Going Beyond Asset Monitoring for Improved Reliability: Remote Asset

Monitoring and Alerts

Nikki Bishop, Emerson Process Management, Atlanta, GA
Aaron Crews, Emerson Process Management, Austin, TX


Introduction
In recent years, the influx of communication technologies has enabled nearly
instantaneous communication with virtually anyone located anywhere in the world. These
technologies can also be applied to the plant floor to allow plant assets to communicate their
status with plant personnel. Assets can now talk to the control room. Even further, assets can
now alert the right person, right away when attention is necessary. However, before jumping into
a discussion of remote monitoring, it is necessary to discuss how to select the most effective
asset monitoring strategy. A good automated monitoring strategy lays the foundation for a good
remote monitoring infrastructure.
Asset Management Strategies
Its no surprise that a good predictive maintenance strategy improves overall reliability
and helps to meet production availability targets. However, not all predictive maintenance
strategies are created equal. Predictive maintenance based on periodic possibly infrequent
data acquisition fails to give real-time insight into asset health. Periodic data may come in the
form of clipboard rounds, where personnel are sent into the field to manually collect data at
some scheduled interval. This may occur once a shift, once a day or possibly less frequently.
This method provides only a snapshot of asset data and early warnings of impending problems
may be missed. Even further, sending personnel out to the field for manual data collection might
also mean putting them in a hazardous environment. With little or no insight to know which
assets actually need attention, resources may be wasted servicing assets that dont need it while
missing assets that do. In fact, studies have shown that more than 60% of a typical instrument
technicians trips to the field result in either no action or a minor configuration adjustment that
could be done from their office. So whats the answer for a good predictive maintenance
strategy? Automated monitoring provides online indication of an assets health and can even
detect process conditions that may be unintentionally and unknowingly inducing a fault on
equipment, allowing operators to make adjustments so that process related equipment faults can
be avoided altogether. With advanced warning, maintenance staff can spend their time servicing
assets that actually need it rather than wasting time searching for problems through manual
inspection.



Figure 1. Automated Monitoring
Automated monitoring allows you to accurately determine when service is necessary and
brings asset monitoring into the control room.



The assessed criticality of an asset often determines how an asset is managed. While real-time
monitoring (and protection) of critical process equipment, such as large compressors or turbines,
is standard practice at most facilities, on-line monitoring of second-tier equipment, such as
pumps, heat exchangers, blowers, small compressors, cooling towers and air cooled heat
exchangers (fin-fans) has traditionally been deemed cost-prohibitive or too difficult. Even
though these unmonitored or manually monitored assets may not have been originally classified
as critical, an outage or failure can cause a serious process disturbance or shutdown, resulting
in process downtime and increased load on site personnel for repairs. These assets can be
referred to as essential assets. Essential assets present an opportunity to add online monitoring
solutions and improve overall reliability while lowering maintenance cost.


Figure 2. Asset Criticality Assessment
Essential assets are a class of assets that typically do not have monitoring systems
in place already, but consequences can be high if a failure occurs.

Components of Successful Strategies

Asset monitoring is not only about collecting data. Data collection simply lays the
foundation for an asset monitoring strategy. Existing measurements can be used or new wireless
measurements can be added easily. Once the measurement framework is in place, pre-engineered
monitoring solutions are plug-and-play and take raw measurement data and transform it into
meaningful alerts through analysis. Process and asset data can be aggregated to detect process
conditions that may be inducing a fault on equipment. Adjustments to process conditions can be
made so that process-related equipment faults can be avoided altogether.


Figure 3. Asset Monitoring Strategy

Data collection alone is not sufficient for a monitoring strategy. A combination of
data collection, analysis, awareness and action is necessary for a successful program.

Meaningful alerts generated by data analysis and aggregation are only useful if they are
communicated to the right personnel at the right time. Providing awareness of the alerts is a
critical component of an automated monitoring system. While there are a number of ways to
provide awareness of alerts, the most effective method is through automatic notification. Alerts
via text message or email ensure that the alert gets to the right person, right away. Once the alert
has been received, action must be taken by the person to resolve any issues. Remote access via
tablet or smartphone allows for almost instantaneous diagnosis and action. If necessary, remote
subject matter experts can be alerted and can log in remotely to help diagnose the problem. With
an automated alert notification system in place, periodic reports can also be generated and
distributed. These reports can include trends of asset health where asset degradation can be seen
and action taken to prevent subsequent failure. Automated monitoring combined with
automatically generated alerts and remote access capability provides a powerful means of
monitoring asset performance.

Essential Asset and Remote Monitoring in Action

One site taking advantage of remote asset monitoring is the Separations Research
Program at the University of Texas-Austins J.J Pickle Research Campus. The Separations
Research Program at UT is a cooperative industry and university program that performs
fundamental research of interest to chemical, biotechnological, petroleum refining, gas
processing, pharmaceutical, and food companies. One current focus project is around carbon
dioxide removal from stack gas. This process includes absorber and stripper columns and the
associated assets such as pumps, blowers and heat exchangers. The process does not have
redundancy in the assets so it is important to keep the assets well-maintained and in operation.
Losing one asset means the entire process is down until the repair is complete. In order to
mitigate the risk of unplanned downtime, they have successfully implemented essential asset
monitoring strategies for pumps, heat exchangers and blowers. They now have online insight
into the health of their assets. They can see when process conditions may be contributing to
asset health degradation and make adjustments to prevent further damage or failure. For
example, alerts for increasing vibration warn of impending failures and allow time for servicing
before failure occurs.


Figure 4. Pump Health Monitoring
A wireless vibration transmitter installed on the pump provides valuable data for an
automated pump monitoring solution, where pump health and status are clearly
indicated.

Recognizing a need to communicate alerts to the proper personnel at the right time, UT has taken
one step further by setting up a remote monitoring infrastructure. Alerts for conditions such as
heat exchanger fouling, resonance speed detection, hydrocarbon leaks and pump cavitation can
be automatically routed to site personnel as well as trained subject matter experts at the onset of
the fault condition. Besides monitoring process assets, the remote monitoring system, also
known as iOps, monitors for control system health alerts such as an overloaded PC or failed
backup controller. These alerts can be automatically routed via text message or email. The
remote connection also allows experienced subject matter experts to log in using secure VPN
access to help diagnose problems with assets and assist with the appropriate corrective action.
With log in access via tablet or smart phone, diagnosis support is available instantaneously.
Having a remote monitoring infrastructure in place, customizable, periodic reports can be
generated and automatically distributed. These reports contain trends of asset and system health
and clearly identify which assets or systems require attention. The automated, remote system
monitoring means that UT has trained subject matter experts armed and ready to take action
when adverse conditions arise, whether it be a cavitating pump or an overloaded PC.

The diagram below shows the remote monitoring process at UT. The plant and the control room
with the operators in the control room are shown in the center. Essential asset monitoring
strategies are implemented for pumps, heat exchangers and blowers. These monitoring solutions
use field data to generate alerts and communicate those alerts to the control room. But what
happens if the operator is not in the control room or not focused on the screen? Even if the
control room operator is not present, the iOps center is monitoring for any alerts 24/7 via the
remote monitoring appliance installed. If there is an issue with the pump, such as cavitation, the
essential asset monitoring solution will collect, aggregate and analyze the asset and process data.
A meaningful alert and percent health value will be communicated to the remote monitoring
appliance. The appliance transmits the alert to the iOps center. The iOps center can contact the
local site representative as well as contact a remote subject matter expert, if necessary. The
remote expert can log in to the site to help diagnose the problem and suggest corrective action.
The local site representative and remote expert collaborate on required corrective action. The
UT operator can then carry out the corrective action and fix the fault before it becomes a failure.
This method ensures that the fault is not missed and that issues are resolved quickly and
efficiently.




Figure 5. Remote Monitoring Process

Automated, remote system monitoring means that UT has trained subject matter experts
armed and ready to take action when adverse conditions arise, whether it be an asset
or control system component

Conclusions

Using the latest developments in wireless and communications technologies, the era of
on-line remote monitoring of plant assets is now a reality. Wireless technology makes it easy
and cost-effective to add missing measurements for essential assets. Pre-engineered monitoring
solutions are plug-and-play and provide an easy means of data aggregation and analysis. Remote
monitoring and automated alerts ensure that alerts generated by monitoring solutions are not
missed and that corrective action can be taken to prevent unplanned downtime due to a failed
asset.

About the Authors
Nikki Bishop, PE, is a Senior Application Consultant at Emerson Process Management.
With over 10 years of experience in the process control industry, her experience includes
automation projects in industrial energy, pharmaceuticals, power generation, pulp and paper and
refining. In her current role, she designs, develops and manages integrated application solution
packages. She holds a BSChE degree from Georgia Tech and is a registered professional
engineer in the state of Georgia. She can be contacted via email at Nikki.bishop@emerson.com.

Aaron Crews is a Lead Process Systems Engineer with Emerson Process Management.
Aarons over 8 years of experience includes control system modernization projects for refining
and chemical industries, with specialties in DCS architecture, operator interface design and
knowledge management. In his current role, he leads a team of engineers focused on the
integration of instrumentation, control, asset management, and enterprise applications. He holds
a chemical engineering degree from Texas A&M University and it currently pursuing his MBA
from the University of Texas at Austin. He can be contacted at aaron.crews@emerson.com.