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Emerson product development: It’s all about ease of use

2009-09-30T08:00:00.002-04:00

At the end of the day, your product is only as good as a user makes it and Emerson wants to make sure their systems are easy to use from top to bottom.
That is why, in collaboration with Carnegie Melon University, Emerson created what it calls Human Centered Design Institute.
This comes after more than five years of user analysis. The goal is to make products that work, but also bring about a significant improvement in ease-of-use and workforce productivity.
“We are introducing a completely new overhaul of how we develop new products,” said Steve Sonnenberg, president of Emerson Process Management during the Emerson Global Users Exchange in Orlando, Fla. “A process that puts features second, and usability first. A process that reinvents the relationship between technology and the people that use it. We call this concept human centered design. It puts you in charge of the technology instead of the other away around. The institute is to make sure we build products based on usability.”
At user group meetings suppliers always talk about listening to users, but Emerson feels they are taking it one step further.
“I don’t think the issue is we have ignored customers up to five years ago,” said John Berra, chairman of Emerson Process Management. “I think we spent most of our time on the technological time of customer input and a little less time on the ease of use side. Our customers used to have the ability to buy a small DeltaV set it up in a conference room and play around with it and the people inside the customer organization would figure out how to use it and that knowledge was then transferred internally,” Berra said. “All those folks are now gone.”
“Now the emphasis on making it easy to use became overwhelming and we started to pay attention to that when our customers lost the ability to figure it out for themselves.”
“It is a new approach,” Sonnenberg said. “Before we thought our job was to make a product better. But now we don’t just look at the product, we look at all the processes customers are using right now.”
The design of Emerson’s new DeltaV S series followed along the path of the human centered design and so did their new 50 new field device dashboards.
These new field device dashboards interact with a series of smart devices which gives the operator a clear and easy way to understand what the device readings are and how well the devices are operating.
“This all starts with the customer and ends with the customer,” Sonnenberg said.

Emerson’s new DeltaV

2009-09-29T15:56:00.000-04:00

Emerson’s DeltaV has always been a solid, consistent system that has worked in the automation industry for years.
But Emerson now believes the new DeltaV S series platform is a game changer or something they refer to as being able to conquer complexity.
With plants getting larger and more complex and the technology becoming more intense and accelerating, systems need to be easy to operate and very intuitive.
“It is almost the perfect storm with plants getting larger and more complex,” said Steve Sonnenberg, president of Emerson Process Management at the Emerson Global Users Exchange in Orlando, Fla. “With 40% of the workforce at retirement age next year in the industry and with the economy, it has increased this percentage with employee reductions.”
This new release focuses on Emerson’s commitment to end users. “The people issue is getting more important moving forward,” Sonnenberg said.
During these difficult times it is easy to hide under a rock and wait until things blow over, but Sonnenberg said they have been consistently working on research and development to come out of this recession hitting the ground running.
“You can become too focused on your products, but then you can become blind to opportunities on how customers do their jobs,” said Peter Zornio, chief technology officer at Emerson Process.
This new DeltaV S series includes enhancements to all of the systems’ I/O processing, operator displays, asset management, batch capability and system security, Zornio said. The idea behind these new capabilities is to reduce user project complexity, eliminate needless work, and speed system commissioning. This is a simple case of time is money.
Some of the advances in the new system are I/O on demand and electronic marshalling.
With I/O on demand, users decide what type of I/O they want, whether it is wireless, Foundation Fieldbus, HART, AI, AO, DI, DO, DP, T/C, or RTD, Zornio said.
They decide when they want the I/O, whether for late project changes, during start-up, during operation, or temporary installations; and where they want the I/O, whether in a rack room, remote locations, hazardous areas, safety systems, or harsh environments.
Electronic marshalling can eliminate up to two-thirds of the wiring and connections needed by conventional marshalling cabinets.
The new technology that goes with the S-series, called single channel CHARacterization ModuleS (CHARMS), eliminates the need for users to wire I/O to specific controller I/O cards.
This provides single channel integrity and flexibility down to the channel level.
Being flexible is also one other aspect of this new offering. Traditional project engineering requires major time and cost in changing rack-room I/O wiring and terminations as engineers refine the design during project execution and construction, electronic marshalling makes changes easy and eliminates re-wiring. The user can land the field wires, place a new CHARM and electronically marshal it wherever needed. No more need to rewire which would be a costly delay, Zornio said.
“We have made some major step changes in how a project can be done,” Zornio said.

New DeltaV, new processes at Emerson

2009-09-28T12:48:00.002-04:00

Steve Sonnenberg sees the light at the end of the tunnel.
Part of that light might come from the new DeltaV.
“This is the biggest advancement in control I/O,” said Sonnenberg, Emerson Process Management’s president and Business Leader during his keynote address at Emerson Global Users Exchange today in Orlando, Fla. “This is control system hardware that lets you finalize your I/O design once you finish your process design. Imagine significant reductions in change orders. Imagine eliminating spaghetti wiring, eliminating miles of multi-core cabling, and thousand of tedious hours of landing I/O. Imagine changing your mind and not getting penalized for it.”
Fighting through the global recession, the new DeltaV is a big push at this year’s user group.
“Emerson process has been affected by this downturn. We feel our business is starting to bottom out and the predictions are for next year 2010 will be a recovery, albeit a slow recovery,” Sonnenberg said.
During this downturn the company has built new facilities, made acquisitions, and worked through research and development to develop new products in addition to DeltaV.
“One of my personal favorites is wireless,” Sonnenberg said. One of those products is something called the THUM.
“The THUM is a product that can wirelessly enable existing wired products. It is estimated there is 26 million HART devices in the field today and this smart wireless THUM will free the diagnostic information trapped inside these devices.”
All the products all boil down to one thing: Getting more information or data out to short staff organizations.
“There is a huge knowledge void in mature markets because of people walking out of the door because of layoffs or retirement,” Sonnenberg said. “Plant jobs have become less specialized and more generalized.”
“We also hear frequently, ‘how can we mange all the data coming from your automation systems. What we really want is for you to convert the data to information that can help us make decisions.’ ”
“He also hear ‘with fewer people and more work to get done we need to try to eliminate unnecessary work and processes.’ ”
“We hear from customers, ‘your technology and your competitor’s technology is great but sometimes you move faster than we can actually absorb it. Sometimes the training involved can be daunting and sometimes the number of steps required to complete a routine task can be cumbersome.’ ”
Emerson learned something from those messages.
“The truth is the automation technologies developed over the past 30 years weren’t developed based on work practices, they were developed upon product features. The vast majority of our advances have been around technology features without how users interact with the technologies and how these products are used. Products sometimes present as many challenges as they do solutions.”
Emerson said part of their evolution is they are approaching technology development in a different way.
“First think about how and why customers use the product and then design that product for the optimal user experience,” Sonnenberg said.

Virtual reality becoming real at Invensys

2009-09-22T12:24:00.001-04:00

Who says the gaming and automation industries don’t have anything in common?
If you talk to the Invensys folks, they feel they have a hit with their virtual reality training software called EYESim.
Taking the gaming skill sets popular today, EYESim combines virtual reality technologies with high-fidelity process and control simulation, computer-based maintenance and documentation management and other applications.
The end result is a realistic representation of a plant that can provide a safe training environment for workers to increase operating efficiency and skills.
During a demonstration of the product at the Invensys North America Client Conference in Houston, the company showed how it could be a useful tool to help train workers today. But down the road, Dr. Tobias Scheele, vice president of advanced applications at Invensys, said this could be the future of control rooms.
“With experienced workers with their institutional knowledge (leaving the industry), we need to bring the problem to the experts, not the expert to the problem,” he said.
“This is just the starting point,” Scheele said. “The control room of the future should not be flat. Why not use virtual reality to aggregate information to virtualize the information.”
In short, to get a working profile of a plant, Invensys goes and takes a boat load of digital photos and then meshes them together to form the virtual plant.
The company then takes the DYNSIM high-fidelity process simulator, FSIM Plus software, I/A Series control system emulation and some other programs and creates a computer-generated representation of a plant.
With a headset, workers then enter a completely immersive environment in which they can move throughout the plant. They can control valves, check gauge readings and even work through an emergency situation.
With the use of avatars, it is possible to investigate the maintainability of process machinery at the plant, said Invensys’ Director of Global Consulting Maurizio Rovaglio.
“Virtual reality helps with the training in the field. It is possible to train on different types of accidents,” he said.
While it may seem easy to dismiss a virtual reality program as just a gimmick, but this product line has some great potential for Invensys.

USAir flight 1549: Adhering to procedures, teamwork mean success

2009-09-21T16:23:00.002-04:00

The ultimate in teamwork and following policy and procedures really comes to light when you listen to Jeff Skiles talk about USAirways flight 1459.
Skiles, the first officer of the ill-fated flight that took off from New York’s LaGuardia 15 January that hit a flock of Canadian Geese, talked during today’s keynote address at the Invensys North America Client Conference all about the key components of teamwork, training and following policies and procedures.
“These basic building blocks of training, teamwork and procedures we use in the cockpit are critical for any profession where human beings interact,” Skiles said.
The pilots and flight attendants on a team are a team based on training over the years.
“We know exactly what we are responsible for and can rely upon each other,” he said.
The following is an excerpted timeline in the take off of flight 1549:
“We started our day that day in Pittsburgh went to Charlotte and then flew to New York. There was a weather delay as we taxied out to the runway. This was my first trip on an Airbus.
“It was a cold day in New York. I set the controls for the takeoff. We were late and the passengers were worried about making their connections. It was the last day of our leg and was the last flight of our day. I had just met Sully three days before at the beginning of our leg. In our business, it is our training and our strict adherence to procedure that allow us to act as a team from the very first leg we fly together.
“I was flying this leg. The control tower cleared us for take off. We started moving. We were working as a team and we know exactly what we are responsible for and what we can depend on the other pilot for.
“At 400 feet I rolled the plane to the left. At 3,000 feet in the air, I pitched the airplane over to accelerate to 250 knots, our speed limit below 10,000 feet. At this moment I see a line of geese right in front of the nose. They are too close to maneuver around, but I felt this great sense of relief that I saw we flew over the top of them, which we did in the cockpit. But we didn’t clear them enough as it sounded like hail hitting the airplane and both engines immediately rolled back to idle.
“We are not in good shape and I am pushing the nose over the keep the plane flying. Sully immediately took over the airplane.
“We are gliding. We are trading air speed for altitude to keep the plane from stalling. The plane is losing about 1,000 feet per minute, but we are only at 3,000 feet to start with. Sully and I tried to assess what we have got here.
“I reset the computers speed information making sure we had electric and hydraulic power and test to restart the engines. Our options were to either go back to LaGuardia, or Teterboro or the Hudson River. Our only real option was the Hudson River. What I remember most as we descended into the river was the noise. We have a large selection of bells, horns, automated voices that warn us of various aircraft system failures. It seemed like every alert was going off at once. Sully had the presence of mind to pick up the PA and give the command to the flight attendants to brace for impact. That was the only knowledge they had of what was going to happen.
“After we landed in the water, one of the great things about our success was our passengers. They were professional passengers.”
Skiles said after they got back onshore and the politicians got on the scene, “(New York) Governor (David) Paterson coined the phrase the ‘Miracle on the Hudson.’ But was it really a miracle? What allowed the two of us to perform so well was our training, our teamwork, and our procedures.”
In short, Skiles said the crew, while not really knowing each other, knew just what to do.
“Because of training and procedures we knew what to do when the birds flew into the engines,” he said. “Flight crews work more like a baseball team rather than a traditional top down management approach. Every person has a roll, a responsibility. That is why we can work together as a team from the first moment we sit down together even if we have never met.”
“Other than hitting the birds, everything went our way – and they had to go our way,” Skiles said.

Invensys: Teamwork key to moving forward

2009-09-21T12:15:00.001-04:00

Even in a perfect world, getting through today’s tough economic times is difficult at best.
But if you don’t have teamwork helping guide everyone through, then it is almost impossible. That point was clearly evident at today’s opening keynote at the Invensys North American Client Conference in Houston, Texas.
“Today is all about delivering consistency and follow through day-by-day to keep your business running and profitable,” said Steve Blair, president North America for Invensys Operations Management.
He added technology alone is not the answer. Rather, is giving that technology to people so they can make informed decisions to they can “obtain sustainable achievements.”
“Sustainable performance is achievable to those who lead,” Blair said. “We prefer to lead.”
In talking about team work, ExxonMobil Chemical’s CSR leader, Ken Anderson, knows all about it. After Hurricane Ike tore through Galveston, Texas, 12 September last year, the ExxonMobil Beaumont Chemical Plant was devastated. The plant, located about 35 miles away from Galveston, had a storm surge of 12 feet which completely flooded the massive plant.
He had to come in and get the wiped out control system for the plant up and running. He said it was a category 2 hurricane with a category 4 storm surge. In other words, the plant was flooded with salt water and he had to get a team together to get it up and running because this was the only site that produced some of the key chemical for some of ExxonMobil’s key products.
“On day three or day four we came out with a document I worked on from my pick up truck as that was the only real place I could sit down and work,” Anderson said. “The principal thought behind this guiding principles document was to clearly spell out what we were going to do and what we were not going to do.”
Anderson pointed out some success factors to get a team up and running in a crises situation:
• Clear chain of command and clear criterion of decision making
• Unambiguous roles and responsibilities
• Inter and intra team communication
• Specified boundaries on work scope
• Indentify true schedule of critical activities
• Direct contact with our suppliers
• Short shipping orders expedited control system recovery and commissioning
• Offsite systems staging decoupled and control system recovery from parallel onsite recovery work.
Anderson said the plant was back up and running and producing product by early December just a few short months after the hurricane flooded out the plant. He said that never could have happened if they didn’t have a clear policy and procedure plan in place. But in addition, they needed people working together to accomplish the goal.

Technologies take center stage

2009-08-05T13:19:00.001-04:00

One of the really cool things about coming to NIWeek is seeing their new products and even some future products demo’d during the morning key note addresses. This is when the products bask in the spotlight.
Today, NI Fellow Mike Santori took the helm and helped show off products ranging from virtualization with multicore processors to announcing NI’s new product the Real Time Hypervision Software, to a guitar playing robot to some future advanced wireless communications systems.
NI continuously advances their product lines and learns new ways to measure and test different things.
Tuesday, Vice President of Marketing and Customer Operations, John Graff, talked about releases they are coming out with right now, while Santori, for the most part, talked about technologies that will hit the street down the road.
Having an open discussion about these product lines may be one reason why in a down year registration for the event is up 5% over last year.
This is all a way users can learn how to advance their processes and maybe learn a way to make some new measurements.
“We need to make more measurements,” said Jeff Kodosky, NI co-founder and father of the flagship LabVIEW product line during his Wednesday keynote. Measurements are a key element to continue pushing the technology envelope, he said.
“We have been making measurements in testing for a long time, but we need to make more measurements in design.”
-- Gregory Hale

Crisis situation: We need more engineers

2009-08-05T13:03:00.001-04:00

It would be very easy to talk about the global recession, everyone does, but National Instruments’ co-founder Jeff Kodosky wanted to talk today about a different crisis during his keynote: The shortage of engineers and scientists.
“We are not producing enough engineers and scientists,” said Kodosky, the father of National Instruments’ flagship product line LabVIEW during his keynote address at NIWeek09 Worldwide Graphical System Design Conference in Austin, Texas. “We need to change that. The only people that create wealth are engineers and scientists. We are in a (engineering and scientist) crisis situation and we have been in it for a long time. Students need to be energized for science and math; they need inspiration.”
In short, Kodosky said we have to bring back the concept that engineering is a high profile career that has real growth potential. The country needs to change priorities from the elementary level all the way up to the colleges and universities, he said.
On the university level, the engineering curriculum needs to change, he said. The schools need to get in the real world where they need to teach how to program parallel systems.
Yes, engineers need to learn the basics, but there are just too many traditional aspects to teaching engineering at the university level that just do not apply any more.
“Our universities not only need to teach the traditional tools, but they also need to teach real-life tools.
Kodosky talked to the audience about getting involved and all engineers should not rest on their laurels, but rather go out and make a difference. He suggested:
• You can help mentor, teach and counsel a pipeline of students.
• Be politically active and stand up for science education
• Show how productive you can be by using the proper tools.
“In short, just do more,” Kodosky said.
Talking about growing the potential for future engineers and scientists, Kodosky also discussed technology and how that will help lead the world out of the massive recession, but he did not go into blame anyone or anything, but rather what needs to happen for the future.
“We live in a technological era,” he said. “We have cars with anti-lock brakes. We can view our location with Google Earth.” But on the other hand we have an “electric power system where energy is distributed over an antiquated grid and prone to black outs.”
“Without technology, we could not support a planet of 6 billion people and growing.”
He said the U.S., and the world for that matter, needs to keep growing in terms of technology; not remaining content with what we have.
“We are on a technology treadmill and we can’t get off and the treadmill is speeding up.”
-- Gregory Hale

New version of LabVIEW hits the street

2009-08-04T15:48:00.001-04:00

“We can’t be at the same level (of innovation) we have done over the past 10 years,” said John Graff, vice president of marketing and customer operations during his presentation at NIWeek 09 Worldwide Graphical System Design Conference in Austin, Texas. “We must find ways to do more.”
Those two words, “Do More” are now part of NI’s mantra. “We want to provide the tools and technologies we believe can help you do more,” he said.
One of those tools is what seems to be an annual rite at NI’s user group: A release of NI’s flagship product LabVIEW. This year’s new offering, called LabVIEW 2009 has some additions, one of which makes it possible to deploy code to wireless sensor networks to help engineers and scientists build smarter industrial measurement and monitoring systems and features new ways to test multiple wireless standards.
In addition, LabVIEW 2009 can simplify real-time math by streamlining mathematical algorithm design and deployment to real-time hardware.
Today’s engineering environment all comes down to cutting as much cost out of the system as possible. With virtualization technology, it is possible to run multiple operating systems side by side on the same multicore processing hardware to build more efficient systems.
NI’s new Real-Time Hypervisor software can now work with the LabVIEW Real-Time Module with general-purpose OS capabilities to reduce overall system cost and size. Using this software, engineers can run Windows XP and LabVIEW Real-Time side by side on the same controller, partitioning the processor cores among the two operating systems for more efficient use of system resources, NI officials said. The Real-Time Hypervisor works with dual- and quad-core NI PXI controllers as well as the NI Industrial Controller.

Real-time math can spur innovation

2009-08-04T15:33:00.002-04:00

What a difference a year makes. You can apply that statement to just about any scenario in the automation environment, but it really applies when you go to user group meetings from year to year.
“It’s been an incredible year on the financial scene,” said Dr. James Truchard, chief executive and co-founder of National Instruments during today's keynote address at the company’s annual NIWeek 09 Worldwide Graphical System Design Conference in Austin, Texas.
“We have seen a lot of headlines on some of the reasons the crisis took place virtually everyday in the newspapers. Now, the books are even coming out. There seems to be a consensus forming that the models used by the Wall Street traders were too simplistic; they didn’t take into account the real world.”
One of the books came out and said the mathematical theories were part of the problem.
“I believe we have created a new way to use mathematics. Real world mathematics.”
Talked about in the last decade we have not had enough innovation in the United States. Truchard said innovation is what will get the U.S. back on track.
Talking about the NI users, Truchard said the trend was quite different.
“You guys here have been very innovative and counter to the trend to the overall U.S. industry. You have spurred innovation that has been definitely needed.”
With NI’s new product releases, “we now have a nice platform to deploy math in the real time.”
John Graff, NI’s vice president of marketing and customer operations, agreed innovation is the key to help get out of the recession.
“The financial engineers have really screwed this up,” Graff said. “It is now time for the real engineers to step it up.”
-- Gregory Hale

Natural oil technologies await their turn

2009-06-18T11:26:00.001-04:00

"The drivers for the production and use of alternative fuels are clear. It's our goal to be a business partner and enabler to those with feedstocks and those who can convert those feedstocks to fuel," said Jamie Bohan during the "Alternative Fuels & Emissions Reduction" session Wednesday at Honeywell Users Group in Phoenix.
Drivers are:
An increasing population and demand for oil and fuel.
There is the volatility of the fossil fuel supply with the activity in Iran this week as a recent threat and example to the oil supply. Note the U.S. reliance on foreign oil will increase 30% through year 2030 said the International Energy Agency.
Environmental concerns as to the burning of hydrocarbons and the relationship to global warming abound in North America and Europe. The existing regulations and pending rules/legislation are staggering in their number and complexity.
Bohan is senior segment marketing manager, chemicals and pharmaceuticals at Honeywell. “Biofuels is a quickly changing landscape. The market took off and collapsed over the recent few years. There was the debate over the food versus fuel aspect as well as the land, water, and environmental concern attached to growing fuel. And of course the economy had its say too.”
Those were what we call first generation feedstocks. Bohan, UOP, and Honeywell see more potential in the 2nd generation feedstocks than in the 1st generation that did not work out so well. First generation includes sugars (sugar cane and others) and starches like wheat and corn. Oils (vegetable based) and grease fall into this category too.
Second generation feedstocks are biomass, which can be waste from the pulp and forest product industry like lignin, cellulose, and hemi cellulose, as well as other energy crops like switch grass. Also, include here oils from algae, jatropha, and camelina.
There are many challenges handling this feedstock mainly surrounding the logistics of collecting, transporting, storing, and preparing the biomass for transition.
The technologies to convert the biomass to fuel exist, and there are nearly 10 or so of them. Honeywell and UOP are active in this area and see partnerships developing between companies that make fuel and companies that produce or have access to large amounts of biomass. Oil refiners and papermakers is an example of this.
The UOP renewable vision is hydrocarbon biofuels. This approach builds on UOP technology and expertise. It produces real fuels instead of fuel additives or fuel blends.
It can leverage existing refining and transportation infrastructure to lower capital costs, minimize value chain disruptions, and reduce investment risk. Moreover, it will focus on using second generation feedstocks and chemicals.
“The UOP approach is to use the same biological feedstocks used to make ethanol and biodiesel, but convert them into gasoline and diesel molecules that are identical to their fossil fuel counterparts using refining type processes,” said Bohan. These are UOP’s natural oil technologies.
—Nicholas Sheble

Wireless wins in dire straits

2009-06-18T11:24:00.001-04:00

Bryan McVicker transferred to ExxonMobil’s Beaumont, Tex., chemical plant in July 2008, but he got more than he had bargained for when Hurricane Ike tore through in September, leaving in its wake a broken levee, a plant flooded in 10 feet of water, and all electrical infrastructure destroyed. But after giving wireless a try (any port in a storm), McVicker and his team were sold on wireless benefits.
On Wednesday, at the Honeywell Users Group in Phoenix, McVicker, a Pyrolysis engineer at ExxonMobil, and Ken Routh, from the core engineering group at ExxonMobil Chemical in Baytown, Tex., gave their version of how they depended on wireless in this dire situation. “We were not allowed to go back to our offices or retrieve anything,” McVicker said. “It was all trashed. While employees worked out of hotel ballroom for several weeks, the entire organization had to restructure. When we returned to work, we found flares remained in service, but DCS and controls were lost. We were going to be in turnaround state for long time. We needed to make sure basic systems were in place to address potential hazards. I needed to make sure all core business units on site were adequately handling business preservation.” Having no previous experience with wireless, McVicker was hoping to supplement operator rounds, not replace them, as key process parameters during recovery.
Some of the challenges the company encountered included a weak infrastructure, no wiring, cabling, fiber optics, or permanent power. Also, they were limited in people because the instrument and electrician technicians and engineers were all focused on rebuilding the plant. So they contacted Honeywell to investigate wireless options. Within two days, the vendor had mobilized technicians, and wireless stations came to the site. Within 12 days, there was an initial startup with risk-based security and controls review and instruments limited to critical services.
As an expert called in to help, Routh’s role was to provide global support as a technical generalist. “Some of the biggest specs we had were quick response, and we wanted a fix that could provide everything,” Routh said. “We needed one vendor who provides everything from transmitters to operator interface. We needed 802.11 Ethernet backbone wireless because we had no fiber optic or cable. At least at that time, the vendor we could identify quickly was Honeywell.”
The Beaumont team implemented XYR 600 frequency hopping spread spectrum transmitters with five-second update rate. They initially installed nine transmitters, five-second update rate, with17 transmitters ultimately installed. The fix also included IEEE 802.11a wireless backbone mesh, four multinodes initially installed, with a final total of five, all powered with a solar panel (temporarily powered initially with generators).
With an operator shelter 1100 feet away from the transmitters, the team used just a couple of PCs, with one seeing use as a OneWireless server that did all configuration and wireless networking setup. “One of our security controls stipulation was this network had to be completely standalone,” Routh said. The only place to view the data was in front of a table in this operator shelter; there was no Wi-Fi capability. The interface was Honeywell HS Experion on a desktop PC.
“The initial configuration had two multinodes close together because of the tall structures in the plant and concern about interference,” McVicker said.
All in all, the wireless system made crucial device monitoring easier to use. It was staffed by console operators 24/7, with instrument monitoring and historization, flare pilot thermocouples, cold flare vaporizer TIs and LIs, and key utilities, such as firewater, potable water, natural gas, LP steam, and PIs.
Once the system was in service, operators immediately began using the system. They were able to troubleshoot systems with a proactive response to pre-alarms and alarms. At the end of the outage, data was collected. “The only thing we cared about was data appearing on the screen,” Routh said. “We decided we needed technical data toward the end, so the Honeywell folks in the Houston area spent a lot of time helping us configure and troubleshoot; we monitored seven key performance parameters for three weeks at five-second intervals.
In the end, there was no problem in the system with errors or retries. During this time, one of the multinodes failed, where there were two close together. “We were worried about transmitters being able to get to multinodes,” Routh said. “But we lost no data during that time.”
—Ellen Fussell Policastro

Wireless continues growth mode

2009-06-18T11:22:00.003-04:00

In a down economy, wireless is one technology that continues to grow, and the potential applications just keep expanding.
“Wireless is gaining momentum throughout the industry,” said Norm Gilsdorf, president of Honeywell Process Solutions during the Honeywell Users Group Americas Symposium in Phoenix. “It is interesting. We are seeing the wireless kits and wireless mesh networks (selling) despite the economic conditions.”
The growth means it may be cost effective to put in a wireless system that fits a bit easier into budgets.
“Wireless growth remains extremely strong this year,” said Jeff Becker, Honeywell Process Solutions’ global wireless business director. “Most project budgets are under heavy cost pressure, so wireless is a great mechanism to keep the same functionality and scope but at a lower price point.”
One of the reasons for the heightened interest in wireless may be because the ISA100 Standards Committee on Wireless Systems for Automation voted to approve the standard, ISA100.11a, “Wireless Systems for Industrial Automation: Process Control and Related Applications.”
“Now that the ISA draft has been accepted to establish as a standard, we think that will clear the air and confusion and that will enable things, when that is finally adopted, to move forward at an even faster pace,” Gilsdorf said.
“It is a big deal for the industry,” Becker said. “We as an industry finally have an open, flexible, user-driven standard that meets all the requirements for field instrument use in process plants.”
In a nutshell, the ISA100.11a standard will provide reliable and secure wireless operation for non-critical monitoring, alerting, supervisory control, open-loop control, and closed-loop control applications. The standard will define the protocol suite, system management, gateway, and security specifications for low-data-rate wireless connectivity with fixed, portable, and moving devices supporting very limited power consumption requirements.
The application focus is to address the performance needs of applications such as monitoring and process control where latencies of 100 milliseconds are acceptable.
The standard assures operation in the presence of interference, harsh industrial environments, and with legacy non-ISA100 compliant wireless systems.
The remaining steps include approval by the ISA Standards and Practices Board and ratification by the American National Standards Institute. The committee hopes to publish the standard in August.
“It is a future-proof standard that has the legs to last us for a long time,” Becker said.
It is one thing to talk about standards and the theory behind wireless, but it is quite another to have actual working products out in the market.
Jason Urso, vice president of technology at Honeywell, unveiled, among the slew of wireless products, a manual gauge reader to wirelessly integrate manual gages at a low cost, a valve position sensor for remote valve position monitoring (for people who have multiple valves in field), and a flexline radar level gauge for accurate and reliable inventory control and custody transfer. “This flexline radar level gauge is enabled for OneWireless so it can be deployed in your tank farms” for safety issues, he said.
A simple case of wireless in action came to the forefront one year ago. One of the debates for wireless has always been about reliability, but Bryan McVicker does not have any doubt.
McVicker, a Pyrolysis engineer at ExxonMobil, came to rely upon wireless after Hurricane Ike devastated his chemical plant in September 2008. His plant was flooded in 10 feet of water, and the entire electrical infrastructure was destroyed.
“We found flares remained in service, but DCS and controls were lost,” McVicker said. “We needed to make sure basic systems were in place to address potential hazards. I needed to make sure all core business units on site were adequately handling business preservation.”
McVicker turned to a wireless implementation to quickly help with recovery.
Some of the challenges the company encountered included a weak infrastructure, no wiring, cabling, fiber optics, or permanent power. Also they were limited in people because the instrument and electrician technicians and engineers were all focused on rebuilding the plant. Within two days, Honeywell mobilized technicians and wireless stations came to the site. Within 12 days, there was an initial startup with risk-based security and controls review and instruments limited to critical services.
While the hurricane situation was clearly an emergency, and wireless came through, the technology is also working in every day environments.
“Users typically want a wireless solution to improve safety, efficiency, or reliability,” Becker said. “Wireless is almost always significantly cheaper than doing the same thing via wire, and in many cases wireless allows them to do things that were just impossible to do in the past.

Respond to right alarms

2009-06-17T00:49:00.002-04:00

When alarms are going off left and right, the noise becomes deafening—metaphorically speaking anyway. Operators turn a deaf ear because they are overwhelmed by constant alarms.
With no documented alarm management process, Gary Godfrey, senior staff engineer in the control systems department at Saudi Petrochemcial Company in Saudi Arabia, knew this was not a good way to keep the plant running safely. Operators ignore alarms because there are just too many to deal with. “If you’re being told 20 times a minute something’s going wrong, you have no think time to settle in and know what to do about that alarm,” he said.
One of the problems is a management system via paper, and no alarm system performance measures. “Today if it’s not electronic, people don’t do it,” he said.
You need a philosophy for your plant well documented and well written, or you cannot do alarm management.
Audible alarms must have operator action. “If your alarm philosophy contains that one line, you’re 80% the way there. If there’s no action for the operator, and there is nothing they can do about it, then don’t tell them.”
You need a governing document, and you need site-wide buy-in. An alarm philosophy is not one size that fits all. It is going to be unique to your plant and practices.
Incorporate industry guidelines. “One thing we embraced was EEMUA, a U.K.-based organization that has the industry standard for alarm management” Godfrey said.
Include basic definitions: What is an alarm?
Be aware of alerts vs. alarms. Alarms you have to take quick action on. Alerts you may need to check every 12 hours.
Make sure you have alarm dead bands. This is key so you do not get chattering alarms. If it’ is just going to sit there and go in and out, you need a dead band there. Define values in percents or EU. Use PV clamping on indication points.
Set alarm priorities, such as emergency/high/low. Only 5% of your alarms should have emergency priority. High should be 1%. For that, you probably have a minute to a five-minute reaction time. Alarms that are low priority (i.e., the filter needs changing) can be attended to next shift. “You don’t have to get out there in the next two minutes. And remember; alarms are for the operators, not engineers.”
Pilot study gives “incredible” results
Godfrey and his team did a pilot study for six months, and “the numbers were incredible,” he said. There was an 83% reduction on one of the consoles in six months, and operators could respond in a timely fashion.
Information was kept in Excel with major columns including alarm description, reason for alarm, consequence of not alarming, expected operator action, response time defines priority), PVLO, PVHI, and other LCN parameters.
Only look at bad actors, and consider the 80/20 rule, he said. “We did a weekly bad actor review. Somebody has to own the alarm management. Empower someone to make decisions.” Owners in this project were control system engineers, production/process engineers, and operations representatives. Team membership continuity is crucial. Justify all bad actors. “Over time, you’ll build up a database of rationalized alarms online for operators in the future,” he said.
With one alarm per 10 minutes on average, Godfrey was pleased with the results of the study. But he cautioned alarm management is an ongoing process. “Don’t just do it once and walk away. You’ve got to walk before you run, so keep it simple.”
Other gems of advice included having management support for alarm management.
“In the future, we’re going to address standing alarms, reduce inhibited and disabled alarms, operator changes (top changed points and why), and operator changes per audible alarm,” he said.
— Ellen Fussell Policastro

Reconfiguration of oil refining and capacity likely

2009-06-17T00:47:00.001-04:00

“UOP isn’t in the prediction business, but everybody wants to know what UOP thinks,” said Norm Gilsdorf, a former hand at the refineries services company and now president of Honeywell Process Solutions.
Margaret Stine laid out her and UOP’s take on the future of oil refining, the trends, and the challenges at the Honeywell Users Group in Phoenix on Tuesday. Stine is a director in the company’s process technology and equipment group.
As way of disclaimer Stine did, with irony, point out, “Do you remember this time last year we were using the term ‘soft landing?’ Well, that didn’t happen.”
Stine predicts growth in demand for oil and products will be around 1.2%. “We had our first up tick in demand in 16 months in May. That’s good news and a sign we think.”
There will be strong growth in non-OECD countries. The OECD is a group of 30 member countries who develop economic and social policy. Suffice to say, the wealthier countries are OECD, and the growth is in the emerging and frontier markets.
The number of additional refineries planned over the last several years has been great. The price of oil was high, gasoline prices high, and refinery margins were as good as ever.
“Though circumstances have changed,” said Stine, “the refineries planned for the Middle East will go forward no matter what. They can do this because they are guaranteed a source for crude, they can rely on themselves.”
There will never be another new refinery built in the U.S. Other planned projects are smaller or on hold. There is much unused refining capacity in the industry now.
“As well, newer refineries are very complex,” Stine said. “This is because of the quality of oil we produce these days. It’s more difficult. It’s more sour. In addition, with sulfur regulations as they are, the refining is more advanced. The Nelson Complexity Index will move higher.”
The Nelson complexity index is a measure of the secondary conversion capacity of a petroleum refinery relative to the primary distillation capacity. The higher the index number is, the greater the cost of the refinery and the higher the value of its products.
Stine figures we should prepare for the oil industry to restructure due to overcapacity. Many refineries will be vulnerable for closing because of their geographical location being far from demand or their capacity to handle the newer, messier oil dynamic and sulfur regulations.
Fundamentally, the shift in refinery location will follow the shift in wealth and development from the mature Western world economies to the third world and emerging ones in Asia and South America.
She sees a shift to diesel in the future too, again the move away from sulfur. Not surprisingly, the move to more efficient engines and hybrids are also on her horizon. “Ethanol eventually replaces gasoline,” Stine said.
Configuration changes in the refinery will include the technology necessary to upgrade the lower grade of oil, to handle the production of low sulfur fuels, and to produce higher-octane gas.
She sees the keys to the industry success as those traits of flexibility, efficiency, safety, and reliability. “That’s why we’re all here.”
— Nicholas Sheble

A cyber security focus safeguards plants

2009-06-17T00:45:00.001-04:00

The key to growing, whether it is in a bad economy or a robust environment, is squeezing as much out of the process as possible because increased productivity and lower production costs means profitability.
In many cases though, it really does not take much to hack into a system, and as quick as a jack rabbit, your profit goes out the window.
That concept has occurred more than most would like to think, and that is one reason why cyber security is becoming a hot topic in the corner offices around the globe.
“Security has always been high on our minds,” said Norm Gilsdorf, president of Honeywell Process Solutions at the Honeywell Users Group Symposium in Phoenix on Tuesday. “We build a lot of security in the systems we put out there, and we continue to keep that an area of focus.”
“This is headline front page issues we hear about every day,” said Andrew Wray, senior global marketing manager for security at Honeywell Process Solutions. “It goes beyond firewalls; this is an open society, so cyber security is top of mind.”
“I don’t know if (security) has changed focus in the industry,” Gilsdorf said. “I think if you look at security going forward, I think the broad issue of security will get some more thought and development going forward. This is where we as Honeywell Process Solutions combined with our brother companies at Honeywell will be able to help our customers with solutions.”
The foundation for a system has to be secure. Security should not be an after thought; rather it needs to be the first thing a manufacturer has to think about before putting together their systems.
For a user to become totally secure, in quite a few cases, they have to change their mindset and commit to ensure a secure environment.
“We are historically a reactive society, and (security) is about being proactive,” Wray said. “Some of our customers are becoming more aware of the challenges of implementing a complete security solution.”
Mindsets are changing though, as users are becoming more aware on what to ask to find the right approach.
“I think some obviously are more aware,” Gilsdorf said. “I think others are trying to get up to speed and ask questions, and that is the role we need to play in talking to them and consulting with them to help them with what we know. I think this is an area that will have more discussion in the future.
One other area becoming more dynamic is the plant floor working with IT. Some trends show IT is taking a stronger role in a plant’s cyber safety.
“We are seeing a fundamental shift on who the decision makers are when it comes to security,” Wray said. “Ultimately, it will become the IT manager or the CIO to make sure the systems are the appropriate enhancement to the IT platform. So, yes, these folks are starting to take an increased role.”
Guarding against cyber attacks is obviously a key aspect to the ensuring a secure environment, but so, too, is the physical side.
That is why Honeywell was displaying at the users group their physical security systems that focus on ensuring against any intrusions at a plant.
One product they were talking about centered on the TWIC system. TWIC stands for Transportation Workers Identification Credential. This card swipes through a reader, and the system then passes the ID along to the TSA, which then authenticates the card holder, said Michael Reinert, principle project specialist industrial security, Americas for Honeywell Process Solutions.
The card also has an additional safety feature. “If there is an incident at a plant, people can place their card in a muster point in case of an emergency,” Reinert said.

Wireless networking has more than one way to go

2009-06-16T01:18:00.001-04:00

“The most useful analogy to portray what has become the future of wireless automation in the industrial space is cell phone technology with its grid of receivers and transmitting towers,” said Soroush Amidi.
It is a wireless web, a mesh network of signaling devices connecting one another and relaying intelligence hither and yon.
“So it is with this OneWireless technology,” he said. Amidi is manager of wireless products at Honeywell, and he spoke Monday at the company’s annual users’ group conference in Phoenix.
It is a unique technology in that the nodes handle three sorts of transmissions including WiFi, ISA100.11a, and field I/Os.
WiFi is in many products using IEEE 802.11 standards. Its certification warrants interoperability between different wireless devices. Most personal computer operating systems, many game consoles, laptops, smart phones, printers, and other peripherals support WiFi.
The ISA100.11a is for industrial wireless users and operators. It provides for reliable and secure wireless operation for non-critical monitoring, alerting, supervisory control, open loop control, and closed loop control applications.
It sees to the performance needs of applications such as monitoring and process control where latencies on the order of 100 milliseconds are acceptable.
“The key benefits of this technology are that it’s ready for control applications, it’s easy to use, it lowers the cost of installation versus a hardwire network by 20-30%, it has the scalability to expand to 40 receivers, and it’s universal in that it embraces all the key existing wireless protocols,” he said.
Amidi also reported on the Wireless Compliance Institute.
The ISA100 Wireless Compliance Institute, of which Honeywell is a part, works on the effective implementation and understanding of the planned ISA100 universal family of industrial wireless standards through:
-- Compliance testing programs
-- Associated market awareness
-- Technical support to users and developers
—Nicholas Sheble

At one with integration

2009-06-16T01:16:00.001-04:00

“One thing every company discusses in light of industry challenges is business optimization. But few are achieving the level they’re capable of,” said Jason Urso, vice president of technology at Honeywell, during his presentation at the Honeywell Users Group in Phoenix. Urso emphasized the importance of oneness—in integration solutions that is.
Best-in-class companies actually focus on three areas: Process safety and security, operations excellence, and business agility. But they treat it as a technology problem, weeding together islands of automation to achieve a single solution. Yet when companies do this, they’ve really “created a complex solution, and the benefits degrade then go away entirely,” Urso said. “Then the cost of maintenance is higher, and overall you’ve created poor visibility when it comes to maintenance staff.”
Jason Urso, vice president of technology at Honeywell, talks technology on Monday during a presentation at the Honeywell Users Group in Phoenix.
Honeywell’s goal is to take a more holistic and integrated approach, “to enable you to sustain business optimization over your lifecycle. It is called One Honeywell, and it offers the full breadth to treat a problem, not a series of point solutions. “We help you get started by designing the process up front with integrated DCS and fire and gas solutions, to help you integrate throughout your lifecycle. Then you can improve your overall process throughput while driving down process incidents.”
Delivery of One Honeywell is through a main automation contractor program that builds on the traditional concept of delivering on time and on budget. “But we go one step beyond; we deliver with business readiness on day one,” he said.
“The Honeywell Experion Platform protects and preserves the install base and is designed to work with a wide variety of field networks,” he said. “The PCBI function block is integrated with our C300 controller and can speak over Ethernet to any device that supports the ModBus TCP standard.”
Security is also one of the goals behind Experion. “We built it [security] into the platform; we didn’t add it in later,” he said. The newest release for Experion is the Series C steam turbine control, which “allows us to achieve integration between DCS and steam turbine control with two modules—speed input I/O module and accelerated cycle time, achieving increased efficiency between boiler, controller, and process control at your facility.
The C200 E controller platform enhances C200 to support additional memory, bringing batch manager to the C200 controller for faster batch execution to improve production.
Other additions to the Experion experience are Experion HS and Experion LS—tailored for smaller systems in specific markets. Experion HS provides a small typical SCADA solution, and Experion LS is for smaller batch and process systems.
To further quality the importance of oneness, Urso described UniSim Lifecycle Solutions, which help users get started in overall plant design. “Honeywell designs out instabilities before you start putting steel in the ground,” he said, “and you can use these models to train your operators as well as to check out your control and safety strategies and validate procedures before units come online.”
Honeywell has also acquired Maxon and Callidus to improve their business in burners, flare systems, thermal oxidizers, and vapor control systems. “We can bring you a broad range of burner technology for best-in-class levels of efficiency for process heaters,” Urso said. As far as fire and gas detection devices go, “we can deliver flame, smoke, toxic gas, and a range of alarming devices.”
Urso described the importance of integrating fire and gas detection with a hypothetical gas leak situation, whereby Honeywell gas detectors can pick up and alert fire and gas platforms, which can communicate with emergency shutdown systems, which can isolate the toxic gas leak, then communicate directly to the Honeywell C300controller (upstream or downstream). And all this is overseen by a single Experion interface—another testimony to oneness. “That’s the kind of integration you can expect with the Honeywell family,” Urso said, “to help you improve overall safety because you can respond faster and more accurately.”
As part of a litany of new products, Urso extended the oneness theme with a safety angle by announcing a manual gauge reader to wirelessly integrate manual gages at a low cost, a valve position sensor for remote valve position monitoring (ideal for people who have multiple valves in field), and a flexline radar level gauge for accurate and reliable inventory control and custody transfer. “Best of all, this flexline radar level gauge is enabled for One Wireless so it can be deployed in your tank farms” for safety issues, he said.
And speaking of accuracy, human error accounts for almost half of the mistakes made in the process, so Honeywell has laid the foundation with Experion Human Interface, which is well integrated with ProfitSuite for blending and movement automation solutions “so you don’t purchase a collection of point solutions. Once you have common human interface in place, the next place to improve is operator response; look at operator graphics and alarming display. In an abnormal situation, ASM graphics will help the operator respond faster and with more precision. We can help your operators respond 48% faster and more precisely,” he said.
Because startups and shutdowns are occurring less frequently these days, operators are out of practice. “In our application called Procedural Operations, you can automate your procedures to reduce variables and move them closer to execution, even for the least experienced operator.”
—Ellen Fussell Policastro

Honeywell president outlines challenges, trends

2009-06-16T01:12:00.002-04:00

“There was a time I didn’t know what an exabyte was,” quipped Norm Gilsdorf, president of Honeywell Process Solutions. “I now know that it relates the grand scope of the data with which we’ll have to deal. In fact, it’s at the heart of our biggest challenge—data overload.”
An exabyte is a unit of information equal to 1000 petabytes or 1018 bytes.
Norm Gilsdorf, president of Honeywell Process Solutions, addresses an audience at the Honeywell Users Group Americas in Phoenix on Monday.
Gilsdorf addressed the Honeywell Users Group Americas in Phoenix on Monday. He outlined what he and his team see as the biggest challenges facing the process industries and the most important trends for which Honeywell is making plans.
Trends now and as we move forward include:
Ubiquitous sensors: “Sensors to me is one of the most exciting areas,” declared Gilsdorf. MEMS (micro electromechanical systems), smart dust, analyzers on a chip, wearable sensors, GPS (global positioning system) tracking for equipment and employees, flying sensors for security, leak detection, video as a sensor, embedded sensors (as on a shelf in a distillation column), and others all fall into this slot.
Wireless acting as a cost effective enabler that extends the control network and furthers sensing technologies and monitoring. This will enable us to address new regulations. We will monitor far away operations and applications. “On a 3,000-kilometer pipeline in Kazakhstan, they have numerous break-ins and diversions of oil, which they detect remotely using wireless pressure sensors.”
Convert data to actionable knowledge: This involves using online optimization models to invoke built-in procedures in the control system, to drive automated action and response by the control system. This slot includes soft sensors and the ability via simulation to provide the operator a way to work with what-if scenarios using real time data.
The final convergence of IT and process control will settle in embracing service oriented architecture (SOA) virtualization, cloud computing, and open systems.
Unify the automation layers: This entails the interplay and communication from level one on the plant floor including field devices to the top level where supply chain activities reside and will ensure there are role-based consoles displaying the information that the person at each level needs. There will be embedded batch systems. “We’ll bring MES (manufacturing execution systems) into the clean room without dirty paper moving back and forth in that restricted zone.”
Going beyond the plant boundary: This trend, started, ongoing, but to spread said Gilsdorf, would include an operation like one in India that webs, networks, and automates multiple wells, refineries, transportation, and retail outlets.
“We believe these six areas are the core of change in the future. I see a safer, more reliable enterprise to come,” said Gilsdorf.
—Nicholas Sheble

Innovation, imagination will spark growth

2009-06-16T01:10:00.001-04:00

The economy seems to be slowly creeping out of its downward slide, but to get a faster return, it means the same old solutions just won’t cut it any more.
That is where innovation and imagination come in, said Frank Whitsura, vice president general manager Americas for Honeywell Process Solutions.
“Albert Einstein once said imagination is more important than knowledge,” Whitsura said during his morning kickoff presentation at the Honeywell Users Group Americas Symposium Monday in Phoenix.
That sentiment remained in place throughout the morning as Honeywell leaders talked about possible ways to guide users through these turbulent times.
When it all comes down to it, getting through these times means understanding and controlling the massive amount of data hitting plant floors every day.
“It is estimated that 40 exabytes of data will be executed this year alone,” said Honeywell Process Solutions President Norm Gilsdorf. “That is more than the previous 5,000 years.
“How do you manage the information generated, and how will it be consumed? All this data and all this pressure, it is all about how we manage this (information),” Gilsdorf said during his keynote address Monday. “It is about bringing the right data to the right person.”
“One thing every company discusses in light of industry challenges is business optimization. But few are achieving the level they’re capable of,” said Jason Urso, vice president of technology at Honeywell, during his presentation at the users group Monday.
Best-in-class companies actually focus on three areas: process safety and security, operations excellence, and business agility. But they treat it as a technology problem, weeding together islands of automation to achieve a single solution. Yet when companies do this they have really “created a complex solution, and the benefits degrade, then go away entirely,” Urso said. “Then the cost of maintenance is higher, and overall you’ve created poor visibility when it comes to maintenance staff.”
The time fearing the economy is over, business leaders and managers have to think and act as entrepreneurs. It is time to think of opportunities, not dwelling on the what has happened. Learn from the past, but keep moving forward. And innovation is critical.
One of the ways Honeywell is moving forward is also focusing on a relatively new venture called One Honeywell. About 18 months in the making, the company is looking to meld all parts of Honeywell into an entire factory instead of having individual components on the plant floor in the operations area and safety, to name a few.
Everyone knows there is greater financial instability and market volatility, or a rising need for improved safety and security, along with higher energy costs driving needs for improved energy efficiency, and more stringent environmental standards regulated by EPA/FERC and carbon tax regime. But the trick is to optimize.
“We need imagination more than ever. Economics are an issue, and some trends may lead to lifestyle changes,” Whitsura said. One Honeywell goes beyond the plant. “We have the technology and capability today.”

—Gregory Hale

Never assume; keep an open mind

2009-06-01T17:11:00.000-04:00

Way back when in journalism school, students were taught, never assume. You never go into a story with a preconceived notion, because sometime the facts are not what they seem.
While that is a pretty simple concept to grasp and understand as a student, over the years it becomes more and more difficult to break away from the habit of assuming you know the outcome before you have all the facts. Some might call it experience; others might call it arrogance. Placing yourself in the story is not the way to go.
There is an author that is saying our own pre-conceived ideas about how things should work is actually preventing us from fixing problems such as climate change and world hunger.
In a speech at Ottawa's Carleton University as part of the 78th Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences, Frances Moore Lappé called for a wholesale revamping of the way we view government, the economy and democracy. If we manage to do it, she said, we can save ourselves from our own demise.
Lappé, made famous in the 1970s by her bestselling vegetarian cookbook Diet for a Small Planet, is an activist, author and co-founder with her daughter Anna Lappé of The Small Planet Institute. She said people today fear the potential for disaster, ecological and otherwise, and remain stymied thinking there is no cure.
Of course that thinking is incorrect and Lappé said we can do something, if we challenge five assumptions about the way the world works.
The first is that going green means "powering down," or reducing our consumption of energy. Lappé said all we have to do is stop getting energy from fossil fuels and start getting it from renewable sources like the sun.
The second idea to dispense with the idea that going green means an end to economic growth. What we have to do is change our idea of what growth is, she said.
The third idea she wants to challenge is the notion humans are by nature greedy, self-centered and materialistic. Under certain conditions, humans can be monsters, she said. But there wouldn't be 6.8 billion of us on the planet today if we didn't also have positive qualities such as empathy, cooperation and fairness.
The fourth idea she disputes is that we dislike rules. She says humans crave structure, particularly rules that make sense to us as individuals and which foster a sense of inclusion.
The final concept she wants to challenge is the idea our problems are so pressing there's no time for democracy, and only an authoritarian regime can save us. She believes the only hope for the planet is to trust in people and set rules that bring out the best in us.
Hmm, trust people that bring out the best in us. Sounds like a leadership issue.
Keeping an open mind and challenging authority to ensure everyone is on the correct path. Is that doable?
Talk to me.

Emerson deals for reservoir management firm

2009-05-06T10:03:00.000-04:00

It’s all about automation, either on the plant floor or under the seabed. At least that is what Emerson Process Management thinks as it purchased Stavanger, Norway-based Roxar, a subsea reservoir management and production optimization company.

“Demand for oil and energy will continue to increase up to 45% by 2030,” said Steve Sonnenberg, president of Emerson, Monday during the OTC show in Houston. “With China and India, demand will continue to increase.”

In addition, Sonnenberg sees a big increase in offshore and subsea wells. “Time to first oil is key, and understanding the size of the reservoir is important,” Sonnenberg said. That is where Roxar comes in. They are able to understand and manage oil and gas reservoirs by adding subsea reservoir management and production optimization for exploration and production.

“This is about making predictive technology so users can make better decisions to manage reservoirs,” Sonnenberg said. “Process control is so important, so that is why it is important to get this right from the beginning.”

With oil companies, faster time to first oil means additional potential for more revenues.

“With Roxar coming in, we have the predictive intelligence all the way down to the reservoir,” said David Newman, director of E&P at Emerson.

For Roxar, which generated $200 million in revenues last year, the deal seems to be a continuation of the company’s culture.

“Their integration of data and decision-making tools agrees with what we do,” said Gunnar Hviding, president of Roxar. “We can leverage off [Emerson’s] Plant Web technology.”

“They bring us software and instruments we currently don’t have,” Sonnenberg said.

There is a trend, Sonnenberg said, toward bringing downstream process technology further upstream, and this is a perfect example. Other areas Sonnenberg said are starting to move upstream are predictive diagnostics and wireless technologies.

This deal is part of Emerson’s effort to create solutions that cover subsea oil and gas reservoirs to platforms and floating production to transmission and to refining and production of goods.

‑ Gregory Hale

Oil industry and economy unite in Houston

2009-05-06T10:02:00.000-04:00

What a difference a year makes, with oil now hovering at just over $50 a barrel, the world in recession, and budgets cut to the bone, surely this year’s Offshore Technology Conference (OTC) in Houston would feel the affects.

And it did. By putting the size of OTC in perspective, the first day of this huge mega show felt the affects of a downward economy as aisles had show goers, but not as many.

“It’s not a real big surprise. A lot of people have been cutting back,” said Michelle Latham with 3M.

David Morgan of LTS Energy, a maker of high-pressure valves for the offshore market, agreed.

“At this point compared to last year it has been less active,” Morgan said. “With oil prices quite a bit lower, a lot of projects have been postponed or cancelled.”

“Prices of goods and services are not retreating as fast as the retreat in the price of the oil and gas we produce,” said Luc Messier, senior vice president at ConocoPhillips. “We therefore have to concentrate on the trimming of our projects to account for this. But, we are not reducing out total capital spending.”

“We have concentrated our workforce,” said Dominique de Soras with French oil and gas engineering company, Technip. “Operational level is the same and we have increased our engineering personnel 34%. We have increased our research and development expenditures.”

“Oil demand will go up over time, and the age of easy access to oil and gas are over,” said Matthias Bichsel, executive vice president at Shell Oil. “These ‘hard truths’ are the basis of Shell strategy. Our investment in technology continues as before, unabated. We are renegotiating contracts to offset present irregularities of the economy.”

While OTC is hardly a disaster (the number of attendees remains large), the amount of users coming to the show has cut down considerably.

“It’s not that we are losing customers, they are just not buying as much from us,” said Mike Blundell, with Scancon Encoders.

It is not all about this year either.

Jim Shettig, with Crowley Marine Services, isn’t worried about this year. His business cycle will most likely feel the effect next year.

With the delay in spending, “the recession is not affecting us right now, but it will next year.”

After years of rising prices and robust profits, the oil and gas sector is trying to adjust to vastly different market conditions. In the ongoing recession, people simply aren't using as much energy.

Even the world’s largest publicly traded oil company, Exxon Mobil, felt the economic pinch as it reported its lowest quarterly profits in nearly six years.

Exxon earned $4.55 billion in the first quarter, down 58% from $10.89 billion in the period last year.

Exxon, whose operations stretch from Nigeria to Siberia, managed to wring out bigger profits than any of its rivals because of its size and its cost controls.

Crude oil futures contracts traded in New York have averaged about $43 in the first quarter of this year, compared with nearly $100 a barrel in the first quarter of 2008.

Exxon said the drop in prices would not change its spending plans for the year. The company said it still expected to spend $29 billion this year to expand production and develop new projects.

ConocoPhillips’ profit for the quarter plunged 80%, to $840 million.

Royal Dutch Shell’s first-quarter profits dropped 62%. The company’s profit dropped to $3.49 billion from $9.08 billion. Stripping out $337 million of one-time gains as well as the price changes on unsold inventories, and Shell's earnings would have been $2.96 billion, compared to estimates of $2.55 billion.

The company sold oil for, on average, 54% less than it did in the same quarter last year. Gas prices dropped 15%. That will hurt profits. But the key word still remained: “Profits.”

Production slipped 3% to 3.32 million barrels of oil equivalent a day, with crude-oil production falling 7% and natural gas production steady.

Each of Shell's major divisions -- exploration and production, gas and power, oil sands, oil products, and chemicals -- saw either profit declines or losses.

Shell was not alone as UK-based BP felt the profit crunch.

As a result, the oil giant reduced its spending target for the year after first-quarter profit fell 64% on lower oil and natural gas prices.

BP’s profit was $2.56 billion, compared with $7.09 billion in the same period a year earlier. Lower oil prices prompted BP to reduce its capital expenditure target to less than $20 billion for the year from as much as $22 billion estimated in October.

Tony Hayward, BP’s chief executive, started a cost-cutting program intended to streamline operations and cope with the decline in demand as a result of the global recession. BP said it reduced costs by more than $1 billion in the quarter.

The average selling price for BP oil fell to $41 a barrel in the first quarter of this year from $91 a barrel in the first quarter of 2008, company officials said.

Chevron Corp., the second-largest U.S. oil company, posted net income that dropped 64% from a year ago. This was Chevron’s lowest quarterly earnings since 2003.

It wasn't all bad news at Chevron. Because it and other integrated oil companies must buy oil to make fuel for everything from planes to automobiles, lower crude prices actually helped lift earnings at its refining business, and its overall oil production increased from a year ago.

The San Ramon, Calif.-based company said net income for the first three months of 2009 amounted to $1.84 billion, compared with $5.17 billion in the quarter a year ago.

Chevron said total revenue fell 45% to $36.1 billion from $65.9 billion in last year's first quarter.

Chevron said income from its exploration and production operations fell 75% in the quarter to $1.27 billion. The U.S. hurt Chevron the most as earnings dropped from $1.6 billion a year ago to $21 million in the first three months of 2009.

Chevron's average sales price per barrel of crude oil and natural gas liquids fell 60% from a year ago to $36. Comparable natural gas prices fell 45%.

‑ Gregory Hale

Managing technology, innovation vital today

2009-05-06T09:57:00.001-04:00

Research and development are two words that can mean great innovations, but also great costs.

In this day of global recession, an important way to run a business is to understand how to manage your technology, which could lead to greater innovations at companies. That was the topic of the Tuesday panel discussion entitled "Management of Technology" at OTC in Houston.

The financial crisis is a couple-of-years thing at the most," said Robert Armstrong, deputy director at the MIT Energy Initiative and the Chevron Professor of Chemistry at MIT. "It affects R&D because money is tight."

Armstrong pointed out technology development is a key element for the economy. The “role of technology development is the chief factor underlying economic growth," Armstrong said.

When talking about developing technology, Flavio de Moraes, wellhead manager at Petrobras, said that means innovation and bringing that down to an engineering exercise.

"Innovation only gains momentum when driven to implementation," he said.

He added his company looks to take steps toward innovation: Monitoring and foresight; technology strategy definition; portfolio management; R&D and engineering implementation.

The goal, he said, was to see what technology can do to better a company, industry, or country. He said the proper innovation can boost the amount of oil taken out of the ground.

"New technology will allow companies to recover over 3 trillion barrels of oil," de Moraes said. "To get there we have to keep the environment safe. We need to expand to limits. We need to find new frontiers."

Finding those new frontiers is what keeps Manuel Terranova, senior vice president of subsea product platform and commercial operations at GE-Vetcogray, involved with his team.

"Trends are pushing toward guaranteeing production of what you say you can produce, and that will mean more computational power," Terranova said. "I encourage our team to have the Robin Hood mentality. Leverage as much technology as you can from other businesses at GE."

But when it comes to innovation, there has to be an end result.

"There needs to be measurement and accountability of the people. We need to find out if they are doing what they said they should be doing," Terranova said. But on the other hand, sometimes things change. "Markets change, so you have to listen to your customers," he said.

"Reliable innovation is to make sure you have a commercially acceptable product at the end," he said.

Wafik Beydoun, manager of R&D and business development at Total, agreed innovation is the main driver for sustainable growth. "Technology innovation is a key to our business strategy," he said.

Sometimes, he said, you need to age an idea. "You need to nurture an idea. It needs to mature. You can't move too fast"

In the end, innovation comes down to a team approach. No one person will be able to act alone.

"We face major systemic challenges that need multi-disciplinary solutions," said Beverley Ronalds, group executive and chief of petroleum at Australia's CSIRO. "We encourage young and old scientists alike to work in that environment. We like to bring together common stakeholders and find the common-area sweet spot."

Francisco Ortigosa, director of geophysics at Repsol, agreed with Ronalds. He said some of the top factors to create innovation are the diversity of thinking and communication to people.

– Gregory Hale

Renewables important, but oil, gas strongest

2009-05-06T09:55:00.000-04:00

There is no doubt there is a huge push for renewable energy cascading across the globe. Germany is pushing wind energy, and parts of the U.S. want solar energy to prevail, but if you listen to attendees at the Offshore Technical Conference (OTC) in Houston, while renewable energy is important and will continue to grow, oil and gas will be around for quite a while.

“There is no silver bullet,” said Karen Harbert, president and chief executive, U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s Institute for 21st Century Energy. “There is only silver buckshot.”

“Yes, we need wind and solar, but they will not be the only answer.”

Harbert said when it comes to alternatives, public education is important. “When it comes to energy, we can’t demonize energy entities. Oil will be and will remain the backbone of our economy for quite some time.”

“The renewable and alternative energy agenda is not going away,” said Gary Luquette, president Chevron North America Exploration and Production Co. “We need to engage the unfriendlies to find common ground.”

Renewable sources like wind, solar, and biofuels need to be developed, but they are not the only answer,” said Tim Cejka, president Exxon Mobil Exploration Co. “The world is not running out of energy resources.”

“Wind energy is popular, but not the answer. Natural gas and oil will remain effective,” said Larry Nichols, chairman and chief executive at Devon Energy.

Renewables are a part of the solution, said John Oyen, manager of business development for North America Oil and Gas at ABB. “You look at wind, solar, biomass, gasification; they will all play a part, but the free market will determine what is used.”

Everyone talks about renewable and they seem to think the technology will allow for a conversion right now.

There are “a lot of interesting things that will happen, but it will take longer than anyone thinks it will take,” Oyen said. “You have to keep everything moving along.

Even the ethanol market is growing in some parts of the world.”

“Brazil is in very good shape regarding ethanol,” said Nelson Narciso, director at ANP, the National Agency of Petroleum, Natural Gas and Biofuels. “We have been producing it since 1973. What I can tell you is the country is keeping its policy with ethanol, not only because of the price, but because of the environment. We are consuming more ethanol than gasoline.”

This discussion comes on the heels of President Obama unveiling steps to further his Administration’s commitment to advance biofuels research and commercialization. He signed a Presidential Directive establishing a Biofuels Interagency Working Group, announced additional Recovery Act funds for renewable fuel projects, and also announced his Administration’s notice of a Proposed Rulemaking on the Renewable Fuel Standard.

Meanwhile, a new survey released today finds oil and gas executives say mass production of renewable energy isn't likely before at least the middle of the next decade.

The survey by KPMG LLP comes amid President Obama's push for clean energy technology and millions in new investments in renewable energy.

Fifty-two percent of 382 petroleum industry executives surveyed said large-scale production of alternative energy sources won't be viable in the short term, at least not by 2015. Of those who believe such production is possible, 17% said the likely source is wind, 10% biodiesel, and 7% solar.

Participants included executives for major oil companies, independent exploration and production outfits, and other energy companies.

There's been a significant shift in perception over the front-runner in alternative energy. In a survey two years ago, 18% of executives said ethanol was the most likely renewable energy source for potential large-scale production, but it fell to 6% in the latest query.

– Gregory Hale