Whats happening in Process?
What are the hot topics in Process Engineering?
by Patrick Raleigh, Editor, Process Engineering
For this issue, the guys at ERIKS asked me to comment on the current big happenings in the process engineering sector. There were many developments to choose from - including some interesting energy-saving, process safety and lean management trends highlighted at the recent Maintec show.
For my money, though, the next šbig thing' could actually fit in your pocket: having swept all before it in consumer and business markets, the smartphone looks set to become an indispensable part of the process engineer's tool kit. Smartphone applications (apps) are likely to be widely adopted by engineers in operations, production, supervision and maintenance roles. The attraction is the ability to access data and respond to it quickly from anywhere and at any time, and so improve their decision-making and running of plants.
For example, on a recent visit to a foundry operation, the maintenance manager's resources there were thinly stretched by work on the startup of a new overseas facility. Help was at hand, though, as a new CMMS would soon enable his team remotely to monitor and even control machines at plants around the world, including via mobile phone.
Vendors are clearly alert to the potential as evidenced, for instance, recently by Invensys with its SmartGlance mobile dashboards launch. This is said to allow managers, engineers and operators to use touchscreen features on iPads, iPhones or Blackberrys to access reports quickly on the performance of processes and equipment. Likewise, companies such as ERIKS are using similar technology to provide web-enabled condition monitoring services to their customers, with online access, remote alarms and diagnostic facilities. Indeed, ERIKS has installed just such a system at its Revolvo bearing manufacturing plant in Dudley in the Midlands, using IFM Octavis VSE100 with Hansford Sensors' accelerometers, through an ERIKS-built converter. Working with Graphite Energy, ERIKS has created Machine WebWatch as a customisable dashboard, with direct access to machine systems for ERIKS' condition monitoring technicians, via a secure VPN connection.
Other products are industry-specific, as is the case with another US player Heat and Control's ITM (Information That Matters) mobile app. This is billed as an information notification and management platform to improve OEE in food processing plants.
This new technology also enables engineers to work safely outside hazardous areas. There's a feature elsewhere in this issue of Know+How on ATEX approved products. The currently available offerings are clearly just the tip of what is likely to become a very large iceberg in this emerging, perhaps even exciting, area of remote monitoring technology. Whether the UK's process engineering community sinks or swims with it will depend on the level of senior management buy-in to the concept, not least in terms of IT security, flexible working and, of course, payback on investment.