key to Industry 4.0 is not just getting data, but taking this abundance
of data and converting it into useful, understandable information that can be
used to control the process and the business, " says Yokogawa's Trygstad
Analytical Technology, with Yokogawa Corp.
of America (Sugar Land, Tex.; www.yokogawa.com).
" The key to Industry 4.0 is not
just getting data, but taking this abundance
of data and converting it into useful, understandable
information that we can use to
control the process and the business properly, "
says Trygstad. " We've had the ability
to collect data for a long time, but what is
changing is the quantity of data and the ability
to transform it into actionable information
at the same time as we are becoming more
sophisticated in the use of machine learning,
artificial intelligence and digitization. Once we
begin to really integrate and harness all the
information and technologies, the future of Industry
4.0 will include the integration of data
and informed decision making from top to
bottom in an organization " (Figure 1).
Gordon Bordelon, chemical industry lead,
with Rockwell Automation (Milwaukee, Wis.;
www.rockwellautomation.com) adds that
this type of visibility will also allow chemical
processors to become more responsive,
which will be necessary to keep up with the
competition in the future. " There is a massive
amount of pressure on chemical processors
to become more flexible and agile. They will
need to make chemicals that are construed
as more environmentally friendly or begin
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Chemical Engineering May 2019

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