Chemical Engineering March 2019 - 23

and send it back to the factory to have the calibration
verified. That procedure was very labor intensive, time
consuming and costly and resulted in downtime. And,
often users discovered that the device was still within
calibration! So, there is an obvious time and cost savings
associated with in-situ verification capabilities. "
Likewise, E+H has self-diagnostics, called Heartbeat,
built into its meters. " The devices are constantly monitoring
their own health and have a verification aspect, "
says Booth. " A user can start a verification on demand
and the meter will check the sensor and check the associated
electronics, and when the verification report is
complete, provide a PDF report showing what it tested
and whether the device passed or failed. "
Howard Siew, industry manager - chemical, with
E+H adds: " Heartbeat technology also enables users
to trend data so they will be able to recognize if there is
corrosion, erosion or build up and plan for maintenance
before there is an issue " (Figure 4).
" This level of intelligence, coupled with realtime and inprocess
measurements, allows users to get more insight
out of the instruments and allows the instrument to be
viewed as a window into the process, giving users the
ability to plan out a maintenance schedule or determine
how often the device should be pulled out for cleaning to
minimize unplanned shutdowns, " continues Nathan Hedrick,
national product manager - flow, with E+H.
Often, this intelligence is coupled with applications
(apps) that are accessed via Bluetooth to provide information
from remote locations, says Robert Childs,
strategic account manager with A.W. Lake (Oak Creek,
Wis.; www.aw-lake.com). " With Bluetooth connectivity
and a mobile app, this type of diagnostic information
can be displayed in the palm of the users hand via their
phone or tablet. Set up of the instrument can also be
performed from the mobile device instead of on the face
of the unit, " he says. " It can also be arranged so that reminders
regarding calibration and maintenance schedules
can be sent through the app to the user " (Figure 5).
Emerson's Klein agrees: " This is where you really start
to see the industrial internet of things (IIoT) and digitalization
come into play. The latest versions of electronics
provide more functionality because they are able to
send out more than just the primary variable and then
send it to a central management system that can identify
the device's health over time. And, if it's tied into an
app, such as Emerson's Insight, the platform can give
users ideas about the root cause of any problems. "
This means, instead of an engineer having to look at
variables and trend and graph them, the software in the
app does the work for them and suggests that the issue
could be, for example, two-phase flow and then offers
suggestions on how to remedy the situation.
" Using devices that are rich in diagnostics not only
for the device, but also for the process, not only allows
processors to perform maintenance in a predictive way
versus preventive, but also helps alleviate the workplace
challenges, such as less experienced workers, they are
currently experiencing, " says Klein.
n
Joy LePree
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Chemical Engineering March 2019

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Chemical Engineering March 2019
