Plant Engineering Magazine: Automation, Energy, & Maintenance

Automation advances | 8
Energy-efficient compressed air | 17
Data center evolution | 27
Proactive maintenance | 35
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Vol. 76
•
No 4
Contents
JULY/AUGUST 2022
p.21
8
VIEWPOINT
7 | About engines and motors
The present and future for a most ubiquitous
of technologies
INSIGHTS
8 | Optimized performance,
less downtime
Petroleum Development Oman extends life of
critical plant assets with timely tech up-grades
12 | Improving asset criticality with better
decision making at the plant level
Digitalization initiatives make it possible for
industrial organizations to rely more on
data patterns
17 | Impending regulation, common
sense make the case for more
energy efficient compressed
air systems
Eliminating leaks and energy recovery are two
good places to start
GOOD NEWS!
We have invested in a 2022 magazine redesign to increase page
size, include more images and graphs and add credible manufacturing content. Please send your feedback and ideas for future issues
to [email protected].
SOLUTIONS
ON THE COVER:
Petroleum Development Oman is modernizing its sprawling Government Gas Plant in
northern Oman. Photo courtesy Honeywell.
21 | IT/OT convergences moves
automation markets forward
Cloud-native data historian expedites data
migration, insights
27 | Maintain uptime, drive efficiency
and protect distributed IT assets
with DCIM
The next phase of data center management
evolution will further optimize resources by providing real-time visibility
p. 27
31 | In-depth understanding leads
to decisive site selection
Navigating site viability to meet multistakeholder goals requires clearly articulating
needs and requirements
35 | Digital transformation tools
improve plant sustainability and
predicitive maintenance
It’s in a facility’s best interest to prevent issues
before they arise
41 | Five tips to avert the leading
causes of failure in industrial
edge computing
p. 35
With adoption of industrial edge computing, there
are several ways to support information technology/operational technology (IT/OT) convergence
and
Technology
PLANT ENGINEERING (ISSN 0032-082X, Vol. 75, No. 4, GST #123397457) is published bimonthly by CFE Media, LLC, 3010 Highland Parkway, Suite #310, Downers Grove, IL 60515. Periodicals postage paid at Downers Grove, IL 60515 and additional mailing of¬fices. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to PLANT ENGINEERING, PO Box 348, Lincolnshire, IL 60069. Jim Langhenry, Group Publisher /Co-Founder; Steve Rourke CEO/COO/Co-Founder. PLANT ENGINEERING copyright 2022 by CFE Media, LLC. All rights
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Plant engineering — www.plantengineering.com
July/August 2022
|
3
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Vol. 76
•
No 4
Contents
JULY/AUGUST 2022
Newsletters
Plant Engineering’s July newsletter articles are featured below. Our mission is to provide authoritative coverage of the use of
technologies and best practices to improve productivity in the design, planning, installing and maintaining of plant systems,
facilities and equipment. See www.plantengineering.com for more.
u Optimizing
equipment scanning
Implementing and leveraging scanning technology enhances
productivity and provides multiple benefits for project owners
u Five
tips for preventing material
handling injuries
Improving material handling can reduce costs associated with
workplace injuries and labor turnover
u Why
automating AI-as-a-service
is now mission critical
AI-as-a-service (AiaaS) combines an AI-ready IIoT platform with
automating deep learning intelligence to accelerate realization
of the greater manufacturing mission
u Four
strategies for implementing
machine monitoring equipment
Setting objectives for machine monitoring, prioritizing
machines, developing relevant performance metrics and
continuously improving them
u Fluid
sampling best practices
Neglecting the details can derail the best fluid analysis program
and cause severe maintenance issues for companies
u Simulation
capabilities are critical
for operations, as well as design
Product changeovers that join the physical with the virtual
u Five
tips to avert the leading causes of
failure in industrial edge computing
With adoption of industrial edge computing, there are several
ways to support information technology/operational technology
(IT/OT) convergence
u Long-range,
low-power solutions improve
remote operations
Remote operations in manufacturing opens opportunities
for facilities to leverage IoT-enabled technologies for everything
from mobility to worker safety
Upcoming Webcasts
Register to attend these webcasts on the Plant Engineering website at www.plantengineering.com.
September 14
November 3
Reducing a fan's speed by 20% can achieve energy savings of 50%
Key steps to incorporate into
your safety program
October 17 – 21
November 16
Energy management with
variable speed drives
Virtual Training Week
A rich mix of sessions on manufacturing best practices
October 26
AC induction motors and power
quality events
Best practices related to short-term disturbances
characterized by magnitude, duration and direction
Plant engineering — www.plantengineering.com
Electrical safety
Best practices for enterprise
systems data management
How best to make use of all the data being collected
December 6
From connected assets to
predictive analytics
Does your plant have the maturity for predictive maintenance?
July/August 2022
|
5
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DUMP
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input #5 at www.plantengineering.com/information
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SUCCEED
CONTENT
INSIGHTS
CONTENT SPECIALISTS/EDITORIAL
VIEWPOINT
KEVIN PARKER, Editor
[email protected]
GARY COHEN, Senior Editor
[email protected]
CHRIS VAVRA, Web Content Manager
[email protected]
About engines and motors
AMANDA PELLICCIONE, Director of Research
860-432-4767, [email protected]
MICHAEL SMITH, Creative Director
[email protected]
SUSIE BAK, Production Coordinator
[email protected]
EDITORIAL ADVISORY BOARD
H. LANDIS “LANNY” FLOYD, IEEE Life Fellow
[email protected]
JOHN GLENSKI, President, Automation Plus
[email protected]
SHON ISENHOUR, Partner, Eruditio LLC
[email protected]
DR. SHI-WAN LIN, CEO and co-founder, Thingswise, LLC
Industrial Internet Consortium (IIC) board member
[email protected]
JOHN MALINOWSKI, Senior manager of industry
affairs (retired), Baldor Electric Company
DAVID SKELTON, Vice president and general manager
Phoenix Contact Development and Manufacturing
[email protected]
BILLY RAY TAYLOR,
Director of commercial and off-highway manufacturing
The Goodyear Tire & Rubber
[email protected]
LARRY TURNER, President and CEO,
Hannover Fairs USA
[email protected]
MARK WATSON, Senior director,
manufacturing technology,
IHS Markit
[email protected]
CFE Media Contributor
Guidelines Overview
Content For Engineers. That’s what CFE Media stands
for, and what CFE Media is all about—engineers sharing
with their peers. We welcome content submissions for all
interested parties in engineering. We will use those materials online, on our Website, in print and in newsletters to
keep engineers informed about the products, solutions, and
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Technology
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Plant engineering — www.plantengineering.com
I
The service industry itself is
n many ways, the internal comchanging, with private equity buying
bustion engine defined the Unitup assets and consolidating the mared States in the 20th century. On
ket. At the same time, electrification
June 29, 1956, President Dwight
trends convert many applications of
D. Eisenhower signed legislation
gas-driven engines to electric motors.
funding the construction of the U.S.
Interstate Highway System. By the
early 1990s, nearly 45,000 miles of
Where it’s headed
interstate highway were complete
In a recent post, Blake Griffin, a
and had transformed the
senior analyst with Intercountry with its wholesale
act Analysis, discusses some
grant of mobility.
interesting developments
Globally, internal combusimpacting the transition
tion engines are said to repfrom gas engines to electric
resent the single greatest use
motors.
of power on the planet.
Electric steel, used in
The Electrical Apparaelectric motor manufacture,
Kevin Parker,
tus Service Association, Inc.
is key to producing the
Editor
(EASA), which justifiably
electro-magnetic field used
styles itself “the electroto turn the rotor.
mechanical authority,” is an interHowever, as electrical vehicle pronational trade organization of more
duction continues to grow, so does
than 1,700 electromechanical sales
demand for the electric steel used
and service firms in nearly 70 counin motors. The process used to protries. EASA held its annual convenduce electric steel is cold-rolled steel.
tion in late June at the America’s
Cold-rolled steel is a small portion
Center Convention Complex. “The
of overall steel demand and increases
motor industry has an opportunity
in capacity come slowly. The Federal
to demonstrate it is about engineerReserve says the price of cold-rolled
ing and not just commodities,” as
steel grew 400% since 2016.
one attendee put it.
At the same time, the share of
For many commodity markets,
business held by commercial and
it is easier to replace rather than
industrial electric motor vendors
repair a broken unit. For combusis being threatened by the automotion engines, given current suptive sector in the wake of widespread
ply chain shortages, that picture is
introduction of electric vehicles.
changing, offering more opportuniInteract Analysis looked at the proties for service companies to prove
duction of lithium-ION batteries as
their worth.
an indicator for the speed at which
A vast number of engines are
electric vehicles are being produced.
oversized for their application. CorGiven the sharp uptick in battery shiprect downsizing will contribute to
ments between 2021 and 2022, Intersustainability efforts. Condition
act Analysis expects that over the next
monitoring and predictive maintefive years, the gap between supply and
nance will lead to operations and
demand for electric steel will widen,
process optimization.
leading to shortage supplies. PE
July/August 2022
|
7
INSIGHTS
ADVANCED AUTOMATION
Optimized performance, less down time
Petroleum Development Oman extends life of
critical plant assets with timely tech upgrades
P
‘
Increased
connectivity
addresses
challenges
associated
with constant
change.
etroleum Development Oman (PDO)
is deploying technology to modernize and
standardize the control system architecture of its Government Gas Plant (GGP)
in northern Oman. PDO is the leading exploration
and production company in the Sultanate of Oman.
“It’s about meeting customers’ latest requirements,” said Pramesh Maheshwari, VP and general
manager, Lifecycle Solutions and Services, Honeywell Process Solutions. “Increased connectivity addresses challenges associated with constant
change. We can use artificial intelligence technology to anticipate problems. We can support being
proactive rather than reactive.”
The plant modernization delivers sustainable
and efficient gas processing operations that help
PDO satisfy increasing demand for its gas.
The installed solutions upgrade the gas plant’s
supervisory control center. The scope of the
overall technology upgrade includes moving all
High-Performance Process Manager (HPM) controllers to a more efficient and sophisticated
controller, the C300 and replacing the Fail Safe
Controller with Safety Manager.
An installed base
“In the past, producers had multiple systems
installed at multiple levels. The need today is to
bring all that together and make not just the data,
but also inferences from the data, generally accessible,” said Maheshwari. “The control system in
the past was an operator’s console. Decisions on
what to make, for example, were separate. Today
we can bring more comprehensive data together to
support decision making.”
The changeover was completed while keeping
the same input and output modules. The project
also transitioned the plant’s supervisory control
level to the latest Experion PKS R511 software
’
Petroleum Development
Oman is modernizing its
sprawling Government
Gas Plant in Northern
Oman. Photo courtesy
Honeywell.
8
|
July/August 2022
Plant engineering — www.plantengineering.com
release, coupled with a refresh of workstation,
server and network platforms. PDO is also implementing the Honeywell Trace solution for better
monitoring of critical control assets.
The Experion PKS (Process Knowledge System) is a new generation distributed control system meant to unify people with process, business
requirements and asset management, i.e., maintenance and other supporting applications.
Safety Manager is a modular, multi-fault tolerant safety system for emergency shutdowns and
safety instrumented systems.
The face of maintenance
Honeywell Trace captures and records configuration data to enable users to track changes, identify engineering anomalies, eliminate errors and
accelerate project planning. An intellectual property and patented data collection approach achieves
data in hours versus days.
“The face of maintenance is changing with
mobility consoles equipped augmented reality,
allowing immediate response. With predictive technologies, we have a window into what could go
wrong before it happens,” said
Maheshwari.
Due to ageing sysOverall, PDO has seen a
spectrum of benefits including
tems and support
consistent gas quality, reduced
risk of unplanned downtime
issues, our customers
and enhanced lifecycle planning. The transformation was
can face significant
done while protecting PDO’s
risk and unplanned
intellectual property.
“Our ability to meet gas
downtime.
demand across the Sultanate
rests on our ability to process
and produce it effectively and
that requires modern control architecture,” said
Ahmed Al Harrasi, senior control & automation
leader for gas assets, PDO.
“Due to ageing systems and support issues, our
customers can face significant risk and unplanned
downtime,” said Maheshwari. “Leveraging automation by upgrading to new technology while optimizing current investments is key. That’s the approach
we’ve taken with PDO, and we’re excited to lead
them through their digitalization journey.” PE
‘
’
SHAFT GROUNDING SOLUTION
PROTECT BEARINGS FROM VFD-INDUCED CURRENTS
Helwig’s proprietary silver graphite brush provides a path to ground
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Bearing Protection Kits are a maintenance-free solution that offers
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Call (800) 962-4851 for your BPK quote today!
Constant
force spring
Variable frequency drives (VFD) used on AC
and DC motors produce induced electrical currents
on the motor shaft. This current seeks the path
of least resistance to ground, which is typically
through the motor bearings. When the current
passes through the bearings, electrical arcs take
place, leading to fluting, pitting, bearing damage,
and eventual bearing failure.
Heavy duty
brass holder
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Proprietary silver
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Redtop absorbs
vibration
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The bottom line is important, but so is the top line.
When we talk about the top line, we like to focus on CO2 emissions. The recent climate change report published
in August from the IPCC was labeled ‘Code Red for Humanity.’ The one compressor change on the previous page reduced
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We all have a role to play in climate change, and the compressor business can make a real difference —it’s win-win.
Energy efficiency saves money and saves the planet.
What else have we learned from the impact of COVID-19?
Do I even need a compressor?
It’s not a new trend, but as compressed air has
always been discussed as the “fourth utility” inside a plant
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actual compressor. For the right customer, this has several
advantages, including not needing a significant capital
expenditure at the start of the project and having no
maintenance responsibility for the equipment, as that’s
taken care of by the manufacturer. We have seen many
customers where the monthly cost of the air compressor
is way less than the monthly energy saving, resulting in
money to the bottom line from day one and CO2 savings
for the top line.
Remote connectivity
24/7 connectivity is offered with just about all
new compressors. This is not about being ‘tied’ to your
compressor but instead giving you peace of mind to ensure
you can always be in control – no matter where you are
working. You can also think of remote monitoring as an
ongoing audit that happens 24/7, offering the capability
to identify any potential issues before they can become
serious problems.
Consolidation of suppliers
The term “total-solutions provider” when it comes
to our business is outdated. At Atlas Copco, we innovate
in areas where we can add value and offer an outstanding payback. With this in mind, innovation means that we
can provide compressors, blowers, vacuum pumps, dryers,
chillers, and nitrogen and oxygen generators, and much
more!
The benefits are enormous when it comes to harmonized
central connectivity, remote monitoring, service contracts,
and operator familiarity. Imagine if all these pieces of
equipment can be controlled in a uniform way? This is
genuinely game-changing.
Where can you fit my compressor?
It’s a fact that modern compressors do not make
a lot of noise, and there should not be a pool of oil or
water surrounding them. With that in mind, and a lack
of available space a genuine concern, we have seen more
and more compressors fitted at the heart of the production
facility. When you see this it’s a real sign that the
compressor is low-noise, innovative and saving the
company money.
Building Flexibility
Every plant manager across the country knows the
cost of downtime. Building a system that removes the “all
or nothing” approach is vital to success. Adding a second
compressor or running two smaller ones instead of one
large unit can often be the optimal solution.
The pandemic has also highlighted how the supply chain
can be affected quite quickly — from the manufacturing
of goods to the ability of shipping companies to deliver
based on capacity issues. This means that manufacturers
cannot afford to ignore contingency planning for all
scenarios.
And one last thing, never neglect service and the need
for preventative maintenance – it will catch up with
you eventually!
input #4 at www.plantengineering.com/information
INSIGHTS
KEY PERFORMANCE INDICATORS
Improving asset criticality with better
decision making at the plant level
Digitalization initiatives make it possible for industrial organizations
to rely more on data patterns
P
—Mike Brooks,
Global Director,
APM Solutions, AspenTech
—Mike Strobel,
Solution Advisor,
AspenTech.
lant managers make complex decisions
daily that impact an organization’s bottom line. It begins with the Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) that define the
operating performance of a manufacturing plant
– the handful of key levers that ultimately control
the business operation and lead financial performance. They can be separated into two clusters.
First, the KPIs that express and protect the license
to operate, which include safety, environmental,
and compliance protections. If those aren’t done
successfully, a manufacturer may not be allowed
to operate. Figure 1 shows some critical KPIs for a
manufacturing plant.
The second cluster is all about the efficiency
and optimal performance of the manufacturing
operation:
1. Equipment availability – the percentage of
time required to run the equipment
FIGURE 1. Some critical key performance indicators for a manufacturing plant.
12
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July/August 2022
2. Energy consumption – the amount of energy
used to support the equipment availability
3. High value product – the volume/value of
product made with the availability and energy
These KPIs are very general, sometimes expressed
in similar ways, and can support any type of manufacturing, from oil processing to chocolate making or
minivan production. Notwithstanding the earnestness in protecting the license to operate, this paper is
focused on the pure operating performance aspects.
In that respect, one can assert that equipment availability will always be the most important, because if
equipment is not running, then energy and production have no consequence or bearing on performance.
To put it simply, a manufacturing process takes raw
materials and adds energy, in a regular, ordered process, to manufacture the products. However, there are
elements that can encourage or constrain the time,
efficiency and ultimately the profitability of the process. Decisions on how the process is planned, scheduled, and operated play a major part, and external
influences can impart negative consequences. They
can be seen in Figure 2, indicating the process steps
from raw materials to products in the example of an
integrated chemical manufacturing site.
The process is designed up front and put in place
with certain built-in constraints such as redundancy of equipment, the capacity of equipment / trains
/ units and of intermediate and final storage. Many
items are adjustable, such as the operating logic,
plans, scheduling and the approach to maintenance
and logistics choices, such as shipping methods.
However, some items that affect performance, such
as market volatility, weather, logistics and shipping,
are not predetermined. All these factors influence
the ultimate plant performance and profitability.
Some of the most significant factors are about the
Plant engineering — www.plantengineering.com
mechanical equipment and availability to the operating plant. Equipment can fail or wear out, causing
interruptions to production. Any time equipment is
out for service maintenance, it can mean significant
losses in production, which could amount to exponentially more than the cost of the maintenance and
repairs.
Critical decision making at the asset level
With all of this in mind, there are many decisions to be made all the time about assets, performance limits and thresholds, maintenance strategy
and timing, reliability expectations, and so on. In
the past, decisions on asset criticality or risk analysis
were unsubstantiated, with little to no mathematical
methodology behind them. This is because analysis
considered criticality and risk based on an isolated
machine. However, every machine operates within the context of a process, and in relation to other
machines. Manufacturing companies cannot separate the machine from the process, or the process
from the machine, and they certainly should not be
basing decisions on one machine in isolation.
Previously, it was also common for decisions to
be made based on the greatest reliability, which is
not necessarily the optimum strategy. The most critical items may not only be what causes the greatest
production interruption when they do fail. Critical
items may not appear as important at first, so a more
thorough assessment is needed to uncover them. In
the end, the goal of criticality assessments is to set
up the appropriate maintenance strategy for when
and how to do inspections, service, and repair. If the
underlying assumptions are incorrect, then what
about the outcomes? Today, we can change this.
The prior approach to determining asset criticality can be modeled in a digital twin and used
to explore all manner of actions and consequences more comprehensively, with more strategic outcomes. First step is to understand how all assets
are integrated together and establish the real constraints on the manufacturing process. This is
where making decisions with the help of digitalization, such as Reliability, Availability and Maintainability (RAM)-based simulations, can help.
The benefits of RAM-based simulation
Process and mechanical engineers often assess
performance constraints and set them accordingly,
which is wise when dealing with keeping equipment within safe operating and mechanical safePlant engineering — www.plantengineering.com
FIGURE 2. Process steps form raw materials to products in an integrated
chemical manufacturing site.
FIGURE 3. Reliability, availability and maintainability (RAM) chart indicates
probability of performance outcomes showing the ikelihood of operating at
varying production levels.
ty limits. Often advanced process control and tools
with objective functions can push operations to
greater productivity. However, none of these are
dealing with all the actual financial constraints that
fully affect the bottom-line performance.
The industry is beginning to see RAM applications that integrally highlight the real constraints,
including the other operational and mechanical
limits. A RAM-based simulation application provides fault-tree analysis, based on actual material flows through a manufacturing process, with
stage gates, inventory modeling, load sharing,
standby/redundancy of equipment, operational
phases, and duty cycles. In addition, a RAM application can simulate expectations of various ran-
Fast Facts
uReliability,
availability,
and maintainability
(RAM) are three system
attributes that are of
tremendous interest
to systems engineers,
logisticians, and users.
They are often studied
together. Collectively,
they affect economic
life-cycle costs of a
system and its utility.
July/August 2022
|
13
INSIGHTS
KEY PERFORMANCE INDICATORS
FIGURE 4. Figure illustrates, in ascending
order, items that are
most to blame for missing financial targets.
dom events such as weather, market
dynamics, supply/distribution logistical events, and more. In one logistics example, a coker unit’s bottom
pump was thought to be undersized
and constraining the unit production. Changing the pump to a larger
size did not fix the problem, because
further investigation showed insufficient trucks on the train to carry the
product away would not let the unit
operate at full capacity.
Figure 3 is a typical chart from the
RAM application. It indicates probability of performance outcomes that show the likelihood of operating at varying production levels.
Figure 4 shows, in ascending order, the items that
are most to blame for missing targets at that financial level. It is a clear indication of what’s most likely to happen and shows what’s most important to
work on first. Such a result is far more useful than
current criticality analysis based on an isolated
machine or no mathematical methodology.
With this information, efficient RAM applications are better equipped to support:
• Superior, individual asset and full asset
systems reliability analysis
• A truer identification of the critical
components and their effects on lifecyle return
on assets
• The right number of spares in inventory
• The optimal process and mechanical operations to fully achieve success.
14
|
of information and understanding. An expert in one
area can optimize that specific process or maintenance strategy or design, but when considering the
complex, integrated nature of the entire site, that local
optimum may not lead to a global or site optimum
because of upstream and downstream constraints.
The use of such a RAM application to understand how all the parts, people and processes fit
together will lead to focused improvements that
drive greater value and protect the limited resources available. This has become transformative for
improved decision-making for the plant, and ultimately, the business. The net outcome will be plant
managers driving greater return on assets by:
• Reinforcing their expertise by proving to leadership and other stakeholders that a complicated
decision made on, not one asset in isolation, but
consolidated performance of a group of equipment, is the best possible decision-making to
optimize the overall business performance
• Assessing risk in real-time and over a period
of time for the data patterns that tell industrial organizations the risk they’re exposed to, day
in and day out, so they can act accordingly
• Understanding options and consequences,
such as optimizing opportunities and proactively responding to an impending asset failure. For instance, a plant manager may decide
to take an asset or equipment offline to coincide with another event, in order to lessen the
impact of downtime or perform other maintenance tasks
• Lessening decisions made based on “gut-feeling,”
and replacing them with data-driven insights.
When an alert suggests a machine is likely to fail
within a few weeks, the RAM application can also
advise when to take it out for service and repair to
minimize operational losses and downtime, accommodate just-in-time spares, and build intermediate
inventory to sustain the outage with less product
delivery losses.
For years, decisions about assets and equipment
have been made in isolation or based on perceived
criticality. Today, digitalization initiatives, such as
RAM-based simulations, are making it possible for
industrial organizations to rely more on data patterns to make smarter decisions about their assets. PE
Decision making with data-driven inputs
Manufacturers employ experts in certain disciplines and processes. This inadvertently creates silos
Mike Brooks is global director, APM Solutions,
AspenTech. Mike Strobel is a solutions advisor,
AspenTech.
July/August 2022
Plant engineering — www.plantengineering.com
input #8 at www.plantengineering.com/information
Motion is a leader in delivering the
services and supplies that keep
essential industries up and running.
input #9 at www.plantengineering.com/information
ENGINEERING SOLUTIONS
UTILITIES OPTIMIZATION
Kevin Parker, Editor
The case for more energy
efficient compressed air systems
Eliminating leaks and energy recovery are two good places to start
U
sers of compressed air systems in the
United States have the means at hand
to can save energy costs while supporting sustainability goals, according to
a recent report issued by Atlas Copco. Doing so
could mean an estimated $1 billion in annual
energy savings and nine million less metric tons of
CO2 released.
With U.S. headquarters in Auburn Hills, MI,
Atlas Copco is a multi-national provider of compressors, vacuum solutions and other type industrial equipment.
The primary avenue for industry to achieve sustainability-based production focuses on reducing
electricity consumption to both cut CO2 emissions
and generate substantial savings for the enterprises
that implement it.
Further, the company believes optimized compressed air can be a big step toward making it
happen. Atlas Copco Compressors took a more
in-depth look at the U.S. market when it comes to
compressed air. The market analysis concluded that
U.S. manufacturing has a compressed air installed
base of at least 15 million horsepower.
It’s well known that industrial usage of compressed air wastes energy due to air-line leaks
that go unattended and for other reasons. Based
on looking at various air audits across different customer types, sizes and segments, Atlas
Copco Compressor’s analysis concluded that the
U.S. could save around 13 billion kWh annually in electricity associated with compressed air
— which would save U.S. manufacturers over $1
billion in energy costs annually. As important,
this would remove ~9 million metric tons of CO2
annually — equivalent to >1 million homes’ annual electricity usage.
Plant engineering — www.plantengineering.com
“With our European roots, saving energy has
been a long-time concern of ours,” said Robert Eshelman, president and general manager, Atlas Copco
Compressors USA. “What we see is an opportunity.
There are still many inefficient systems out there.
We want our customers to be aware as well.”
Two good suggestions
In fact, in a 2021 survey regarding compressed
air usage of more than 50,000 engineers, contractors and plant personnel throughout the U.S.,
benchmarking compressed air systems for efficiency tied for second place among respondents’
leading concerns, with 16% ranking it as their top
consideration.
The Atlas Copco Compressors report included
information on two additional possible methods
for energy savings related to air compressor use.
These include energy recovery and switching from
a water-cooled to an air-cooled compressor.
An already efficient air compressor system can
be improved by utilizing energy recovery modules,
which can now also be supplied built into the products. The potential for energy recovery lies in the
fact that heat is formed when air is compressed.
In most cases, the heat energy is extracted — and
becomes waste heat — before the compressed air
is distributed into a facility’s pipe system. But substantial amounts of waste heat, even representing
as much as 94% of the energy supplied to a compressor, can be recovered via hot air or hot water,
depending on whether the unit is air cooled or
water cooled.
This can provide a substantial return on investment for companies that capture the heat energy. Further, when energy is recovered via a closed
cooling system, it enhances compressor operat-
‘
What we see is
an opportunity.
There are still
many inefficient
systems out
there.
’
3 Fast Facts
u
Within
the industrial
sector, manufacturing
accounts for the largest
share of annual industrial
energy sector.
u
The
combined energy use
by six energy-intensive
manufacturing subsectors—
chemicals, petroleum
and coal products, paper,
primary metals, food,
and nonmetallic minerals
products—equaled 16.9
quadrillion Btu, or 87% of
total manufacturing energy
consumption.
u
The
three largest energy
consuming manufacturing
subsectors—chemicals,
petroleum and coal
products, and paper—
combined consumed nearly
70% of total manufacturing
energy use in 2018.
July/August 2022
|
17
ENGINEERING SOLUTIONS
UTILITIES OPTIMIZATION
‘
The U.S.
Department of
Energy has
established soonto-be-enforced
minimum
efficiency
standards for
compressors.
’
ing conditions, reliability and service life thanks to
— among other advantages — an equalized temperature level and high cooling water quality. Most
major suppliers with their medium to large compressors now offer adaptations for fitting with standard waste heat recovery equipment.
In addition, in applications where a company
can switch from a water-cooled air compressor to
an air-cooled compressor, the cooling water used
by a water-cooled compressor can be eliminated. A
water-cooled, 200-horsepower air compressor could
easily use more than seven million gallons of water
annually, and with treatment and processes could
cost close to $50,000 per year. With air-cooled compressors there is no need for using gallons of water.
Making the switch to an air-cooled compressors
eliminates the need for cooling towers and water
pumping skids, while eliminating maintenance of
auxiliaries used for water.
Of course, water-cooled compressors are essential for certain applications, and there are ways to
optimize the process when this is the case.
Back in the U.S.
Here in the United States, to help ensure nationwide energy efficiency in the compressed air indus-
18
|
July/August 2022
try, the U.S. Department of Energy has established
soon-to-be-enforced minimum efficiency standards for compressors.
Set to become mandatory in January 2025, the
new regulations were established with input from
all major compressor manufacturers. During the
three decades starting with the first full year of
their enforcement, it’s estimated the updated regulations will deliver a lifetime energy savings of more
than 15 billion kilowatt-hours — which equates to
the amount of energy needed to power 1.6 million
homes for a year.
In 2019, California’s state energy commission
set its own new requirements for commercial and
industrial air compressors, with the new rules
becoming effective in January 2022. The new regulations effectively mimic the previously referenced
federal regulations set to be enforced starting in
2025, more quickly setting stricter standards for
any large, lubricated, rotary air compressors sold in
California.
Of course, water-cooled compressors are essential for certain applications, and there are ways to
optimize the process when this is the case. PE
Kevin Parker, editor, Plant Engineering.
Plant engineering — www.plantengineering.com
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input #10 at www.plantengineering.com/information
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input #11 at www.plantengineering.com/information
ENGINEERING SOLUTIONS
HEADLINES FROM HANNOVER MESSE
Kevin Parker, Editor
IT/OT convergence moves
automation markets forward
Cloud-native data historian expedites data migration, insights
H
annover Messe 2022, held May 30th
through June 2nd, was all about the latest news concerning IT/OT convergence
for suppliers and users of automaton,
motion and drives; energy markets; engineered
parts and solutions; and digital ecosystems.
IT/OT convergence melds information technologies (IT) with the operations technologies
(OT) that control and manage industrial processes,
machines and equipment.
One pair of announcements at Hannover Messe
brought together global services provider Amazon
Web Services (AWS), process automation supplier
GE Digital and advanced analytics for process manufacturing software supplier, Seeq.
Available since April, GE Digital’s Proficy Historian for Cloud is said to be the world’s first
cloud-native data historian available on the AWS
Marketplace.
“It’s clear that data infrastructures are moving to
the Cloud. Companies are making decisions about
what they need. We focus on bringing together various OT data, normalizing it and providing analytic
workloads,” said Steve Friedrich, chief commercial
officer, Americas manufacturing, GE Digital. “This
data has been trapped on prem and hard to get into
a data lake.”
By moving core historian technology to the
Cloud, “We enable OT data into the lake in an hour
and see results in another hour. The significance of
today’s announcement is that Proficy becomes an
enterprise operations historian.”
At Hannover Messe, Seeq announced its customers can expand use of Seeq by connecting to GE
Digital’s Proficy Historian for Cloud.
Seeq said it can connect to Proficy Historian
for Cloud to access time-series process data withPlant engineering — www.plantengineering.com
out moving or copying it. Seeq has strength in process and flow industries, including clients in the oil
& gas, pharmaceutical, chemical, food & beverage,
pulp & paper and other industries.
Market background
Enterprise systems, execution systems and analytics toolsets deploy in the cloud today. What’s
been missing were easy ways to move OT data to
the cloud at scale and affordably. Without consolidating transactional data with OT/process data the
insights possible are limited.
A cloud-native data historian makes it easier to
send high-volume operational data to a data lake
built on Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon
S3) to run big data analytics, artificial intelligence
(AI), and machine learning (ML) at scale.
A data historian collects time-series data, alarms
and events at high speed. With sensors transmitting
signals every few milli-seconds the sheer weight of
data is prodigious, with encrypted OT data streaming to the cloud at up to 150,000 values per second
per interface. Store-and-forward capabilities protect against data loss. Compression combines with
file-based storage for cost effectivity. Native interfaces to data lakes and other analytics platforms
deployed in a virtual private cloud (VPC) simplify
data integration.
Friedrich said asset models also are important for putting data into contexts ripe for analysis.
“Normalizing operations data may involve built-in
engineering unit conversion, while contextualization makes transparent the nomenclatures used in
labelling tags,” he said.
Seeq's strategic partnership with AWS, “enables
industrial organizations to easily access advanced
analytics capabilities to improve production and
NOKIA announced an
expanding portfolio of
Nokia Industrial user
equipment. The wearable
devices give manufacturers
July/August 2022
|
21
ENGINEERING SOLUTIONS
HEADLINES FROM HANNOVER MESSE
‘
AWS offers infinite storage
capabilities and that allows
our customers to move data
as they require. We build
standard solutions to their
’
custom problems.
FESTO presented the
PhotoBionicCell at the
Hannover Fair – a bioreactor that enables
the efficient and largescale photosynthesis
of algae. Image courtesy CFE Media.
22
|
business success,” said Megan Buntain, VP, cloud
transformation, Seeq. “We’re thrilled to sponsor
and participate in the AWS exhibit at Hannover
Messe and demonstrate the benefits of this partnership to the greater Cloud community.”
Another company found in the AWS booth at
Hannover Messe was Radix Engineering and Software, an IT/OT consulting company.
“AWS offers infinite storage capabilities and that
allows our customers to move data as they require,”
said Elliot Bell, a program director at Radix. “We
build standard solutions to their custom problems.”
Radix engagements may involve moving data
into AWS S3 or routing data to Pi System, now part
of Aveva, to build a reliability dashboard, Bell said.
“We use AWS technology as a migration partner for
building data lakes.”
“We typically have three levels of solutions for
users, said Bell, “including real-time, short-term
problem solving; midterm weekly or monthly data
for quality or accounting purposes; and addressing
longer-term enterprise challenges.”
July/August 2022
Welding function quantified
How the industrial internet of things is impacting use of pneumatics, hydraulics and other types
of manufacturing activities, including welding, is
becoming increasingly apparent.
Festo is a multinational industrial control and
automation company with revenues of more than
3.1 billion euros in 2018. The company produces
pneumatic and electrical control and drive technology for factory or process automation.
Besides automation, the company has industry
sector expertise. And with the acquisition of software company Resolto, it has access to competencies in advanced analytics and artificial intelligence.
“The Festo Automation Experience, or Festo AX
for short,” said Dr. Oliver Niese, VP, digital business, Festo, “boosts the performance of machines
and systems.” Dr. Niese is also managing director of
Resolto Informatik GmbH.
Festo AX addresses demand for digital solutions in machine building, Dr. Niese said. Mechatronic systems, such as for resistance spot welding,
process large amounts of data and compress it for
use as maintenance diagnostics. Predictive maintenance based on artificial intelligence offers
possibilities not found with traditional condition-monitoring approaches. Equipment data will
merge with process data for use in analysis models
and cloud-based solutions.
Festo AX allows users to extract maximum
value from data produced by its equipment. “With
modules for predictive maintenance, predictive
energy and predictive quality, we implement our
customers’ individual solutions together with
them,” Niese said.
One leading car manufacturer has relied on
Festo servo-pneumatic welding for years and today
Plant engineering — www.plantengineering.com
YASKAWA’S Motoman robots are heavy duty industrial robots used in welding, packaging, assembly, coating, cutting, material handling
and general automation. Image courtesy CFE Media.
has more than 2,500 welding gun robots in its body
shops. Using Festo predictive maintenance, the
company reduced downtime 25%. The car maker
now schedules welding gun repairs in non-productive times, increasing equipment availability.
Automated repair orders and even “life cycles” for
welding guns can be created. Filter functions enable
comparisons. Early leak detection saves energy.
Telecoms & industrial devices
“Private wireless is likely to dominate OT critical
connectivity needs over time, but Wi-Fi is likely to
remain part of the connectivity mix used in industrial plants for a long time to come. The recent evolution to Wi-Fi 6 and 6E helps make Wi-Fi more
deterministic,” Michele Mackenzie, principal analyst, Analysys Mason, recently said.
Given this environment, ahead of Hannover
Messe, telecommunications provider Nokia
announced expansion of its industrial-grade private wireless solution with Wi-Fi to provide more
connectivity options for manufacturers and other
industries ahead of the event.
“The applications being developed in the operations space require increased connectivity and flexPlant engineering — www.plantengineering.com
ibility. There is real demand for wireless technology
because running cable is a pain and an expense,”
said Stephan Litjens, Nokia Enterprise Solutions
The Digital Automation Cloud Wi-Fi Solution
unites Wi-Fi 6, 6E for connecting non-business
critical use cases and private 4.9G/LTE and 5G to
support critical Industry 4.0 applications. A single
cloud management interface manages all wireless
connectivity layers.
The launch of Nokia DAC Wi-Fi offer flexibility for industries connecting assets as part of their
digital transformation. The Wi-Fi connectivity
solution will be available in the Nokia Digital Automation Cloud (DAC) end-to-end industrial-grade
digitalization platform.
With the introduction of the Nokia DAC Wi-Fi
solution, organizations tap into license-free spectrum to augment their networks and support OT
workflows, such as connections to access machine
maintenance data.
Wireless connectivity for some will start with
Wi-Fi 6/6E to cover their IT and non-business critical OT operations, with a seamless evolution option
to private wireless at any point as the need evolves.
Nokia MX Boost for private wireless running
2 Fast Facts
u
Hannover
Messe 2022
included 75,000+ visitors,
2,500+ exhibitors and
8,000+ products and
solutions.
u
Hannover
Messe 2023
will take place April 17
through April 21 next year.
July/August 2022
|
23
ENGINEERING SOLUTIONS
HEADLINES FROM HANNOVER MESSE
over Nokia MXIE can further improve connectivity depending on the use case requirements. Nokia
MX Boost allows companies to aggregate different radio technologies, such as private wireless
and Wi-Fi, to get maximum performance benefits
from all radio layers.
Other Nokia announcements involved IoT
Gateways, wearable devices and integrated cameras, digital twinning, and an update to the Nokia
MX Industrial Edge platform, giving manufacturers and producers more ways to securely connect
people and machines.
‘
Market chatter tends to center around things
like artificial intelligence and advanced software applications, and less about the central
role sensor technology plays in enabling
’
IIoT-based analytics.
Hardware and software platform
The Yaskawa Electric Corp. is a multi-national
manufacturer of servos, motion controllers, AC motor
drives, switches and industrial robots. i³ CONTROL is
Yaskawa’s new automation platform, which it characterizes as an ecosystem turned IT concept.
The Yaskawa controller is a technically coordinated overall solution for industry-specific controllers — including everything from engineering
software and controller hardware to integrated chip
technology.
Of the i³ CONTROL portfolio, the software
environment, i³ Engineer, and the first machine
controller of this new platform – the iC9210-PN
– are planned for market launch by the end of the
year 2022.
i³ Engineer software provides access to the entire
platform, offering openness, flexibility and scalability based around a Linux operating system. Programming languages pursuant to IEC61131-3 and
PLCopen function blocks are supported as well as
the script languages C#, C++, Python or MATLAB
Simulink. This introduces new opportunities for
application development, including global teams.
24
|
July/August 2022
The software is tailored to the performance
range of the Yaskawa components. This guides
the user to the optimal solution for maximum
performance without requiring detailed product
knowledge.
The iC9210-PN PLC is the first hardware product under the umbrella of the new platform. It has
a Profinet interface and an RS485 interface for the
smart and cost-effective connection of Yaskawa
servo and frequency inverters. HMIs can be connected via an OPC UA server.
Sensor for compressed air
Market chatter tends to center around things
like artificial intelligence and advanced software
applications, and less about the central role sensor technology plays in enabling IIoT-based analytics. Emerson says consumer products leader
Colgate-Palmolive is pursuing a net zero carbon
target with Emerson’s smart sensor technology for
compressed air monitoring.
Emerson’s sensors and analytics help Colgate-Palmolive save energy and optimize production processes in manufacturing and product
packaging facilities. Armed with data from Emerson’s advanced sensor technologies and analytics,
Colgate has already seen a 15% reduction in energy
usage on several toothpaste and toothbrush packaging lines and expects even greater energy savings
as the technology is rolled out more widely.
The project is part of Colgate’s digital transformation program and uses AVENTICS pneumatic
sensors and IIoT-enabled software architecture to
monitor compressed air flow to identify leaks, optimize pneumatics and improve air flow. Given the
heavy reliance on pneumatics in large-scale consumer goods production, reducing the amount of
energy associated with compressed air contributes
not only to sustainability efforts, but also to overall
equipment health and reliability.
In Colgate’s implementation, Emerson’s AVENTICS AF2 Smart Flow Sensor calculates air usage
data with integrated software that displays trends
and anomalies on analytics dashboards, allowing
operators to easily regulate supply pressures and
detect leaks. PE
Kevin Parker is the editor of Plant Engineering
magazine.
Plant engineering — www.plantengineering.com
PREDICTIVE
MAINTENANCE
GIVES YOU
THE EDGE.
While uncertainty in the marketplace
can present new challenges, some
plant operators have found a way to
rapidly adapt – and even thrive in the
new business environment.
Now, you can take condition monitoring
to the next level with the RedRaven
IoT platform. Discover what predictive
maintenance can do for you.
flowserve.com/iot
Predict.
Act.
Protect.
input #12 at www.plantengineering.com/information
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WE’VE GOT YOU COVERED.
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Why choose your Northeastern Cat® dealer?
Our main goal is keeping our customers up and running. Over the years,
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Contact your Northeast Cat Dealer or visit www.NECatDealer.com/standby
TIO N S
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5 3 C O N V E NIE N
TL
input #13 at www.plantengineering.com/information
Since 1923
SINCE 1948
Cleveland Brothers
Serving Pennsylvania and
northern West Virginia
www.ClevelandBrothers.com
844-720-4CAT
SINCE 1957
Foley, Incorporated
Serving New Jersey, eastern
Pennsylvania, northern
Delaware and Staten Island
www.foleyinc.com
732-885-5555
SINCE 1923
H.O. Penn Machinery
Serving Connecticut and
southern New York
www.hopenn.com
844-CAT-1923
SINCE 1960
Milton CAT
Serving Massachusetts, Maine,
New Hampshire, Vermont, Rhode
Island, and upstate New York
www.miltoncat.com
866-385-8538
© 2022 Caterpillar. All Rights Reserved. CAT, CATERPILLAR, LET’S DO THE WORK, their respective logos, “Caterpillar Corporate Yellow”, the “Power Edge” and Cat “Modern Hex” trade dress as well as corporate and product identity used herein, are trademarks of Caterpillar
and may not be used without permission. www.cat.com / www.caterpillar.com
ENGINEERING SOLUTIONS
EDGE COMPUTING
Adam Compton, Schneider Electric
Maintain uptime, drive
efficiency & protect distributed
IT assets with DCIM
The next phase of data center management evolution will further
optimize resources by providing real-time visibility
N
ow that companies have fully entered
– and even embraced – the digital age,
enterprises are forced to reconsider
their business models and priorities. In
this new extremely connected, yet broadly distributed world, business leaders must recognize and
value the role that data processing plays in the
modern customer experience. Regardless of where
customers or employees are located, a business’
infrastructure must be capable of processing massive amounts of data with little to no latency, if
they wish to remain competitive in this new business environment.
Perhaps the most effective way businesses are
accommodating this newfound demand for data is
by establishing edge-computing facilities that take
some of the load off their central data processing
centers while also reducing latency of data transfers
regardless of the location of the end-user.
For example, if your central data processing center is in Florida but customers are in Oregon, any
actions taken by those customers on an app or website must travel all the way to Florida and back. The
distance of this data transfer alone would result in
latency which would cause lag for the customer
experience – and as we know, our attention spans
are becoming much shorter, and expectations are
becoming much higher among consumers.
In this example, if you were to establish edge
computing facilities in California or Nevada the
distance between the end-user and the processing center is much shorter, which means it will be
much faster. In addition, there are considerations of
Plant engineering — www.plantengineering.com
data haul costs, data protection, and fast computation processing that require data process functions
to occur closer to the user and application. That is
the value of edge computing.
Despite its benefits, the dispersed nature of edge
computing can cause stress for engineers, maintenance techs and facility managers alike as they are
unable to be on-premise at every single center to
physically maintain and monitor each asset themselves. Furthermore, enterprises can have hundreds
or even thousands of edge computing data centers,
many of which are completely unmanned.
ONE OF THE main benefits of cloud-based data
center infrastructure
management is visibility
by means of around-theclock monitoring with
full visibility of the environment anytime and
anywhere. Image courtesy Schneider Electric
July/August 2022
|
27
ENGINEERING SOLUTIONS
EDGE COMPUTING
A HIGHLY CONFIGURABLE, highly modular
Remote Power Panel (RPP) with NF panelboard for
small, medium and large data centers and colocation facilities. Image courtesy Schneider Electric
To ensure uptime, monitor and optimize
energy usage and maintain the physical security of these edge facilities, facility managers must
include data center infrastructure management
(DCIM) tools in their edge computing strategy.
When DCIM was first introduced, it delivered capabilities such as real-time monitoring and task automation to reduce the hardware
footprint and improve uptime in core on-premise data centers – making the facility’s administrator’s job significantly easier by driving new
efficiencies.
Fortunately, there have been many improvements made to these tools over the last few
years expanding on both the capabilities and the
aforementioned benefits to facility managers.
Next-generation DCIM is the next phase of data
center management evolution and will further
optimize resources by providing real-time visibility across distributed IT environments.
3 Fast Facts
u
The
world’s data is
expected to grow 61% to
175 zettabytes by 2025.
u
The
origin of edge
computing is linked back
to the 1990s to introduce
nodes at locations
geographically closer to
the end user.
u
DCIM
improves capacity
planning and gives
companies more time to
plan asset additions to
the plant.
28
|
Evolution of DCIM
Modern data processing facilities are equipped
with huge amounts of sensor-enabled equipment
to provide insights into how efficiently they are
operating. Managing the compute responsible for
this massive amount of processed data is unrealistic and largely inefficient for modern facility managers. DCIM makes managing this information
easier and more efficient by using software, hardware and sensors to monitor critical systems from
a central dashboard in real time. DCIM enables
facility managers to have eyes on all assets at all
times in all locations which optimizes predictive
maintenance, energy usage, and back-up energy storage, while also maintaining physical security. Simply put, DCIM is the proactive eyes and
ears on site, regardless of the location of the actual
computing.
Predictive maintenance and energy usage
DCIM enables administrators to respond to
problems more quickly – which prevents downtime
July/August 2022
– but in some cases an outage is unavoidable. With
next-generation DCIM, however, the ability to prevent unplanned downtime increases substantially.
The main difference between DCIM and
next-generation DCIM is that the new versions
run in the cloud. As such, it is especially suited to
running distributed IT environments that include
centralized, regional edge and local edge computing environments.
One of the main benefits of cloud-based DCIM
is visibility. Now, administrators get around-theclock monitoring with full visibility of the environment anytime and anywhere. It also means
being able to manage more with less and providing data center managers with greater knowledge
(product information, historical data, product
usage profiles, etc.) so they can have better operational control.
Analytics on power usage and environmental conditions are also factored into DCIM
so administrators can make adjustments that
reduce power consumption and protect equipment. And because the solution is cloud-based, it
helps reduce footprint. Through data collection,
next-generation DCIM tracks threshold violations and issues alerts when action is required to
avoid an outage.
Another innovation that has been made to
next-generation DCIM is the ability to not only
flag potential failures, but also to deploy a trained
technician to replace the faulty equipment the
next day. Again, this new capability provides
peace of mind for data center managers who have
assets deployed at the edge and ultimately increases resiliency and uptime.
Maintaining physical security
To continue the theme of omnipotence, monitoring environmental conditions enables administrators to essentially be in every room of their
centers at the same time. Next-generation DCIM
incorporates environmental monitors to provide
real-time alerts for temperature, humidity, moisture, unlocked doors/windows, motion sensors,
sound sensors, perimeter breaches and any other
physical threats. As our IT environments become
increasingly distributed, physical security monitoring should be a non-negotiable part of any
diverse IT strategy.
Plant engineering — www.plantengineering.com
For example, instead of having technicians
or security personnel patrol from room-toroom trying to manually spot security vulnerabilities, facility managers will be alerted of any
anomalies in real-time and are able to pinpoint
exactly what piece of equipment in which room
needs to be addressed. This directly impacts a
business’ bottom line as they don’t need to hire
security personnel for each floor or area of their
facilities.
It’s also important to note that threats to physical security are not always malicious human
actors but can also be environmental threats. If
your facility does not have smart security technology in place, DCIM can still be applied as it
monitors environmental factors as well.
For example, one sparsely staffed co-location data
center was alerted that a server room was running
hot through their next-generation DCIM. When
they deployed their engineer to investigate the
issue, they discovered that the door was left open,
and it was the middle of August. If this environmental threat was not monitored this situation
could have resulted in physical damage to their
equipment and unplanned downtime.
At the end of the day knowledge is power, and
when it comes to the efficient use of power that
knowledge is discovered through real-time data
insights. Thanks to these innovations in DCIM
technology facility managers can sleep well at
night knowing that their assets are always on and
protected. PE
Adam Compton is director of strategy, Schneider
Electric.
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ENGINEERING SOLUTIONS
SITE SELECTION
By Cole Williams, Goodwin Mills Cawood, Inc.
In-depth understanding
leads to decisive site selection
Navigating site viability to meet multi-stakeholder goals requires
clearly articulating needs and requirements
S
ite selection for a new corporate headquarters, distribution facility or manufacturing
plant can be a daunting task for stakeholders,
selection teams, and end users.
The process poses a series of challenges and
requires navigating many different levels and sources of information. A well-organized site selection
process can provide an efficient, and more competitive, process among the different communities while
minimizing operating costs and risk. Here are key
challenges, insights and solutions to ensure a successful site selection strategy that strikes the right
balance between granular data and strategic goals.
Understand the Impact of NDAs
Recognizing that confidentiality is a critical factor in selecting a new site, Non-Disclosure Agreements (NDAs) are standard protocols for all parties
involved in the site selection process.
However, be aware that the strict parameters
of NDAs can constrain the process unnecessarily.
Due to fears of information leaks, often only generalized information is shared, resulting in insufficient information regarding utility needs, building
configurations, employee counts, the daily number of trucks, required trailer storage, and so forth.
Having an appropriate level of detail allows site
selection consultants and engineers to accurately
evaluate potential locations.
To ultimately select an optimal site, vital information must be shared from all involved parties to
execute and even accelerate the process. With speed
to market being a critical factor in today’s environment, it is a given that site selection has become
more time-sensitive and, as businesses react to
ever-changing markets, site selection "inner
Plant engineering — www.plantengineering.com
circles" are more willing to share information on
the front end to keep the process moving in an
effort to avoid mistakes and costly delays.
Navigating site viability to meet multi-stakeholder goals requires clearly articulating specific
needs and requirements, and making communication the key to success. Even though parameters
are fluid from stakeholder to stakeholder, consensus regarding the crucial parameters and significant
priorities is important.
These include the breadth and depth of the overall
project, such as utility needs and required capacity on
water and sewage, available capacity of power and gas,
accessibility (road and rail), required speed to market
(how fast the project needs to move to completion),
site constraints/configurations, and the nature of the
facility. A clear and concise project understanding is
crucial for the site selection process.
Research local utility capacity
A key priority in site selection for a manufacturing facility is how a specific site can accommodate
industrial discharge.
FIGURE 1: Site selection for
a new corporate headquarters, distribution facility or
manufacturing plant can be
a daunting task for stakeholders, selection teams,
and end users. Courtesy
Goodwyn Mills Cawood.
Fast Facts
u
Some
of the items that
should be part of a
site selection checklist
include the following:
u
Land/Building
u
Zoning Designation
uRequired Set Back
u
Offsite Improvements
(streets, storm drains,
curbs, street lights, etc.)
u
Land Topography/
Drainage
u
Soils Conditions/Water
Table/Toxic Issues
uSite Configuration
July/August 2022
|
31
ENGINEERING SOLUTIONS
SITE SELECTION
FIGURE 2: Navigating site viability to meet multi-stakeholder goals requires clearly articulating specific needs and requirements,
and making communication the key to success. Courtesy Goodwyn Mills Cawood.
FIGURE 3: Detailed information regarding project parameters and priorities are critical
if an accelerated site selection process is desired. Courtesy Goodwyn Mills Cawood.
32
|
July/August 2022
While the manufacturer may pre-treat the discharge, the local sewage receiving entity must
have sufficient average daily flows for dilution and
capacity to process the additional discharge. This
means the size and the capacity of the sewage treatment, along with the line travel distance from the
plant, are critical points to ensure that the local
POTW’s infrastructure and treatment facility won’t
be negatively impacted by and can discharge from
the process stream.
The end-user can always treat more before they
discharge, but in seeking to minimize the infrastructure costs on their processes, they often push
the limits with the receiving utility. In turn, the
receiving utility doesn't want to take on more risk
of an environmental failure because state and federal agencies will cite them should a failure result
due to discharge from the manufacturer. The utility is seeking to balance a revenue stream from the
industry, help the local area attract the manufacturer to their community, while minimizing any risk
of an environmental failure. Research must be conducted into capacities and the calculations must be
Plant engineering — www.plantengineering.com
accurate for both the discharge from the
manufacturer and the processing capacity
from the utility and the challenge is synthesizing the two.
Investigate
environmental impacts
Local environmental constraints can
pose significant challenges, particularly if
a US Army Corps of Engineers permit is
required or the project is federally funded.
The needed documentation is complex and local environmental codes can
conflict with or supersede federal codes.
Local politics often come into play
and local codes are often waived, especially when multiple communities are
vying for a project. While most cities
and municipalities will make accommodations for large industries, not all do,
making the understanding of state and
local permitting processes and approvals crucial. Remember to review corporate environmental ethics statements,
as they can influence the site selection
process.
Tax implications are another example
of a parameter that is a factor as corporate tax structures can affect site selection. Though it doesn't impact making the
project work on the potential property, it
can be a significant consideration for the
end-user especially when some municipalities charge taxes on stock stored for a
lengthy period of time in their facility.
Consider the people factor
While access/delivery of raw materials
and distribution capabilities of finished
product are critical drivers in the site
selection process, workforce availability and community amenities often are
at the top of the list for many companies
looking for a new site.
One leading national distributor considers locations based on the availability and size of potential employee pools,
making population heat maps significant in their site selection. Recognizing
July/August 2022
|
33
the need to recruit and retain top talent,
this company researches where potential employees live, how they will get
to work, making public transportation
a decisive factor in their site selection
matrix.
Detailed information regarding project parameters and priorities are critical
if an accelerated site selection process is
desired.
Stakeholders must articulate their
needs, describe their processes, and provide crucial information at the beginning
of the process to speed up site selection.
The ability to speak to their highest priority and articulate the parameters helps site
selection and other consultants zero in on
a preferred site. Identify key milestone/
target dates such as date to close, date to
break ground, date of completion, and the
date of opening — are crucial to the permitting, design, and construction process.
Experienced site selection teams are
able to quickly understand the parameters
articulated to them, allowing such teams
to expeditiously evaluate and address sites
under consideration. Site selection teams
can leverage this data to accelerate the site
selection process and avoid costly delays.
A smooth site selection process can be
achieved through clearly defined parameters, good communication and excellent
analysis. The team should be made up of a
cross section of skill sets that include expertise in real estate, environmental issues,
engineering, construction, tax law, logistics,
and financing. While the process may be
challenging, with the right team, it can be a
rewarding and decisive experience. PE
Cole Williams, P.E., is Vice President
Engineering, Alabama, with Goodwyn
Mills Cawood, Inc. He can be reached at
[email protected].
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ENGINEERING SOLUTIONS
ENERGY MANAGEMENT
By Amit Patel, Emerson
Digital transformation tools
improve plant sustainability
and maintenance
It’s in a facility’s best interest to prevent issues before they arise
M
any manufacturing segments are paying critical attention to energy consumption, sustainability and effective
use of digital transformation tools to
control costs and eliminate wasteful energy usage.
It’s been estimated that some industrial facilities spend nearly a third of their energy use budgets to generate compressed air for a broad range of
applications. Unfortunately, poorly maintained and
operated systems can allow a measurable portion of
that compressed air to leak away — wasted rather
than used to actuate processes.
A component allowed to degrade over time, or
whose setup isn’t fully optimized, can cause compressed air leaks. In turn, processes that have insufficient pressure can consume more compressed air
than they need, resulting in negative impacts on
process repeatability and quality.
One way to address this challenge is through
predictive maintenance practices that identify components that may be about to fail or start leaking
before they fail. Preventive maintenance can locate
leaks early and calculate proper pressure ratios
while maintaining cycle time. To do this requires
having the right information at the right time.
However, many operations don’t know where to
start, because they may not have resources or tools
in place to access that information at any time,
let alone the right one. Operators, technicians or
third-party maintenance contractors may manually
collect periodic measurements of equipment condition, but this information may not be timely and
runs the risk of human error. If the manual reporting is accurate, the resulting spreadsheets or one-
Plant engineering — www.plantengineering.com
FIGURE 1: A comprehensive portfolio of devices, connectivity tools and
analytics capabilities enable digital transformation across a machine,
system or an entire facility. Courtesy Emerson
off reports are often stale by the time they’re used
to make decisions. As a result, the actual condition
of their assets may never be accurately documented, allowing leaks to go undiagnosed and air conJuly/August 2022
|
35
ENGINEERING SOLUTIONS
ENERGY MANAGEMENT
FIGURE 2: A flow sensor can continuously monitor airflow in pneumatic
systems, providing operators with clear, actionable insights regarding flow,
pressure and temperature. Courtesy Emerson
‘
Through the
digital transformation of pneumatic systems,
compressed air
consumption can
now be monitored
in real time.
36
|
’
sumption to increase unchecked. When maintenance
is performed, it’s “breakdown maintenance,” or fixing equipment when it fails or replacing components
on a time rather than health basis. This approach
virtually always incurs higher costs and unplanned
downtime and negatively impacts a plant’s overall
energy efficiency and sustainability goals.
Technology now exists that offers a better way.
Through the digital transformation of pneumatic
systems, compressed air consumption can now be
monitored in real time to provide valuable, actionable data and insight facilities can use to optimize
pneumatic processes and guide effective predictive
maintenance efforts. By using intelligent technologies to make better decisions and take immediate
action, compressed air consumption can be significantly reduced, better predictive maintenance can
be implemented and sustainability efforts can be
improved.
Pneumatic technology transformed
Digital transformation is still new to some and
may seem abstract or ambiguous. In fact, it’s quite
the opposite.
Digital transformation is a process that a facility, systemw or piece of equipment undergoes that
allows end users to see real-time data, make decisions based on it and act based on those informed
decisions — creating smarter machines and sys-
July/August 2022
tems to enable smarter operations. Quite simply,
digital transformation places the right information
in front of the right expert at the right time. It eliminates guessing about process parameters or waiting
for equipment to fail.
The industrial internet of things (IIoT) is one
mechanism of digital transformation, enabling
users to unlock trapped data by integrating and
connecting smart sensors and instruments that
allow processors to run smarter and more efficiently than ever before.
For compressed air systems, it can be as basic as
adding a sensor that measures consumption or as
elaborate as connecting an entire line or floor. Both
cases open previously inaccessible levels of compressed air data and asset condition, affording operators a clearer understanding of the current, past
and possible future state of their pneumatic system.
This expertise empowers them to confidently make
informed decisions and take quick action.
By using technology to automate and optimize
operational processes in this way, facilities put a
continuous cycle into motion. This cycle has three
stages: See, Decide and Act. In compressed air
applications, different smart solutions automate
each stage.
See Stage: This stage sets off the cycle, starting at a sensor that creates the appropriate data in
a continuous, repeatable and reliable way. In pneumatic systems, this process includes capturing the
acceleration and cycles of pneumatic valves and
cylinder actuation, as well as measuring the volumetric flow rate, pressure, temperature, mass
flow rate and flow velocity of compressed air. Such
real-time data provides around-the-clock information about the actual health of a facility’s assets
and energy consumption and is the foundation for
timely, informed decision-making.
Decide Stage: In this stage, the sensor delivers the collected data to a controller or gateway
device that continuously aggregates that information in real time and presents trends through an
easy-to-interpret visualization tool. At-hand expertise like this empowers operators to make quicker, smarter decisions that drive faster, appropriate
actions.
Act Stage: Mobility tools used in this stage send
notifications to specific personnel that prescribe
clear, necessary actions to take based on the current
Plant engineering — www.plantengineering.com
FIGURE 3: This dashboard for pneumatics applications offers a picture of a facility’s pneumatic system performance in one
screen, enabling quick, informed decision-making that makes predictive maintenance possible. Courtesy Emerson
state of operations. This can include which cylinders are approaching end of life, have an increase in
acceleration over time or have already moved past
their targeted cycle time. These directives enable
personnel to resolve issues before they can slow or
shut down operations.
Together, these stages offer valuable analytics;
their endless cycle generates a technology loop that
enables predictive maintenance while continuously
improving expertise and energy efficiency.
Prevent unplanned downtime
Maintenance is inherent to all industrial facilities. In pneumatic systems, valves wear out over
time, causing leakage that leads to excessive compressed air consumption. Some systems can have
many valves, which can make identifying a faulty
one challenging. Leak troubleshooting can be
time-consuming and, with the ongoing labor shortage and skills gap, maintenance personnel may
already be stretched thin. There may not be enough
staff to keep up with what must be done, and historical knowledge may not exist. When production
Plant engineering — www.plantengineering.com
must stop for repairs, it can be very expensive. For
mid-sized food and beverage facilities, unplanned
downtime costs around $30,000 per hour.
It’s in a facility’s best interest to prevent issues
before they can arise. That’s where predictive maintenance comes in. Predictive maintenance can significantly decrease operations and maintenance
costs and eliminate unplanned downtime.
Now that we know how the See-Decide-Act
cycle works, it’s easy to imagine how the digital transformation of a pneumatic system makes
predictive maintenance possible. Let’s consider
pneumatics maintenance in food and beverage processing, where compressed air is heavily used to
actuate auxiliary and hygienic valves through discrete pilot valves or valve systems.
Auxiliary and hygienic valves can be used to
heat, cool, dose or fill additives and ingredients to
sanitary valves that transport consumable goods
or beverages. Connected smart sensors, controllers
and edge gateways capture a more complete picture
of valve health, enabling the system to detect when
valves are worn or nearing the end of their service
3 Fast Facts
u
According
to Wikipedia,
pneumatics is a branch of
engineering that makes
use of gas or pressurized
air. Pneumatic systems
used in industry are
commonly powered
by compressed air or
compressed inert gases.
A centrally located and
electrically-powered
compressor powers
cylinders, air motors,
pneumatic actuators, and
other pneumatic devices.
July/August 2022
|
37
ENGINEERING SOLUTIONS
ENERGY MANAGEMENT
‘
life. If such a valve is detected, the system immediately sends an alert to maintenance personnel, who
schedule planned maintenance.
The ability to predict potential problems before
they occur helps reduce unplanned downtime while
real-time root-cause analysis clearly prescribes the
appropriate action to take. Automated troubleshooting and analytics further reduce maintenance
time, increase equipment availability, improve productivity and, in the case of leaks, save energy.
A low-barrier approach to digital
transformation can focus on one key domain
or challenge — even one machine — then use
lessons learned to scale up.
’
Sustainability goals, optimizing energy
Today’s smart pneumatic devices provide a
more complete picture of pneumatic system performance. This gives facilities a better understanding to effectively control energy use by locating and
diagnosing leaks and optimizing compressor system pressure.
Compressors consume a lot of energy to operate,
and that amount is often more than needed for normal operating conditions. It’s estimated that 20%
to 30% of a typical facility’s energy consumption
goes to producing compressed air. When mid-sized
facilities often spend $2.5 million a year on energy, any reductions in compressed air consumption
can equal substantial savings. The more a facility
can track leaks and balance an operated valve, the
greater control it has over its energy use. Optimizing the compressed air a valve consumes while still
achieving the required cycle time limits the amount
of work the compressor must do and allows it to
only consume the energy it truly needs to do it.
By digitally transforming their pneumatic systems to diagnose leaks and calculate proper pressure ratios, facilities can typically see a reduction in
compressed air consumption and energy costs.
Moving forward
Digital transformation should be an ongoing
process. No matter how much smart technology
a facility has introduced into its production sys-
38
|
July/August 2022
tems, upgrading systems to the latest generation
of digitally enabled pneumatics lays the groundwork for better insight and control of compressed air usage. One way to move forward with
pneumatics transformation is through a workshop with a comprehensive pneumatics solutions
provider that offers proven expertise, sensors and
hardware. Expert solutions providers can work
with a facility to identify issues and prioritize
solutions to implement. Each production system
and facility is different; digital transformation
works best when it’s developed on a case-by-case
basis, working closely with a proven provider.
Some operations may resist or postpone moving forward with digital transformation due to
perceived cost and disruption concerns. The
answer to those concerns is: “start small, scale
fast.” A low-barrier approach to digital transformation can focus on one key domain or challenge — even one machine — then use lessons
learned to scale up. There are technology providers that offer complete, vertically integrated solutions that combine components, sensors
and controllers, as well as analytics packages
designed to enable facilities to benefit from digital transformation at the level that best fits their
unique requirements. For facilities that are farther along, providers offer solutions that combine existing sensor and controller infrastructure
with edge analytics, too.
Digital transformation can rapidly offer significant return on investment through better
information and decision-making. Using a SeeDecide-Act pragmatic approach helps facilities kickstart their journey. The result: real-time
information is collected and converted into useful analytics and insights to guide and improve
predictive maintenance practices and optimize
energy use. PE
Amit Patel is the senior marketing manager for digital transformation within the Fluid Control & Pneumatics business at Emerson. He focuses on driving
the marketing direction and strategic vision for the
Fluid Control & Pneumatics business segment. Amit
earned his Bachelor of Science degree in electrical
engineering from the New Jersey Institute of Technology and holds a Six Sigma Black Belt for Process
Improvement using statistical methodologies.
Plant engineering — www.plantengineering.com
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input #18 at www.plantengineering.com/information
DEWESoft, LLC
10730 Logan Street
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[email protected] | dewesoft.com
+1-855-DEWE-NOW (339-3669)
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5
ENGINEERING SOLUTIONS
EDGE COMPUTING
By Madhu Gaganam, Dell Technologies
Tips to avert the leading
causes of failure in industrial
edge computing
With adoption of industrial edge computing, there are several ways to
support information technology/operational technology (IT/OT) convergence.
A
large chemical manufacturing plant
employs a heterogeneous mix of diverse
assets. The asset diversity includes
functional differences — such as heat
exchangers, distillation columns and centrifuges — as well as asset age (a range 5 to 25+ years of
age) and varying levels of modernization.
For the sake of argument let's say that this week,
customer demand is high, and the chemical plant is
operating at capacity to fulfill orders and meet delivery commitments. On Tuesday, three hours into production, the reboiler on the distillation column fails,
bringing the entire production process to a halt.
It took eight hours to recover from this
unplanned downtime event and restart production.
After that, it took another two hours to recalibrate
the plant’s output to the required quality levels. The
costs to the plant and the business increase quickly: estimated at US $260K per hour. In other words,
those 10 hours of lost production time incurred
$2.6 million in losses.
The big question
Could this unplanned downtime event have
been prevented?
Although hypothetical, this scenario is based on
real-world events. It showcases the critical – and
vulnerable — nature of assets and production processes in chemical manufacturing. No manufacturer – in automotive, mining, pulp and paper, oil and
gas and beyond – is exempt. Unplanned downtime
costs manufacturers an estimated $50 billion per
Plant engineering — www.plantengineering.com
year. A solution to proactively mitigate these industrial losses is vital.
Across manufacturing, edge computing and its
many use cases hold great promise to mitigating a
multitude of production vulnerabilities, including
unplanned downtime. Industrial edge computing
can enable more flexibility, increase cost-effectiveness and boost global competitiveness. Early results
using edge and Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT)
as enablers of Industry 4.0 show impressive results
and hold potential for the future.
The challenge to achieving an effective industrial edge capability lies in the successful convergence
of informational technology (IT) and operational
technology (OT), a concept that is easier said than
done. These two functional areas are grappling with
the heterogeneous environments that are a reality in manufacturing. Industrial environments often
employ multiple technologies from multiple vendors and use a legacy core that may be 5 to 25 years
old. It is imperative to efficiently modernize and
transform storage and computation to realize positive outcomes from edge computing.
As IT professionals and data scientists explore
industrial edge, it is crucial to understand OT perspectives before deploying edge-based solutions.
People play as important a role as the technology
itself.
Five classifiers to IT/OT convergence
Let's look at five relevant principles for harnessing the power of industrial edge computing
3 Fast Facts
u
Historically,
according
to the website Wonder,
tthe following is known
about the installed base
of computers:
u
In 1955,
mainframes
had an installed base of
240 in the United States.
By 1965, the installed
base was 21,600...
u
In 1975,
PCs had
an installed base of
500,000. By 1999, the
installed base of 439
million.
u
In 2015,
smartphones
had an installed base of
2.222 billion.
July/August 2022
|
41
ENGINEERING SOLUTIONS
EDGE COMPUTING
models should encompass situations where there
could be less data, more data, new data, missing
data, protected data, manipulated data, dark data
and synthetic data. This data could vary in degree
of quality and quantity based on a real-time situation and may or may not conform to a given set of
optimal rules that were pre-defined based on past
classifications.
2
2. Recommendations must be easily
THE CONVERGENCE
of information technology and operations
technology enables
new capabilities in process control and production management.
Courtesy: Dell
for bridging the IT-OT gap and expediting IT/OT
convergence, specifically for IT professionals and
data scientists. Understanding these classifiers and
exploring the different perspectives will chart better
collaboration – and thus better outcomes – at the
edge. This collaboration can include edge strategy,
the data fabric for artificial intelligence/machine
learning (AI/ML), infrastructure modernization,
transformation of people, process and technologies, governance, data security and management
of deployed hardware and software solutions. In
essence, these are all the factors needed to set up a
successful edge compute platform.
1
1. Edge-based computing platforms
must be adaptable to uncertainties.
IT perspective. When embarking on a modernization or transformational project related to Industry 4.0, IT professionals and data scientists tend
to leverage existing data, infrastructure and available information as empirical input. Technology
requirements are based on a fixed and known set
of rules and relationships to predict outcomes with
high probability (90+%).
OT perspective. By contrast, the industrial edge
is governed by OT professionals and their realworld production environment. Diverse OT professionals use different rules, relationships and
weightings based on data that may encompass a
specific process or an asset. Thus, OT’s input may
not serve to optimally design and deploy edge computing for an entire factory.
The solution. To bridge this gap, employ a scalable-based approach that is adaptable to the uncertainties of the industrial edge. For example, AI/ML
42
|
July/August 2022
understood by diverse personae.
IT perspective. Inherently, IT professionals and
data scientists do not speak the language of OT
professionals. Therefore, a common, clear, collaborative communication mechanism must be created to ensure any design and deployment of edge
computing solutions are based on consensus and
done with clarity.
OT perspective. Data and information provided by the edge compute platform must be “trustworthy” and “timely” so that it can be used to take
actions that advance production. Actions can pertain to material flow, asset management, people
management, process control, product quality and
productivity. OT’s two primary uses of data are 1)
to monitor current processes and address out-ofspec incidents and occurrences and 2) to evaluate outcomes that guide investment in continuous
improvement.
The solution. It is mission critical to understand how people at the industrial edge interact
with existing OT and enterprise IT systems for the
continuous improvement and on-going optimization of processes and production.
3
3. Heuristic knowledge is essential for
accuracy, simplicity and predictability.
IT perspective. Three information sources help
predict the future status of a “thing”: current data,
historical data within the operational system and
heuristic or experiential knowledge embodied
within the minds of OT professionals. While IT
professionals and data scientists are often familiar
with patterns around data-based sources, it’s likely
they will not be familiar with OT’s capabilities.
OT perspective. OT professionals often possess deep knowledge and expertise based on rich,
real-world experiences. This is known as heuristic knowledge. When that knowledge is shared
Plant engineering — www.plantengineering.com
with data scientists, it helps to identify simpler
and highly effective algorithms for predicting the
future of a thing. Similarly, when shared with IT
professionals, heuristic knowledge can help deploy
cost effective, resilient and scalable infrastructure
to meet the needs of edge computing.
The solution. When designing and deploying
edge computing solutions, experiential knowledge
within the minds of OT professionals must be
integrated into IT evaluations to enable successful
edge deployments.
4
4. Prescriptive recommendations
are an expected outcome at the edge.
IT perspective. Edge platforms and their use
cases employ artificial intelligence and machine
learning (AI/ML) to help enable “prescriptive”
solutions. These solutions address risk or uncertainty in the situation at hand. IT professionals
and data scientists may view prescriptive recommendations as “optimal.” However, they may not
be viewed that same way by OT professionals.
OT perspective. OT professionals consider execution of prescriptive recommendations after
incorporating additional criteria such as resource
availability, trustworthiness of recommendations,
time to execute, situational complexity, sensitivity and specificity. Thus, while prescriptive recommendations are an edge compute requirement,
they will be tempered with other variables based
on the operating environment.
The solution. When working on the data fabric at the industrial edge to prescribe recommendations, both IT professionals and data scientists
should consider: a) The difference between risk
and uncertainty when applying AI/ML models;
and b) those prescriptive recommendations will
not be optimal until additional parameters are factored into them.
5
5. At the industrial edge, transparency
drives increased productivity.
IT perspective. Using data plane and control
plane logic within an edge compute platform
requires a degree of transparency to establish OT’s trust and adoption. AI/ML algorithms
demand mathematical sophistication to achieve
accuracy. In the process of achieving this accuracy, there will be a point of diminishing returns,
Plant engineering — www.plantengineering.com
where complexity growth
will outweigh any expectWhen deploying edge
ed benefits. To build consensus, this sophistication
computing solutions,
should be explainable so
that it can be readily underexperiential knowlstood by OT.
OT perspective. Given
edge within the minds
the advanced, busy environments of real-world
of OT professionals
industrial operations, OT
professionals are visualmust be integrated
ly driven. By incorporating
transparency at the edge, IT
into IT evaluations.
professionals and data scientists can choose to avoid
complex and opaque stochastic models with less diminishing returns and
instead adopt simpler use cases with better value
propositions at the edge.
The solution. IT professionals should consider
each use case and weigh the accuracy “pay-off ”
achieved for increased mathematical complexity. This way, overcomplications can be avoided
or minimized. As a result, transparency — a key
component for OT trust and edge user experiences — can be realized. Additionally, transparency enables IT and OT professionals to make
appropriate and on-going adjustments to rules
governing data ingestion and the inferencing that
governs command and control.
‘
’
Next steps
At the chemical manufacturing plant, the
unplanned downtime event could have been mitigated by using industrial edge computing’s predictive maintenance use case to prevent impending
failure at the lowest possible cost to repair.
Manufacturing has much to gain by leveraging the industrial edge. However, preparing for an
effective edge deployment requires strategic intention to share perspectives and collaborate across
IT and OT. Using the five classifiers outlined for IT
professionals and data scientists should help guide
that collaboration and support successful implementation at the edge. PE
Madhu Gaganam, engineering technologist, smart
manufacturing, Dell Technologies
July/August 2022
|
43
Engineering is personal.
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7/29/2022 9:22:25 PM
E
lectric motors use up
to 45% of the world’s
electricity – the motor you
choose has a great impact
on your energy efficiency.
Did you know that most HVAC
systems operate at 80% load or
less, and they do that more than
99% of the time? Traditionally,
dampers, valves and other
mechanical means are used to
regulate a motor’s power or speed
to operate fans, pumps and
compressors in HVAC systems.
Highly efficient
components
and insulated
bearings provide
a combination of
performance and
protection.
To reduce electricity consumption
and optimize energy efficiency,
operators should ensure variable
frequency drives (VFDs) are integrated into the motor operation, as doing
so can save 20 to 60% in energy
costs. VFDs help match energy
consumption to actual energy
needs, eliminating wasted energy.
Without proper wiring and grounding
techniques, shaft currents induced
by VFDs will find the path of least
resistance, typically through the
motor bearings to the ground. The
damage caused by this electrical
discharge can lead to catastrophic
failures to the motors. However,
there are many ways to mitigate
shaft current issues, including
insulated bearings as well as shaft
grounding devices that direct current
away from the bearings.
While using a VFD to control your
motor has many benefits, it can
also present some challenges.
Modern, high-efficiency motors,
paired with variable speed drives,
are designed to be flexible and
input #19 at www.plantengineering.com/information
reliable. Yet above all, they are
extremely efficient, offering
significant reductions in power
consumption compared with older
systems. Highly efficient motors
do more than reduce electricity
consumption and lifetime cost.
They are also more sustainable
than a motor that needs constant
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help extend the life of the
driven equipment and increase
sustainable operations.
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A
utomationDirect provides
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input #20 at www.plantengineering.com/information
K
eep it simple?
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The first is simplification, making
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Al Hoge
Automation
Application
Engineer
overlays more straightforward,
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Devices available from DEWESoft
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input #21 at www.plantengineering.com/information
D
igi-Key Highlights
Advancements in
Automation and Control in
Three-Part “Factory
Tomorrow” Video Series
Innovations in automation and
control across robotics, sensors,
connectivity, and more, are driving
the digital transformation of
manufacturing, with the end goal of
improving the safety, quality, and
reliability of products, productivity,
and efficiency across industries.
To educate and inspire engineers
around the world, Digi-Key
Electronics developed “Factory
Tomorrow,” a three-part video series
focused on advancements in
automation and control. The series
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Join Digi-Key as we explore how
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In the first episode, we look at the rise
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Digi-Key’s Factory Tomorrow video series highlights advanced automation systems like
those in the company’s newly constructed Product Distribution Center expansion.
reactions to the data generated by
sensors across the factory floor.
Episode 2: The Rise of Robotics
In our second episode, we
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designs collaborate alongside human
workers on the factory floor to create
new, high-quality job opportunities
across the industry.
Episode 3: The Intersection of
AI and IoT
In the final episode of Factory
Tomorrow, we look at how artificial
intelligence applications can unlock
the true potential of IoT and edge
applications across manufacturing.
Find out how real-time analytics,
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[email protected] • 1-800-344-4539
www.digikey.com
input #22 at www.plantengineering.com/information
Y
our solution for
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Designed for convenience
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input #23 at www.plantengineering.com/information
A
rc Flash Safety Training from Eaton Bussmann
Arc Flash Safety Services are
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input #24 at www.plantengineering.com/information
M
oving bulk material?
Understand the
fundamental differences
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Cable Conveyors and
Pneumatic Conveying Systems
Several conveyors can move
your bulk material, but only one
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Flexible Screw Conveyors can
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blends. Economical to purchase and
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removable inner screw is the only
moving part contacting material,
and is driven above the point at
which material exits the conveyor,
eliminating contact with seals.
Tubular Cable Conveyors
gently slide fragile food and nonfood products through smooth
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in low to high capacities using
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to stainless steel cable.
Flexible Screw Conveyors, Pneumatic Conveying Systems
and Tubular Cable Conveyors from Flexicon offer
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These conveyors are available with single or multiple inlets and outlets,
prevent the separation of blends and evacuate material from the tubing
circuit, preventing waste and allowing rapid cleaning.
Dilute-Phase Pneumatic Conveying Systems with single or multiple
inlets and outlets move bulk materials vertically and horizontally in low to
high capacities over short to long distances using pressure or vacuum
generated by a blower. Material enters the system through rotary airlock
valves, pick-up adapters and wands (vacuum systems), and is separated
from the airstream using filter receivers or cyclone separators. Material
exits the system through rotary airlock valves or fill/pass valves, or
discharges directly into process vessels—with no residual.
While these generalizations may help narrow your conveyor choices,
Flexicon recommends running your material in its test laboratories
equipped with full-size conveying systems and upstream/downstream
equipment to simulate your process.
+1 888 353 9426
[email protected]
www.flexicon.com
input #25 at www.plantengineering.com/information
R
edRaven is ready for predictive maintenance. Are you?
In addition to oil and gas applications, recent deployments include aerospace fueling, pulp and paper, municipal water suppliers, and more.
As a plant operator, you already understand the
increasing need to monitor, analyze and predict the
performance of pumps, seals and valves. These
components make up a large part of the collective
lifeblood of your plant’s operations, and RedRaven can
help you run your business at peak levels — as close
to full capacity as possible.
your equipment’s performance — variations that can
indicate a problem is looming. You won’t just receive
data, you’ll also get real insights needed to make
more informed decisions for improving your plant’s
efficiency, productivity and bottom line. RedRaven is
helping a diverse set of operators across the globe
in this way.
RedRaven, Flowserve’s predictive maintenance solution
for pumps, seals and valves, is a connected platform
of smart products, software and services including:
• Condition monitoring, enabling you to capture
asset performance data for analysis
• Predictive analytics, applying data analysis
software and algorithms to help you diagnose
equipment problems
Most Flowserve fluid motion and control equipment
is RedRaven Ready — designed and built to accept
RedRaven wired or wireless sensors, using cloud
architecture for condition monitoring and predictive
analytics services. RedRaven Ready equipment
securely connects to an IoT platform that includes
hazardous area-certified equipment sensors, secure
communication, performance analytics and trend
reporting tools — all tailored to your plant’s
unique needs.
With access to advanced analytics and trend data,
you can often detect even the slightest changes in
For more information on RedRaven,
contact your Flowserve representative or
visit www.flowserve.com/redraven
input #26 at www.plantengineering.com/information
L
eading the Charge
toward Electrification
on the Plant Floor: Green
Cubes Technology Offers
Clean, Connected & CostEffective Power Solutions
Lithium SAFEFlex is a
comprehensive battery
solution designed to meet
the cost, performance,
durability, and safety required
in plant environments.
Green Cubes Technology is leading
the transition to modern electrification
on the plant floor, providing the most
advanced Lithium-Ion batteries and
chargers to enable Motive Power to all
electric Material Handling Equipment
(MHE) classes 1-3.
Since its inception 35 years ago, Green Cubes has
gained considerable experience minimizing the
environmental impact of its deployed batteries. This
positive impact will be amplified with a system of
second life batteries, where the installed base of first
use batteries is redeployed when they reach a certain
age limit. The Lithium-ion cells used in Green Cubes
batteries are non-toxic and are currently recycled and
reprocessed at their end of life. Going forward, these
cells can be repurposed into less demanding second
life applications such as backup energy storage.
Green Cubes offers SAFEFlex, comprehensive Material
Handling battery and charging solutions designed to
meet the cost, performance, efficiency and durability
requirements of the rugged warehouse environment.
It includes application-specific cell chemistry and
intelligent battery management electronics. FBP-1000
series 24V Lithium SafeFlex Material Handling battery
systems are high cycle life maintenance free solutions
for industrial vehicles with fully customizable features
to fulfill the most demanding requirements. The drop
in replacement batteries make upgrading from Lead
Acid to Lithium simple. The batteries are sized to fit the
standard motive power lead acid battery, along with
meeting the truck battery weight requirements.
To learn more, visit our Resources page, use our
ROI Calculator or request a quote today!
502-416-1060 • info@ greencubes.com • www.greencubes.com
input #27 at www.plantengineering.com/information
W
hy are visitor management systems important
to the manufacturing industry?
A visitor management system (VMS) is a
software that monitors every contractor, vendor,
or delivery person who visits your facility. A
VMS kiosk in the lobby automates the steps
each visitor must take upon entering a facility
to receive the precise amount of information
needed in a comprehensive orientation.
Manufacturers are unique in that every visitor
to a facility requires some semblance of
visitor orientation to inform them of the safety
guidelines and present dangers for that
particular facility. The safety briefing that a
visitor needs to receive, as well as
documentation of completion, can be difficult
for a staff member to effectively convey
repeatedly. VMS automates the orientation
process by serving videos, forms, documents
or quizzes, relevant to the reason for their visit.
The VMS maintains a permanent log of all visitor
information presented and collected, including
time stamped documents and full visit details.
Automating this process allows members of
Powered by
your staff to focus on other tasks while
having access to visitor records that are
securely stored through the software.
A VMS is beneficial for increasing employee
productivity, enhancing compliance and safety,
reducing legality and audit risks, eliminating
human error and paperwork, all while
streamlining efficiency for the visitor.
Can you say with 100% certainty that everyone
who enters your facility has filled out all the
correct paperwork, is properly identified with
an ID badge prior and that you know exactly
who is in your facility at any given time? Can
you notify every person in your facility in the
event of an emergency? Learn more about
how a visitor management system can benefit
your facility.
Try LobbyFox with a 90 day FREE trial, ZERO
obligation. Full access to all features and free
hardware included.
1-855-622-9369 • [email protected]
www.lobbyfox.io
input #28 at www.plantengineering.com/information
I
nformation on Industrial
lubricants for your
plant operations at…
www.lubriplate.com... FREE
Log on to our website and find all the
information you need about industrial
lubricants. From mineral based greases
and oils to the latest high grade synthetic
fluids, the data is compiled in our
Lubriplate Lubrication Data Book that
you can download at no cost to you.
Also available in digital format are
important specification and product
information sheets on H1 Food Machinery
Lubricants, Environmental Lubricants
and more.
Complete data on drop points, cold
tests, viscosity indexes, ISO grades,
AGMA numbers, etc. is included. There is
lubricant information available regarding
compressor fluids, hydraulic fluids,
If you have a specific question you
bearing lubricants, power transmission
may also talk with a lubricant
fluids, specialty lubricants, high grade
representative at 1-800 733-4755 or
greases and more.
e-mail [email protected]
LUBRIPLATE LUBRICANTS CO.
Newark, New Jersey 07105
Toledo, Ohio 43605
input #29 at www.plantengineering.com/information
H
ow to Keep Your
Engineering Staff
Current and Impactful
Engineers fill a crucial need to keep
manufacturing operations running as
efficiently and profitably as possible.
Engineering departments are tasked
with identifying problems, designing
problem-solving equipment, overseeing the installation and optimizing
the result. All these areas require
specific skillsets that can gradually
become outdated, and the last thing
any competitive organization needs
are employees without proper skills.
Fortunately, there are easy
opportunities to keep your
engineering staff current with the
latest trends and solutions:
1. Develop a mentoring program
that matches seasoned engineers
with recent college graduates. The
technical learning from school is
best combined with the “school
of hard knocks.” Having an
experienced engineer share
experiences and guide earlycareer employees will accelerate
the latter’s development, making
them more productive. In return,
It is important
to provide learning
and development
opportunities
to your engineers.
the seasoned veteran will hear a
new perspective from someone
fresh out of school who might
spark new ideas through the
reverse mentoring process.
Ultimately, the mentee, the mentor
and the company win by sharing
different views and experiences.
2. Seek learning and development
opportunities from your supplier
partners or equipment manufacturers. Many suppliers offer
technical training on specific
products and processes, plus
custom modules based on
customer needs. While some of
these classes are open to anyone
willing to attend, in many cases,
you can arrange a class limited
to your employees to discuss
specifics relevant to your
typical application(s). If you
attend a class open to engineers
from other companies, be sure
to develop relationships with
them and share best practices.
Continuous Learning is Key
It is important to regularly provide
learning and development
opportunities to your engineers.
Maintaining and enhancing skills
throughout a career is easier than
waiting until a critical need arises.
For more information, visit www.Motion.com/plantengineering and MotionIndustries.com/learning-development.
This article was written by Billy Hamilton, Senior Vice President of Human Resources for Motion. He has over 30 years of experience in human resources
with companies such as Overhead Door Corporation and Lockheed Martin. He is passionate about talent management and data analytics.
input #30 at www.plantengineering.com/information
T
he New York Blower Company – Using
Technology to Better Serve our Customers
The New York Blower
Company is the industry
expert with over 130 years’
experience specifying,
designing and manufacturing
industrial fans. Technology has
changed a lot over the years,
and nyb focuses on using the
latest advancements to
better educate and support
their customers.
Fan to Size - This online
selection program was
designed with the user in mind.
Fans can be selected by product
line, application, or fan type. Once
selected, drawings can be easily
downloaded or sent to others
to review.
Drawings on Demand - Retrieving
drawings for a fan has never been
easier. Included are the abilities to
select the fan’s rotation, discharge
position, accessories, motor frame
size and u-base. Once selected, a
complete drawing package is
available to print, save, or view.
Ordering Replacement Parts Replacement parts can be ordered
online, by phone, or via email. The
shop number will need to be
referenced in order to buy
components, included but not
limited to wheels, bearings, motors,
housings, and more.
Mobile App - Version 2.0 of the app
is available for free in both Apple
and Google Play stores. In the app,
users can access a simplified version of the fan selection program,
convert units from imperial to metric,
and access their fan documentation
using a file number. There is also a
fan law calculator and the ability to
bookmark fans for future use.
benefits including reduced operating
costs, improved fan efficiency, and
minimized power usage.
Educational Webinars - Earn PDH
credit while learning about fan
basics through introductory
and intermediary level courses.
Each hour long webinar reviews
fundamentals, terminology,
equations and applications.
Learn more about these programs
and services on New York Blower’s
website: www.nyb.com
Fan Sensor Systems - Remote
monitoring devices can have many
[email protected]
Toll-free: 800.208.7918
www.nyb.com
input #31 at www.plantengineering.com/information
O
’Keeffe’s Offers
Free Online and
On-Demand CEU on
Standard and Custom
Commercial Ladders
O’Keeffe’s Inc., manufacturer
of the most specified aluminum
ladder in the USA, is pleased to
offer CEU credits for its program
“Standard and Custom Fixed Commercial Aluminum Ladder Design.”
This free educational program is
available online and on demand
from the O’Keeffe’s website,
okeeffes.com/continuing-education.
This course explains the methods
and advantages of using aluminum
for ladders, the many ways ladders
can be configured to create the
safest and most comfortable usage,
the various optional accessories
available, and the codes and
standards that govern and inform their design. After taking this course,
participants will be able to:
• Select of design a fixed commercial aluminum ladder to address
every access requirement
• Specify the design of rungs, rails, safety enclosures, platforms, fall
protection systems, and other options to create the safest and most
usable ladder that will comply with current codes and standards (OSHA,
ANSI, etc.)
• Recall the advantages of aluminum when choosing ladder materials
• Discover the importance of multi-functional fire resistive glazing products
providing additional performance features such as hurricane, blast,
ballistic, forced entry and more. Case studies will be highlighted
• Design custom ladders such as stairs, platforms, crossovers, etc. using
lessons from various project examples
After successfully completing this course, participants are eligible to
receive the following credits:
• 1 AIA LU/HSW
• 1 ACIA RCI CEU
• 0.10 ICC
• 1 AIC CPD Hour
• 1 AIBD CE Hour
• 1 FBPE PDH
• And much
more!
You can also visit the Resources section of okeeffes.com to check out our
articles, videos and BIM Library.
If you need assistance with any current or upcoming
project, don’t hesitate to reach out to our ladder experts
at 888.653.3333 or email us at [email protected].
input #32 at www.plantengineering.com/information
S
ensata Delivers Plant-Wide IoT
Asset Monitoring with Sensata IQ
Sensata’s Predictive Maintenance Solution Drives Value - Sensata IQ
delivers the most cost effective, easy-to-install asset monitoring
solution that enables factory managers and maintenance engineers to
drive predictive maintenance programs and intuitively monitor their
assets from anywhere.
Other industry solutions have been plagued with issues with connectivity, installation, and data interpretation, leaving many companies stuck
monitoring equipment with manual walkarounds – or not at all.
With Sensata IQ, plant managers get reliable and easy-to understand
alerts before equipment assets fail, reducing unplanned downtime and
optimizing their maintenance strategies to minimize labor and
parts expenses.
Multi-Modal Sensors Deliver Reliable Insights - Sensata leverages
its decades of sensor experience to deliver a wide range of multimodal sensors to deliver reliable, actionable insights about companies’
machine assets.
To identify machine anomalies within rotary equipment, such as motors, pumps, blowers, fans, or compressors, the
wireless 6VW series IoT sensor uses AI to simultaneously monitor each asset using six sensing modalities — vibration,
temperature, acoustic emission, speed, humidity, and magnetic flux.
The sensors are designed for easy retrofit onto a wide range of assets regardless of brand or manufacturer with no
changes to the company’s hardware or control platforms. The 6VW sensor series is an easy-to-use, self-install solution
with a mobile app for device configuration, making setup possible in less than five minutes. Sensata also offers several
other connected IIoT sensors to help monitor temperature, pressure, electrical current, and more.
Built for Flexible Deployment - The Sensata IQ platform is built for the flexible IT infrastructure of today’s factory
settings, with reliable connectivity that runs in parallel to the control architecture for simple deployment.
Customizable dashboards deliver reliable insights directly to the plant
floor, and the platform also comes with an Open API allowing
companies to pull their predictive maintenance insights into other
business platforms as they choose.
1 855 SENSATA • [email protected] • www.sensata.com/iq
input #33 at www.plantengineering.com/information
W
ant to learn about
engineering topics
pertaining to gearmotors?
We have the information
at your fingertips!
Tired of looking up multiple
sources for answers to common
engineering questions about gear
units or gearmotors? We have
the solution.
SEW-EURODRIVE’s online
Technical Notes can be a real
life-saver when you need answers.
Technical Notes provide quick
access to many engineering
topics such as how to properly
mount a torque arm, how to
determine and design for inertia,
or how to properly design your
machine to use a hollow shaft
gear unit.
Need answers on how the speed,
mounting position, environment,
and duty cycle can affect the
thermal rating of a gear unit and
how to protect against too much
heat? That’s one of many in-depth
documents you can find by
visiting www.seweurodrive.com
and clicking Technical Notes.
Whitepaper
Our technical white paper, Maximizing Gearmotor Speed Range shows
you how to operate VFDs above 60Hz to widen speed range, improve
stability and reduce cost.
In this white paper, you’ll learn why it can be a good idea to operate
gearmotors above 60Hz. Through a common example, we will show
you how to select the proper gearmotor that will significantly enhance
performance in the following ways:
• Increase stability by reducing inertia mismatch
• Widen the available speed range
• Eliminate a costly ventilator fan at low speed
• Eliminate motor overheating at low speed
• Enable the use of a smaller motor
Visit www.sewwhitepapers.com/vfd to download the PDF.
[email protected]
864-439-7537
www.seweurodrive.com
input #34 at www.plantengineering.com/information
T
he Bulk Bag Filler
Customization Guide
A step-by-step guide
to selecting bulk bag
filler components
Not all FIBC Flexible Intermediate
Bulk Container bulk bag fillers are
created equal. Spiroflow Systems
has released a complete bulk bag
filler customization guide to educate
engineers on the key variations and
customizations available in today’s
bulk bag filling market. Included in
this guide are control systems
integration options for maintaining
filling accuracy while achieving
maximum fill rates.
From standalone, simple frame
designs to high volume semiautomated filling systems with
densifying vibration tables, bulk
bag filling systems can be custom
built to meet a wide range of
budget and filling requirements in
the material processing setup.
Semi-automated bulk bag filling
solutions with integrated controls
can recover revenues up to 25%
via savings on shipping costs,
storage, and operator costs.
The guide includes the following steps to choosing a bulk bag
filling configuration:
1) Narrow Your Selection to a Simple Frame or Sophisticated System:
First, choose between a bulk bag filler frame or station.
2) Define Bulk Bag Filling Requirements: Before starting to specify filler
type, options, and customizations, consider the material, process needs,
and bag requirements.
3) Select Bulk Bag Filling Station Components: Based on your requirements definition, start to select the components of your BBF station.
4) Customize Bulk Bag Filling Station with Additional Options: Additional
options such as static grounding and control systems integration may
be needed for your application.
5) Test, Test, Test: Before purchasing bulk bag filling equipment,
it is recommended to first run the material on the equipment in a
manufacturer’s test lab.
Spiroflow Systems Inc. launched the Bulk Bag Filler Customization Guide
to educate plant operators and engineers on the features that are available
when choosing a bulk bag filling system. To download the full guide, scan
the QR code.
[email protected] • 704-215-4624
spiroflow.com
input #35 at www.plantengineering.com/information
Actuated Valve Training Program – Making Valve Automation Easy!
A BIG part of “Making Valve Automation
Easy” is providing our customers with
easy-to-understand training materials.
The Assured Automation Actuated
Valve Training Center is intended to do
just that. Here you will find a complete
training course that covers major topics
included in valve automation.
This course is broken into easily
digestible “lessons” starting with basic
overviews and moving to more detailed
lessons on each topic.
ce202208_EDengHLF_assuredAuto.indd 1
A short quiz and downloadable
course materials are offered at the
end of each lesson. Customers and
educators have used the course as
training materials for new employees
and students.
We hope you enjoy the academy.
More importantly, we hope you learn
everything you need to know about
automated valves.
[email protected]
800-899-0553
https://assuredautomation.com/actuated-valve-training/
input #36 at www.plantengineering.com/information
7/6/2022 3:05:35 PM
The Tekleen Automatic Backwash Filter
The ABW series features automatic, self cleaning screen type water filters.
The filtration system consists of a filter body with a first stage coarse screen
and a second stage fine screen, flushing valve, and an electronic controller.
Pressurized water enters the filter inlet and travels through a perforated stainless
steel coarse screen where large particles are pre-filtered. The water then passes
through a fine mesh screen where small contaminants are filtered out. The clean
water then exits through the outlet of the filter.
When the fine screen becomes contaminated, a pressure differential is sensed
causing the automatic controller to open the flush valve. When the flush valve
opens, an atmospheric pressure path is established, causing the clean water to
reverse flow at the point of suction across the filter element. This removes
contaminants from the screen, sending dirty water through the nozzles and dirt
collector mechanism and out the flush valve. The water passing through the hydraulic motor creates an axial rotation of the dirt
collector. This movement, combined with linear advancement, allows the dirt collector to vacuum the entire screen element. The
cleaning cycle takes approximately 4-12 seconds. Even during the flush cycle, the filtration process continues uninterrupted.
310-839-2828 • info@ tekleen.com • www.tekleen.com
ce202208_EDUengHLF_tekleen_MOCK.indd 1
input #37 at www.plantengineering.com/information
7/28/2022 11:05:38 AM
Publication Sales
Publisher/Midwest
Matt Waddell
3010 Highland Parkway, Suite #325
Downers Grove, IL 60515
Account Manager
Robert Levinger
®
COMPANY
Advertisers' Index
PAGE#
RSN
WEB
ABB Motors US . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . C-4 . . . . . . . . .39 . . . . . . . . www .abb .com/motors&generators
Atlas Copco Compressors . . . . . . . 10, 11 . . . . . . . . 7 . . . . . . . . www .atlascopco .us
AutomationDirect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . C-2 . . . . . . . . . 1 . . . . . . . . www .automationdirect .com
Bussmann by Eaton . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 . . . . . . . . . . 8 . . . . . . . . www .Eaton .com/bussmannseries/arcfl ash .
Caterpillar - Northeast . . . . . . . . . . 26 . . . . . . . . . .13 . . . . . . . . www .necatdealers .com/standby
DEWESoft . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39 . . . . . . . . . .18 . . . . . . . . www .dewesoft .com
Dodge Industrial . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 . . . . . . . . . . . 4 . . . . . . . . www .dodgeindustrial .com
Exair Corp . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 . . . . . . . . . . . 2 . . . . . . . . www .exair .com
Flexicon Corp . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 . . . . . . . . . . . 5 . . . . . . . . www .flexicon .com
FLOWSERVE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25 . . . . . . . . . .12 . . . . . . . . www .flowserve .com/iot
HELWIG CARBON
PRODUCTS, INC . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 . . . . . . . . . . . 6 . . . . . . . . www .helwigcarbon .com
Lubriplate Lubricants Co . . . . . . . . 20 . . . . . . . . . . 11 . . . . . . . . www .lubriplate .com
MOTION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 . . . . . . . . . . 9 . . . . . . . . www .Motion .com
O'Keeffe's Inc . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34 . . . . . . . . . .17 . . . . . . . . www .okeeffes .com
SEW-EURODRIVE, Inc . . . . . . . . . . . 2 . . . . . . . . . . . 3 . . . . . . . . www .seweurodrive .com
Spiroflow . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 . . . . . . . . . . 10 . . . . . . . . www .spiroflow .com
TEKLEEN Automatic Filters Inc . . . . 29 . . . . . . . . . . 14 . . . . . . . . www .tekleen .com
THE NEW YORK
BLOWER COMPANY . . . . . . . . . . . . 30 . . . . . . . . . .15 . . . . . . . . www .nyb .com
Workbenchmarket . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33 . . . . . . . . . .16 . . . . . . . . www .workbenchmarket .com
Yaskawa America, Inc . . . . . . . . . . . C-3 . . . . . . . . .38 . . . . . . . . www .yaskawa .com
REQUEST MORE INFORMATION about products and advertisers in this issue by using the
www.csemag.com/information link and reader service number located near each item. If you’re
reading the digital edition, the link will be live. When you contact a company directly, please let
them know you read about them in Consulting-Specifying Engineer.
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847-452-1191
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Jim Langhenry, Co-Founder and Publisher, CFE Media
[email protected]
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[email protected]
Paul Brouch, Director of Operations
630-571-4070 x2208, [email protected]
Rick Ellis, Audience Management Director
303-246-1250, [email protected]
Michael Smith, Creative Director
630-779-8910, [email protected]
Michael Rotz, Print Production Manager
717-766-0211 x4207, Fax 717-506-7238
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Infogroup Targeting Solutions
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402-836-6274, [email protected]
Letters to the Editor: Please e-mail your letters to
[email protected]
Letters should include name, company, and
address, and may be edited for space and clarity.
Input #104 at www.plantengineering.com/information
Information: For a Media Kit or Editorial Calendar,
go to www.csemag.com/connect/advertising
Marketing consultants: See ad index.
Custom reprints, electronic:
Paul Brouch, [email protected]
and
Technology
TM
Input #103 at www.plantengineering.com/information
64
|
July/August 2022
Plant engineering — www.plantengineering.com
PUMP UP
PRODUCTIVITY
F P 60 5 I N D U S T R I A L FA N & P U M P AC D R I V E
ives
PFP605 dr
M A K E T H E C O M P L I C AT E D S I M P L E
You will get pumped up when you take a look at Yaskawa’s
FP605 industrial fan & pump drive.
The FP605 is a versatile drive that saves time and resources
on installation and programming, while maximizing
efficiency for peak energy savings and the return on your
investment.
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Enclosure options: IP20/UL Type 1 or IP55/UL Type 12
Narrow footprint for side-by-side mounting
Induction, PM and synchronous reluctance motor control
Supports all major industrial network communications
Pump control features that maximize drive and pump life
Mobile-friendly setup with optional Bluetooth keypad
Programmable without main power supply connected
IP20/UL
Type 1
Need to optimize your industrial fan and pump operations?
Call Yaskawa today at 1-800-927-5292.
IP55/UL
Type 12
IP55/UL
Type 12
w/Switch
IP55/UL
Type 12
Backside
Flange
For more information, visit:
https://www.yaskawa.com/fp605
Yaskawa America, Inc. 1-800-YASKAWA
Email: [email protected] | yaskawa.com
input #38 at www.plantengineering.com/information
—
ABB Ability™ Smart Sensor
motors that let you know when
it’s time for a service.
ABB’s new condition monitoring solution revolutionizes maintenance for low voltage
motors. ABB Ability™ Smart Sensor monitors key parameters and sends the data
to a secure server for analysis. Users can access detailed status reports from their
smartphone or PC. The solution enables proper maintenance planning for longer
motor lifetimes, lower energy consumption and big reductions in downtime.
www.abb.com/motors&generators
input #39 at www.plantengineering.com/information
ABB_Plant_Eng_BAL ABB Smart Sensor ad .indd 1
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