Schneider Electric’s First Oil & Gas User Group Conference in India Shows Commitment

Summary

Schneider Electric held its first software user group conference in Mumbai on July 31, 2014. The event was well attended despite the inclement weather. ARC Advisory Group believes that this reflects the level of commitment of the company as well as its customers and prospects. The day's event was well organized, with topics of prime importance to customers in the oil & gas industry. The Schneider Electric team worked hard to ensure that customers were kept abreast about the developments and inroads the company is making in the automation and software segments. The event also gave an opportunity for the company to explain the merger of Invensys and Schneider Electric, how it combines their inherent strengths, how it is business-as-usual, and the future roadmap for the customers. The company had invited speakers from Japan, Korea, and Singapore, in addition to their Indian counterparts.

The key takeaways of the event include:

• Schneider Electric and Invensys have merged under a bigger umbrella, but retained the brand identities and made a commitment to develop the future roadmap, spotlighting customers' pain points.
• The company offers end-to-end solutions for the oil & gas industry.

Welcome Note: Rajat Kishore and Samir Gijre

Rajat Kishore, Managing Director, Invensys, India and Samir Gijre, Senior Manager Sales, Software Business, gave an overview on the company's oil and gas business and how it is committed to deliver bundled or point software and automation products. The speakers talked about various new products in Schneider Electric's portfolio, such as Avantis enterprise asset management software, Foxboro instruments and control systems, SimSci simulation and optimization software, Wonderware plant intelligence software, and Triconex safety systems. Some of the company's large customers in the oil & gas industry in India include Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited (BPCL), Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Limited (HPCL), Indian Oil Corporation Ltd (IOCL), and Reliance.

Speaker Presentations

T.S. Park

T.S. Park, Senior Director, Software Business, APAC, spoke about the SimSci Spiral Suite and how it integrates with the other Invensys products. SimSci Spiral, a UK- based company, became a part of the Invensys Group in 2012. He said that SimSci Spiral Suite is the only supply chain management solution with integrated planning, scheduling, and network planning solutions. He stressed that the tools developed by other point solutions are poorly stitched together and do not consider trading as a part of their scope. This creates lack of data synergies and gaps that can ultimately lead to losses as huge as $10 million to $100 million per year.

SimSci Spiral, a solution for petroleum and petrochemical industries, offers off-the-shelf integration, eliminates point solutions, and helps reduce gaps by providing transparency. The suite includes trading, planning, scheduling, refinery operations and primary distribution functionality on a common platform, with a single data source, using a common human interface on both desktops and via the Web. The second part of his presentation focused on "SimSci Spiral CrudeSuite"- a toolset for crude oil knowledge management. It has built-in integration with PRO/II and ROMeo. The new version, Crude Suite 6, will be released soon.

Dr. Seiya Hirohama

Dr. Seiya Hirohama, Senior Business Consulting Director, APAC provided a technology update and future roadmap for the company's design and simulation solutions.

The new feature in PRO/II v9.2.1-3 is the link to SimSci Spiral CrudeSuite. Unlike the previous version, which required crude assay data to be entered manually into refinery process simulations, the new version can automatically incorporate assay data.

John Hernandez

John Hernandez, Product Director for ROMeo, Global, discussed real-time optimization (RTO), hydrocarbon loss management through advanced yield accounting, and SimSci refinery reactor models.

His first presentation covered the challenges in the operating cycle in a refinery and how advanced process control (APC) and real time optimization (RTO) can help optimize operations. RTO can be leveraged in the supply chain for operations planning, APC, crude selection, and managing oil movements. He positioned ROMeo to be more than just RTO and shared the flowsheet and modeling environment, reactor model library, and possibility of off-site integration of the product. He also shared case studies of IDEMITSU and Shell Sarnia Refinery.

Next, he spoke about the advanced yield accounting solution for effective hydrocarbon loss management. The solution monitors emissions, tracks product composition in a tank, integrates with field devices, monitors materials movements, and line-up validation to help avoid unwanted events. It also gathers data automatically to help eliminate human errors.

In his last presentation, Mr. Hernandez talked about SimSci Refinery Reactor Model Portfolio, Reactor Models, and its interface with Offline Excel and PRO/II, and the SimSci Refinery Reactor Model Applications. He talked about ExxonMobil, which has used Invensys ROMeo software in multiple applications since 2004. ExxonMobil uses versions of these models for optimization, process engineering, design, and operations monitoring.

Kailash Samdani

Kailash Samdani, Consulting Director, APAC, discussed both the company's Real Time Performance Management (RTPM) and Integrated Operation Management System (IOMS).

Mr. Samdani started with a case study of Sasol, which achieved incremental benefits by empowering its operators. The Invensys Real-Time Performance Management offering is a key component of its broader solution for integrated operations management. By integrating financial metrics with operational metrics along the entire performance hierarchy, it provides real-time insight to the right people who are empowered to take the right action at the right time.

Next, Mr. Samdani talked about the idea of Smart Plant and stressed that it requires a holistic approach that combines people, process, and technology. This idea resonates well with the Internet of Things and connected enterprise, but according to the speaker, the idea is not widely adopted in the process industry. Schneider Electric is in the process of aligning various processes to its product portfolio so customers can enjoy an end-to-end framework using the Schneider Electric refinery SOA reference architecture.

Ramki Sethuraman

Mr. Ramki Sethuraman, Senior Business Consulting Director, APAC, discussed how organizations can effectively address operational and control challenges and the company's Virtual Plant Simulator.

Mr. Sethuraman talked about the company's standalone simulation engineering tools like DYNSIM, TRISIM Plus, and SCP280. These tools enable engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) firms and operators to perform dynamic engineering studies, check out controls, or create operator training simulators. He talked about SIM4ME services, which help in dynamic engineering studies. Using these services, Invensys delivers operating, design recommendations and a complete simulation model. He also talked about operator training simulators (OTS) and EYESIM, the company's 3D virtual reality-based training simulator for field operators. EYESIM links operators and other critical team members through a process simulator coupled with a virtual walkthrough of the plant. EYESIM's modular architecture allows links to major DCS systems, as well as "traditional" operator training simulators.

Saikat Sarkar

Mr. Saikat Sarkar, Business Consultant, Asset Management, India, spoke on two topics: asset management in process industries and IntelaTrac for the oil industry. For his presentation on asset management, Mr. Sarkar shared some hard facts about the process industry:

• Maintenance cost is more than the net profit of the company
• The global process industry loses around $20 billion or 5 percent of annual production due to unscheduled downtime with an average hourly cost of about $12,500

He believes that, Avantis, the company's enterprise asset management (EAM) solution, provides an appropriate solution to help overcome these problems. EAM helps companies improve uptime, extend asset life, control costs for parts and labor, transfer knowledge, follow best practices, and adhere to regulatory compliances.

The Avantis.PRO product, which is core to the EAM suite, consists of core maintenance functions like entity management, work management, work order scheduling, preventive maintenance, equipment activity records, reliability-centered maintenance (RCM), and materials management. Other solutions include Avantis.DSS for maintenance and reliability decision support and KPI portal; and Avantis CM for early failure detection.

In his second presentation, Mr. Sarkar said that the IntelaTrac solution provides visibility into the performance of non-instrumented equipment, protects people and environment. ExxonMobil has adopted IntelaTrac as an enterprise-wide best practice.

Viknesh Raja, Customer Presentation by Reliance Industries

Viknesh Raja, General Manager, Reliance Industries Limited, talked about their first in-house ROMeo based RTO implementation in their Crude Unit.

After giving a brief overview of Reliance Industries, Mr. Raja talked about Invensys ROMeo projects at Reliance; focusing on the completed and ongoing projects for the company's Crude Unit. According to Mr. Raja, the company's RTO model covers:

• Feed from marine tank farm
• Wide range of Feed Assays in ROMeo
• Simplified model for heater firebox
• Column sectional efficiency profile
• Cracking model for VDU feed line & furnace
• Vacuum ejector model using vendor curves
• All APC manipulated variables (MVs) as optimization variable & controlled variables (CVs) as constraints
• External target to all APC variables – for information
• Ramper logic for ETs - smoother APC movement
• Automated shift and daily reports
• Unified performance index to track RTO benefits

Conclusion

Through the M&A route, Schneider Electric has strengthened its position both as an automation and enterprise supplier to the global oil & gas industry. ARC believes that the company is well positioned with its solutions, partnerships, and marquee of satisfied customers. While the company is clearly working toward a converged architecture, it still has much work to do to integrate its many solutions.

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Keywords: Schneider Electric, Invensys, Oil & Gas, Supply Chain Optimization, SimSci Spiral, DYNSIM, PRO/II, Real-Time Optimization (RTO), Visual Flow, SimCentral, Real Time Performance Management (RTPM), Integrated Operation Management System (IOMS), ROMeo, Reliance Industries.