Automation Infatuation-mobile Work Place Automation Makes Chemical Plant Operations More Reliable and Efficient
Throughout the chemical process industry, it’s difficult to think about plant monitoring without visualizing personnel on daily rounds laboriously filling out paper log sheets. Besides being a manual-intensive routine, this traditional monitoring approach primarily focuses only on documentation. Typically stored in filing cabinets, field data currently collected by most plants is lifeless, rarely reviewed for plant performance monitoring and trouble shooting. However, this outmoded approach is quickly giving way to an electronic monitoring system outside of the control room. Now plant operations data are wirelessly gathered on-site with handhelds, then fed into a hosted Web-based system. This system allows quick operational decisions based on the most accurate information, to save time and money. The current method’s only benefit is to ensure that operators actually make the rounds of equipment observation/inspection. Even then, operators tend to pencil-whip data without really observing the plant equipment. Since supervisors are busy with routine shift work, even experienced operators fail to recognize pit fall readings and prevent a plant shutdown or unsafe situation.
