ConocoPhillips Makes Wireless Look Easy
The progression of wireless networking from accepted to mainstream to even routine is probably nowhere more evident than at ConocoPhillips’ Sweeny refinery in Old Ocean, Texas. The 8,000-acre facility has used a variety of wireless technologies since the 1980s, but recently reorganized and standardized on Honeywell Process Solutions’ (HPS) OneWireless platform.

Alan Autenrieth, control systems team leader, and his colleagues at ConocoPhillips showed how Sweeny has implemented HPS tools over the past three years during his presentation, “Wireless’eering”: Enabling Your Future with OneWireless,” this week to the 2008 Honeywell Users Group (HUG) meeting in Phoenix.

Autenrieth emphasized that wireless—like any networking method—is only useful if it successfully serves the needs of the application where it’s deployed. These basic needs include security management and diagnostics, fault tolerance, OPC and ISA compliance, bandwidth flexibility and the ability to work with a portfolio of sensing devices and to share data across multiple systems.

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“Invest once and capitalize.” ConocoPhillips’ Alan Autenrieth shared lessons learned in his company’s transition from multiple, incompatible wireless networks to Honeywell’s OneWireless offering.

The Sands of Time: An Alarm Management Life Cycle
“I’ve been to the promised land twice,” Nick Sands of DuPont, co-chair of the ISA18 Alarm Management Standard committee, proclaimed in his talk today at the Honeywell User Group Symposium going on this week in Phoenix. “Fifteen years ago, I worked at a plant where, with a much older generation DCS than we have now, we were able to get to the point where there were no alarms for days on end. I’ve been there again, and the new plant I’m working on will go there too.”

The promised land is the land of rational alarm management. Like most process engineers, Sands did not get there easily. “Once upon a time, there was a young engineer who happened on an exceedingly well-done alarm management situation. There was a process unit that used concentrated nitric acid. If there was a leak, trenches led the acid to a sump, where a pH analyzer was installed. At low pH, an alarm caused the operator to go look for the leak. A young engineer came along and put a pH control system in on the sump. The pipe leaked, but the alarm never went off because the young engineer had forgotten all about the alarm.”

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“The alarm system is a key indicator of operational excellence.” DuPont’s Nick Sands discussed the importance of a comprehensive, life-cycle approach to alarm management.

Honeywell Automation Helps Resurrect Wisconsin Paper Mill
Shuttered in 2005 due to outdated equipment, rising energy costs and expensive sulfite processes, Flambeau River Papers' Park Falls, Wis., mill has a new lease on life due in part to new Honeywell systems that are helping to boost quality, reduce energy consumption and improve efficiency.

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I-MAC Approach Pays Off for Freeport LNG
Honeywell Process Solutions’ expanded concept of the “main automation contractor” (MAC) to include “integrated” (I-MAC) entails an increased scope of supplier responsibility—both in terms of project execution and in terms of life-cycle support commitment.

For Freeport LNG, Freeport, Texas, its I-MAC relationship with Honeywell has been critical to ensuring that the first new liquid natural gas regasification terminal built in the U.S in the past 25 years was ready for operations and for business when the project was completed recently. “Our requirements went far beyond traditional MAC,” said Freeport LNG’s Eric Rojas, in his keynote address to the Honeywell User Group gathering this week in Phoenix. “While the LNG regasification process looks quite simple, the business needs are actually quite complex. We needed an automation supplier that would have us ready on day one and then support us throughout the entire plant life cycle,” Rojas said.

The company faced a shortfall in skilled resources and needed to “leverage relationships with suppliers that had broad capabilities and qualified resources,” Rojas said. Indeed, Freeport LNG’s vision in May 2006 was to have one contractor take full responsibility for automation and integration, starting with level-one instrumentation all the way through level-five ERP.

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“We needed an automation supplier that would have us ready on day one and then support us throughout the entire plant life cycle.” Freeport LNG’s Eric Rojas discussed how Honeywell’s I-MAC methodology helped the company minimize operational and business readiness risks.

Honeywell Voice of the Customer Process Goes Virtual

Honeywell's Peggy Hewitt talks with Control's Walt Boyes about www.letstalkprocesscontrol.com, Honeywell's new extension of its voice of the customer into the digital realm. This isn't replacing the Customer Advisory Boards, but extending and amplifying them. Peggy Hewitt explains in this seven minute podcast.

Shell Organizes Operations by Deploying OMPro in 20 Plants
Sometimes efficiency just means getting your ducks in a row and your operators, work practices and plants on the same page.

To achieve this simple, but often difficult goal, Shell’s downstream businesses spent the past year deploying Honeywell Process Solutions’ (HPS) Operations Management Pro (OMPro) software at 15 refineries to better manage alarms, communications and all of the data they generate. In fact, Shell is installing OMPro at five more plants right now and will implement it at 10 more facilities in the coming year.

Alex Mesman, global deployment manager for OMPro in Shell’s downstream business, reported on his firm’s recent efforts in his “Successful Deployment of OMPro R300” presentation to the Honeywell Users Group meeting this week in Phoenix.

OMPro’s major components include Advanced Alarm Management (AAM), Alarm Configuration Manager (ACM) and User Alert (UA). Its main communications capabilities include Operating Instructions (OI), Operations Monitoring (OM) and Operations Logbook (OL). To help users organize their data, for example, ACM includes a read-only web browser that lets them view multiple variables.

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“We make sure data are available at all levels, which aids cooperation and sharing.” Alex Mesman of Shell’s downstream business explained the company’s ambitious efforts to unify and share operations management metrics across its refineries.