Hydrocarbon Processing - November 2022 - 22

Process Controls, Instrumentation and Automation
ness and control in the plant, and control
performance monitoring for improved
safety and visibility of plant operations are
now considered best practices. However,
plants operating legacy automation equipment
are either unable to take advantage
of these advances or are forced to implement
and maintain complex engineering
to support these new solutions (FIG. 2).
In today's environment of limited
experienced personnel, plants need intuitive,
integrated solutions to help run
efficient operations-especially as they
scramble to bring new-to-the-workforce
staff on board. Modern control systems
can bring in all the measurements, valve
automation and reliability integration
that plants need to help a new generation
of personnel run the plant at peak performance-open
solutions are the key to
making this possible.
By taking the top layer off the control
system and replacing it by using an
I/O-agnostic interface, plants can add
modern control systems and strategies
with a wide variety of software applications
capable of sending data wherever
it is needed. They can easily provide that
data to analysis, machine-learning and artificial
intelligence solutions, and implement
advanced process control strategies
to capture expert knowledge.
This experience is exemplified in the
case of a process manufacturer that recently
developed plans to modernize its
control system. Shortly after selecting
the new control system and finishing the
planning stages for the project, the company
made a large acquisition that immediately
generated unexpected capital
constraints. Members of the modernization
team could not simply abandon the
project because they knew that the benefits
of their digital transformation vision
would be critical to the company's success.
They also decided that they could
not simply upgrade the existing control
system and keep the old infrastructure in
place, since the new control system that
they had selected offered advantages that
the old system could not provide.
Instead, the team members discovered
they could have the best of both worlds by
using an I/O-agnostic interface to connect
their old infrastructure to the new control
system. By eliminating the rip-and-replace
strategy for the I/O infrastructure, the
modernization team discovered it could
reduce project costs by 40%, enabling the
team to meet the new capital constraints,
while still delivering the digital transformation
improvements that would drive
competitive advantages for years to come.
Achieving faster benefits with less
risk. Whether project teams' modernization
projects are bringing new capabilities,
spinning up a previously decommissioned
refinery to increase manufacturing capacity,
or retooling and repurposing a terminal,
these teams need solutions to help
them deliver fast results without extended
shutdowns of existing operations.
Traditional modernizations leave project
teams with two options: shut down
the plant or perform a complicated hot
cutover. Either solution presents its own
risks and requires a large number of staff
on the ground spending many hours over
an extended period of time-not an easy
ask in an era of personnel shortages.
Leveraging technologies such as I/Oagnostic
interfaces not only enables project
teams to leave legacy I/O in place, but
it also empowers them to customize modernization
of automation technologies to
simplify projects and reduce required personnel.
With an I/O-agnostic interface in
place, modernizations can be performed
on a wide variety of scales: controller by
controller, console by console, or even by
individual facility areas. Using these technologies,
project teams can transition key
areas of the system in a tenth of the time
required for traditional migrations and
immediately start reaping the benefits of
new control technologies (FIG. 3).
Moreover, the most advanced I/Oagnostic
interfaces include technologies
that make it easier to perform hot cutovers
over time. Instead of having dozens of personnel
working hundreds or thousands
of hours trying to complete I/O cutover
before project completion, teams can instead
assign one person to cut over a single
channel at a time after project completion
by simply hitting a button in the software
to switch from old I/O to new I/O when
the installation is complete.
For one large manufacturer that relies
only on pre-approved vendors to supply
technology, I/O-agnostic interfaces
provided many more options to improve
performance. The plant's legacy control
system was not performing to company
standards, and its vendor was not an approved
supplier for the technologies that
the plant wanted to implement.
The project team identified that a move
toward more open technology would enable
the plant to upgrade to a new, fully
FIG. 2. The authors' company estimates significant production improvements from
modernization projects.
FIG. 3. Modern control technologies offer far
more options for customized installation and
control than legacy systems.
22 NOVEMBER 2022 | HydrocarbonProcessing.com
https://www.HydrocarbonProcessing.com
Hydrocarbon Processing - November 2022

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Hydrocarbon Processing - November 2022
