Can APM Help You Extend the Life of Your Assets?

Aging plants in many of the world’s developed countries is crumbling; i.e. pipelines, power plants, and water & wastewater facilities are good examples. Automation equipment in many of these plants is obsolete or dated to the point that it can no longer be adequately maintained or fulfill current operating requirements.  This scenario can lead to severe consequences not only for our industry, but also for the public in general.  End users are aware that significant investments must be made to get our infrastructure up-to-date, but resources to do so are scarce in today’s economic environment.  Making matters worse, many end users who have pulled the trigger and invested in solutions to extend the life of their automation equipment and/or optimize their performance have not been able to obtain full value from these investments. One of the most important, yet often overlooked, assets in the process industries are control valves. Without reliable control valve operation, processes can quickly become uncontrollable causing unplanned downtime that can result in hundreds of thousands of dollars in lost production in addition to the cost of valve repairs.  Most control valves installed in greenfield plants today include smart tools to help maintain them properly.  Unfortunately, many end users do not understand smart valve diagnostics preventing them from obtaining full value from their investment.  Many continue to rely on expensive and unreliable reactive maintenance practices.  Recognizing this challenge, suppliers have developed asset performance management (APM) solutions designed to help asset-intensive enterprises get the most value from their assets. At ARC Advisory Group’s 20th Annual Industry Forum in Orlando, Florida, Shawn Anderson, Senior Research Specialist for Fisher Valves, a division of Emerson Process Management, presented his company’s efforts to provide end users with more actionable control valve health and performance information with less noise. The company designed a valve maintenance service that leverages its valve expertise to fill existing gaps in valve maintenance practices for its customers.  As part of this service, Fisher collects valve performance data from customer plants, analyzes it extensively to better understand the failure, and design methods to predict valve failures before they occur.  Mr. Anderson explained that, although the service is in its infancy, Fisher’s experience and valve expertise is already helping end users realize more value from smart positioner investments. A key element to success is the frequency with which APM data is now collected and analyzed. As part of its service, Fisher performs valve health analysis tests as frequently as once a week, rather than once or twice a year, a common practice for end users.  By increasing assessment frequency, valve suppliers can predict impending valve health deterioration such that remediation can be scheduled and performed well before an operator alarm is triggered.  This has the added advantage of helping end users struggling with alarm overload by reducing the number of alarms triggered as well as prioritizing the corrective actions that should be taken to keep the plant running. End users struggling to extend the life of their installed base of valves should consider partnering with a supplier that can provide asset performance management (APM) solutions “as a service.” In order to better understand the level of acceptance APM “as a service”, ARC is conducting a survey to obtain critical feedback from operators, end users, and other key stakeholders.  If you are interested in learning more about how (APM) solutions can help you keep your plants running, please consider taking our survey.  All respondents will receive a copy of survey summary results in consideration of their time to take the survey.  The survey is located on ARC’s website, at Asset Performance Management in the IIoT Era.