Representative End User Clients
Representative Automation Clients
Representative Software Clients
For the process industries, one of the most critical and often overlooked assets is the automated control valve. Today's modern control valve is a far cry from the easy-to-understand analog valve positioner of the past, but too often the available diagnostic data goes unused. It may be possible to leverage that data to improve maintenance the "IIoT way."
The majority of control valves shipped today include a highly complex digital computer capable of recording a variety of important status bits that relate to the air supply, electrical supply, travel stroke other parameters related to the valve stem or shaft stiction. The challenge with this highly complex set of variables included in the digital positioner, is these variables are also seldom well understood by the resident plant instrument or electrical technicians. In most cases, these technicians are not afforded the time to learn and train on this technology.
Leading automation suppliers have developed control valve management systems to address this complexity and overcome the site expertise gap. These valve management systems help maintenance tasks and improve the access to the information stored in the digital positioner. When they are used with the right skills, correct technology in the field and complemented by other vital data points, these systems are capable of providing an accurate prediction of asset health and ultimately may minimize downtime or avoid performing unnecessary maintenance. Asset management systems, when coupled with digital positioner technology, provide a comprehensive valve signature analysis report. However, this report is only the first step in determining the overall health of the valve and related components. Many studies show current practice by most industrial manufacturers is to ignore this feature and simply perform scheduled maintenance or fix the control valve when a failure occurs. True predictive maintenance would require a more substantial look across differing data sets that complement the asset management reports..
When industrial manufacturers have performed asset criticality ranking to determine the most critical control valve assets, a valve signature report is usually created on select valves. The valve signature is the first step in performing a health check or considers prediction of potential future failures. Today's practice uses a manual data exchange method that is inefficient and potentially harmful from a cyber security perspective. Using email and USB thumb drives, technicians and engineers will share valve signature reports with the valve OEM supplier and other service providers to assist in performing the analysis. The problem with this approach is there is an opportunity to introduce a cyber-threat and harm the control systems and the method. The work process is also typically done on an infrequent or ad hoc basis, once an Operator has identified a symptom.
One major benefit of the internet of things (IIoT) model is the introduction of cloud computing which enables a variety of new service options. Secure non-VPN encrypted data connections using secure socket layer (SSL) over the internet are more common today which creates the opportunity to analyze control valve data and valve signatures as a service by a third-party. At the core of the IIoT opportunity is enablement of remote services and industrial process analytics tools.
A new breed of technology supplier has entered the industrial market providing IIoT industrial process analytics. Analytics are capable of reading vast quantities streaming time-series data, historical data, unstructured and unconventional data. Industrial technology suppliers are already at leveraging cloud infrastructure services such as Amazon Web Services or Microsoft Azure to simplify deployment of infrastructure and connect to an industrial site. They are creating the expertise in-house or forming partnerships to develop solutions that include the expertise to understand a particular plant asset fully. By combining data from the valve signature reports with the process historian data such as flows, pressures, and temperatures a better outcome and prediction can be achieved. Automation of these systems and data aggregation and contextualization creates efficiencies not possible without process analytics the internet of things way.
When performing control valve maintenance the "internet of things way", owner-operators have the benefit of an "Expertise-as-a-service" (EaaS) without the IT maintenance headaches associated IT infrastructure. For control valve OEM's, there is the benefit of seeing how the control valve is performing in the actual process environment, and thus have the ability to improve the control valve design.
The majority of control valves shipped today include a highly complex digital computer capable of recording a variety of important status bits that relate to the air supply, electrical supply, travel stroke other parameters related to the valve stem or shaft stiction. The challenge with this highly complex set of variables included in the digital positioner, is these variables are also seldom well understood by the resident plant instrument or electrical technicians. In most cases, these technicians are not afforded the time to learn and train on this technology.
Leading automation suppliers have developed control valve management systems to address this complexity and overcome the site expertise gap. These valve management systems help maintenance tasks and improve the access to the information stored in the digital positioner. When they are used with the right skills, correct technology in the field and complemented by other vital data points, these systems are capable of providing an accurate prediction of asset health and ultimately may minimize downtime or avoid performing unnecessary maintenance. Asset management systems, when coupled with digital positioner technology, provide a comprehensive valve signature analysis report. However, this report is only the first step in determining the overall health of the valve and related components. Many studies show current practice by most industrial manufacturers is to ignore this feature and simply perform scheduled maintenance or fix the control valve when a failure occurs. True predictive maintenance would require a more substantial look across differing data sets that complement the asset management reports..
When industrial manufacturers have performed asset criticality ranking to determine the most critical control valve assets, a valve signature report is usually created on select valves. The valve signature is the first step in performing a health check or considers prediction of potential future failures. Today's practice uses a manual data exchange method that is inefficient and potentially harmful from a cyber security perspective. Using email and USB thumb drives, technicians and engineers will share valve signature reports with the valve OEM supplier and other service providers to assist in performing the analysis. The problem with this approach is there is an opportunity to introduce a cyber-threat and harm the control systems and the method. The work process is also typically done on an infrequent or ad hoc basis, once an Operator has identified a symptom.
One major benefit of the internet of things (IIoT) model is the introduction of cloud computing which enables a variety of new service options. Secure non-VPN encrypted data connections using secure socket layer (SSL) over the internet are more common today which creates the opportunity to analyze control valve data and valve signatures as a service by a third-party. At the core of the IIoT opportunity is enablement of remote services and industrial process analytics tools.
A new breed of technology supplier has entered the industrial market providing IIoT industrial process analytics. Analytics are capable of reading vast quantities streaming time-series data, historical data, unstructured and unconventional data. Industrial technology suppliers are already at leveraging cloud infrastructure services such as Amazon Web Services or Microsoft Azure to simplify deployment of infrastructure and connect to an industrial site. They are creating the expertise in-house or forming partnerships to develop solutions that include the expertise to understand a particular plant asset fully. By combining data from the valve signature reports with the process historian data such as flows, pressures, and temperatures a better outcome and prediction can be achieved. Automation of these systems and data aggregation and contextualization creates efficiencies not possible without process analytics the internet of things way.
When performing control valve maintenance the "internet of things way", owner-operators have the benefit of an "Expertise-as-a-service" (EaaS) without the IT maintenance headaches associated IT infrastructure. For control valve OEM's, there is the benefit of seeing how the control valve is performing in the actual process environment, and thus have the ability to improve the control valve design.