It’s a different world from the one most of our colleagues entered and in which some are looking to retire. Technology is playing an increasingly significant role in giving all industries the tools to do their jobs more efficiently, more effectively and with a smaller margin of error.

Communication is important in all industries, and in days past, refiners and their providers depended on spreadsheets and phones and person-to-person communication to review what all the paperwork meant and how it translated to plant operations. And what to do in a crisis — when hurricanes are barreling down, or floods are infringing on facilities or a hard freeze is under way? There’s no time to haul spreadsheets from office to office, and having a large meeting where everyone has them sprawled on the conference table just makes it messy and even more complicated. And, as we all know, time is money, so this kind of archaic methodology is particularly inefficient because it slows productivity and thus reduces potential revenue.

Plant Automation & Decision Support: Real-time Value Chain Management and Optimization is important, and thus was a topic discussed yesterday afternoon at the National Petrochemical and Refiners Association Q&A Technology Forum in Orlando, Florida. I must express my apologies and insert a disclaimer here that I tried several times to post this yesterday, but ironically, I was having technological challenges, which appear to have been amended this morning. Technology, like everything else isn’t perfect — it’s great when it works, but when it doesn’t, we often find ourselves scrambling to remember what it was like before such advancements and improvising on the fly.

Speakers during yesterday’s session emphasized across the board the importance of planning and scheduling, which are operations basics. If you don’t know where a delivery is, when it’s supposed to come in, how you’re going to store it and what resources you need, what are you going to do when the material shows up on a dock or at a facility unexpected?

Robert Hutchings with M3 Technology laid out the challenges as he sees them — aging workforce, new processes and the inability for mistakes, among them. “We are faced with new challenges, and innovative systems are required,” he said. People who developed codes 10 to 15 years ago for state of the art technology, for instance, are retired or will be soon. “Consequently, refiners are searching for or developing new solutions,” Hutchings said.

Stan DeVries with Invensys Process Systems suggested ways to address the challenges. “Reflect the strategy in the models, expand business processes to exploit fact-based analysis and establish the right data structure (not more data). Use these three as enablers for culture change (remember the people challenge),” he said.

Pete Sharpe with Emerson Process Management discussed specific tools to help refiners, including those for terminal planning, order preparation, execution and product accounting. “We’re going to try to prevent, ‘oh-oh, I didn’t mean to do that,’” he said.

Dean Trierwiler with Haverly Systems Inc. discussed a project in which his company assisted Suncor Energy in developing a project program, named Cornerstone, to help increase communications and provide trusted information, which was another problem of previous interactions when verifying information from person to person, “no one trusted anyone,” the speakers said.

Cornerstone’s mission statement is: “We will build a strong foundation to achieve Suncor’s sustainable growth strategy by putting the right information in the hands of the right people at the right time to maxinize business performance. This will be accomplished through efficient, effective integrated processes and supporting technology.” The project is still ongoing between the two companies, but Trierwiler, with Suncor’s support, presented the information completely from his perspective.

Trierwiler noted improved operations after the project had been implemented (while emphasizing it is still a work in progress). “Since Cornerstone has been implemented at Suncor –- and this is an ongoing process — there has definitely been some improvement in their decision-making,” he said. “But with some of these goals, as people get used to new technologies and new way of doing things, much of these improvements will come about.”

Before the project’s implementation, Trierwiler noted, information was being “manhandled through many manual processes, time was spent trying to figure out how things worked, much double-checking was needed and decision-making was slow,” just to name a few. Afterward, “lower costs have led to increased profitability and productivity, asset utilization has improved, supply chains are reaching optimum conditions and projects are better managed, reducing overall costs,” again, just to name a few.

In summary, Sharpe noted in a presentation slide, “terminal operations can affect the entire hydrocarbon supply chain and disruptions are expensive; terminals are where products (and money) change hands; measurements, automation and control are important, but only part of the equation; terminal automation projects integrate business processes from sales orders to customer invoices; and automation has big benefits, particularly in over-stressed infrastructures.”

So let’s ‘talk’ to one another more, let’s communicate better, let’s share information and let’s collaborate — at the end of the day, having more efficient, effective and reduced error margins helps make our jobs, business and industry run more smoothly and cost-effectively. In addition, the time saved spinning wheels on cumbersome processes should allow us to enjoy a bit more free time; and who couldn’t use some of that?

This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 8th, 2008 at 11:54 am and is filed under Out and About, Refining. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.