Chemical Engineering December 2011 - 38

Feature Report
ample, if a $400,000 investment in plant
infrastructure for wireless is required for
a $50 million turnaround, that amounts
to less than 1% of the budget. Usually,
turnarounds are the largest part of any
company's capital budget process or, in
some cases, turnarounds are done as a
completely separate budget process. Either
way, the company is able to add a
very small cost to a very large budget
and get an enormous return.
In fact, in most cases, the cost of
the infrastructure fits within the ±5%
margin for project success. Often, the
ability to make decisions via realtime
wireless data reduces the turnaround
by two or three days. If a turnaround
is scheduled for 45 days with a budget
of $45 million and the use of wireless
data allows for the project to come in
one day early, the cost for wireless infrastructure
of $450,000 (1%) has immediately
paid for the infrastructure
more than two times. If the company
can then add another application (post
turnaround) for operational, maintenance,
reliability, compliance or other
improvements, the financial returns
can be dramatic and recurring.
It's worth mentioning that getting
executive sponsorship and buy-in
from various functional areas within
the facility sometimes can be the most
challenging part of launching an industrial
wireless solution. However, by
tying the initial deployment of wireless
infrastructure to a turnaround,
the discussion becomes a cross-functional
one by default.
The capital budgeting process for a
large turnaround requires that operations,
maintenance, reliability, instrumentation,
safety and so on, all have
input in the months (and even years)
before the turnaround occurs. As a result,
when a wireless infrastructure is
added into the cost of the turnaround,
it facilitates a cross-functional conversation
about how to use that infrastructure
during and after the turnaround
is completed. It also brings
visibility into the area of industrial
wireless at the plant manager level
and above, which means there is executive
sponsorship from the beginning.
Cases in point
What are some of the specific reasons
that companies are using wireless
FIGURE 2. The Hunstman
wireless mobility
application includes
mobile handhelds, RFID
(radio frequency identification)
tags and wireless
infrastructure
technology, whether for turnarounds
or other daily operations? In general,
the realtime data from wireless solutions
allow for " on the fly " decisions,
which can lower the number of overtime
hours required by adjusting or rescheduling
" slower " shifts during turnarounds
and reducing costs of delivery
for services and equipment. Safety
or process incident rates also can be
reduced because of realtime wireless
access to shutdown and startup procedures
via handheld devices.
Access to realtime data also allows
for comparison between " as is " situations
versus " planned for " situations.
In other words, if your P&IDs have
discrepancies - and they all do -
your team can bring them up-to-date
and make necessary adjustments in
realtime for equipment procurement
and tradesman time requirements.
(For more, see the box, p. 39).
One recent illustration was announced
several months ago around
the completion of a wireless site plan
at BASF FINA Petrochemicals LP
(BFLP) facility in Port Arthur, Tex.
Initially, the site survey focused on a
wireless application for mobile handheld
devices to improve the management
of the facility's turnaround planning
and scheduling. The site plan
included expansion to cover implementation
of a more comprehensive
wireless infrastructure to support future
additional wireless applications
for condition monitoring, security and
productivity.
The survey included measurements
and data gathering to determine strategic
placement of radio frequency
(RF) transceivers and network devices
to comprise a facility-wide wireless
infrastructure. The plan called for
802.11 industrial WiFi access points
and condition monitoring sensors positioned
at key locations throughout
the plant in anticipation of the future
facility-wide wireless infrastructure
and applications including backhaul
for gate readers, condition monitoring,
38 CHEMICAL ENGINEERING WWW.CHE.COM DECEMBER 2011
remote operator handheld devices,
communications and video applications.
Performance
measurements,
including area coverage and network
connectivity, were taken within each
zone of the plant.
" We wanted a full wireless application
site plan across the entire facility
to determine the most cost-effective
and efficient implementation possible, "
James Skoruppa, senior I&E controls
engineer at the Port Arthur facility,
said in the announcement. " Plus,
we did not want to create various individual,
'one-off' systems - a common
mistake when implementing new
technology in a phased approach. "
Similarly, at a field site of the Huntsman
Corp., a global manufacturer and
marketer of differentiated chemicals,
a wireless network was installed and
leveraged with mobile handhelds and
software to help speed the process of
capturing defects and enabling operators
to initiate maintenance work requests
directly from the field, as part
of a program called Project Zero. They
also used the wireless-based system to
provide field access to step-executable
standard operating procedures and
standard operating conditions. This
enabled them to centralize and manage
this safety information in one
place rather than building the data
into each round, checklist or procedure.
The new system was found to
reduce the time between defect detection
and a maintenance work order
from hours to a matter of seconds.
According to a case study by the ARC
Advisory Group, entitled, " Huntsman
Extends IT to its Field Operations " ,
" An industrial mobility central data
base engine also was built to provide
immediate access to critical operating
limits, consequences of deviation and
corrective actions, for any operating
procedure,
operator round or safety verification
being performed by the operator at the
point of decision-making in the field.
Legacy information, such as process
maintenance procedure,
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Chemical Engineering December 2011

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Chemical Engineering December 2011
