invensys protocol magazine – "the human differentiator – beyond technology"
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Invensys Protocol Magazine - Issue 14, March/April 2013. If you think of all the technologies and their benefits that surround us today, we humans can be very proud of our achievements. On the other hand, while computers may crash or industrial accidents maim and kill, to really screw things up takes a human (viz.the global financial meltdown, seven billion people, global warming and two world wars to name a few). At the technology level, we mostly tend to work with logical, finite devices and processes which, although they might be complex, are still our creations and if something goes wrong, the fix isn’t far behind. When dealing with humans, however, the tendency when something goes wrong is to blame someone else or walk away because fixing humans has little to do with logic and isn’t something we’re very good at doing. Industrial automation works because it is based on rules, logic and procedures which are followed to the letter by ... machines.TRANSCRIPT
March/April 2013 | 1
MARCH/APRIL 2013
EVENTS | TECH TIPS | TRAINING | SUPPORT
The human differentiator
Beyond technology
The high-performance HMITrade in those ambiguous and fl ashy displays for productive ones
Human-level process controlConfi dence in dealing with the unexpected
Process simulationThe key to effective training
From labour worker to performance manager – things are changing
MES and the human factorEffective decisions or biased opinions?
2 | www.protocolmag.co.za
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March/April 2013 | 1
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www.protocolmag.co.za
Protocol MagazineOwner and Publisher: Invensys Operations Management Southern Africa
Marketing Manager: Jaco Markwat [email protected]
Editor: Denis du Buisson, GMT [email protected]
Advertising Sales: Heather Simpkins, The Marketing [email protected]
Distribution:Nikita Wagner [email protected]
ContributorsMany thanks to the following for their contributions to this issue of the magazine:
Contents2 Editor’s notes
3 Stop complaining, start training
5 Human-level process control and ArchestrA Workfl ow
11 Product profi le: ArchestrA Workfl ow Software
17 Why should you consider ArchestrA Workfl ow Software?
20
Plant Engineering names ArchestrA Workfl ow software from Invensys a Product of the Year
22 Workforce empowerment
23The resilient plant: The truth about building capabilities for workforce enablement
30 Minimising time-to-experience and maximising performance
34Product profi le: EYESIM Immersive Virtual Reality Training System
38Operator simulator training improves GenOn power station effi ciency
42 Product profi le: IntelaTrac for improved situation awareness
45Plant operational excellence at Infi neum thanks to Wonderware IntelaTrac
50 From labour worker to performance manager
53 Empowering people to contribute with DPM
54
Dynamic Performance Measurement system improves energy and electricity consumption at SASOL
58 Situation awareness – vital to a sentient enterprise
61 The Human-Machine Interface
62 The high-performance HMI
67 Lonmin uses biometrics to secure SCADA access
70 Why is alarm management required in modern plants?
74 MES and the human factor
78 Human differentiator dictionary
80 Events: X-CHANGE 2013
84 Invensys Sentinel Services
86 Customer FIRST
87 2012/2013 Training Schedule (Johannesburg)
88 Use Protocol Magazine to generate business opportunities
90 On the lighter side
92 Protocol crossword #59
• Dr. Peter G Martin for the article about minimising time-to-experience and maximising performance
• Charles Mohrmann for the article on the resilient plant
• Simon Windust for the article titled: From labour worker to performance manager
• Stan DeVries for the article about why alarm management is required in modern plants
• Bill Hollifi eld for the article on the high-performance HMI
• Dr. Kobus van der Merwe of Industrial Management Enhancement for the article on MES and the human factor
MARCH/APRIL 2013
Contents
2 | www.protocolmag.co.za
The human differentiator – beyond technology
If you think of all the technologies and their
benefi ts that surround us today, we humans
can be very proud of our achievements.
On the other hand, while computers may
crash or industrial accidents maim and kill,
to really screw things up takes a human (viz.
the global fi nancial meltdown, seven billion
people, global warming and two world wars
to name a few).
At the technology level, we mostly tend
to work with logical, fi nite devices and
processes which, although they might
be complex, are still our creations and
if something goes wrong, the fi x isn’t
far behind. When dealing with humans,
however, the tendency when something
goes wrong is to blame someone else or
walk away because fi xing humans has little to
do with logic and isn’t something we’re very
good at doing.
Industrial automation works because it
is based on rules, logic and procedures
which are followed to the letter by ...
machines. But leave the factory fl oor and
as you travel upward to the more ethereal
realms of the company, you will fi nd
that those same working principles fade
rather quickly to be replaced by opinions,
uncertainty as to what to do when
something goes wrong and quite a lot of
guesswork.
“You can’t treat people like machines!” I
hear you cry and, of course, you’re right. Yet
the machine world works so well, doesn’t
it? It creates wealth, it can be fi xed and it’s
predictable – even most of the breakdowns.
So why not extract the principles that work
so well on the shop fl oor and apply them
to the rest of the company? In fact, why not
make the entire company the “shop fl oor”
with structured processes ranging from
sales and accounting to resource planning
and production control? This would make
the company the machine and the people
the process controllers – and because
process principles would apply, personnel
would have a great deal more confi dence
because they would know what to do when
something goes wrong and there would
be no surprises as to who is responsible for
what. Welcome to the world of human-level
process control, ArchestrA Workfl ow and a
new company paradigm that frees humans
to do what they’re good at – creating new
things and improving old things while the
machine that is the company hums quietly
and productively in the background.
And it’s because of people’s creativity that
we can say that they are the company’s
greatest assets. Creative people think
outside the box – but what does that mean,
exactly? Ever seen one of those guys walking
down the street with a cell phone glued to
his ear, bumping into people or generally
getting in the way? Well, he’s thinking inside
the box. As long as that call lasts, he’ll have
a glazed look and he will be totally unaware
of where he is or that he is about to become
intimately familiar with the oily bits of a bus.
His situational awareness is next to zero and
his creativity is little more than that as he
focuses solely on winning a losing argument
with his wife.
Creative people are aware of the situations
in which they fi nd themselves and of the
environment that could affect that situation
from minute to minute. Because of all this,
they can make better decisions quicker
than anyone else. They analyse trends and
make contingency plans – they’re “on top”
of things. If companies focused on showing
employees the immense benefi ts of situation
awareness, they would not only empower
those employees to make better decisions
but the company itself would improve its
bottom line far quicker, better and cheaper
than with technological tweaks.
So, should mining and manufacturing
companies only hire people that show a high
degree of situation awareness? Perhaps the
job needs a robot in which case situation
awareness doesn’t come into the picture.
But if a human being is needed, it’s for some
very good reasons including the ability to
make good decisions based on analysing
information in the context of any given
situation – and, in industrial automation at
least, that calls for a high degree of situation
awareness, knowledge and experience.
Robots are excellent at what they do but
don’t ask them to do something else on the
spur of the moment or decide what to do if
something goes wrong. That’s what humans
are supposedly good at so you might as well
hire someone who’s very good at it.
At the end of the day, it’s humans that are
(should be) in control and it’s by improving
their abilities that the most dramatic
improvements can be made.
Until next time,
Denis du Buisson
Editor’s Notes
March/April 2013 | 3
Mike le Plastrier, MD, Invensys Operations Management Southern Africa
We all know the complaints regarding skills
shortages and the outsourcing of jobs
offshore but this doesn’t have to be so.
South Africa may not be overpopulated
by rocket scientists (although we do
have some) but we’ve certainly got
human resources equal to the task of
handling many skilled jobs in the mining
and manufacturing industries – and it
doesn’t cost anything to fi nd and train
these valuable individuals because the
government foots the bill for everything.
Of course there is often signifi cant red
tape associated with these government
subsidies and this is probably one of the
reasons why more companies aren’t using
this golden opportunity – but we’ve got
around that by handling all the red tape,
accreditation, etc. for any company who
is interested. We’ve had to streamline
the process because EOH takes in 300
school-leavers and 300 graduates every
year as part of its job creation initiative so
we’ve created a team of people who are
well versed with all the intricacies of the
process, freeing the rest of us to do our
job of imparting knowledge.
Stop complaining, start training
Some statistics:
Unemployment in SA
• 5 million unemployed
• 4 million working age South Africans are
currently unemployed
• 14 million are economically inactive
• Youth are half of South Africa’s workforce
and make up nearly 75% of South Africa’s
unemployed – recipe for high future
unemployment and social instability
• 400 000 unemployed matriculants
• 600 000 unemployed university graduates
Government job creation funding (2011)
• R10 billion for job creation, small enterprise
development, and youth employment
• R9,5 billion to increase enrolment at FET
colleges and skills development
• R8,2 billion to improve school facilities
• R70 billion into the Expanded Public Works
Programme
• R9 billion National Treasury Jobs Fund to
create 150 000 jobs over the next 3 years
• R5 Billion is being used to introduce a youth
employment subsidy to create about 178 000
jobs
• National Skills Fund (NSF) – Education
Department received R41,1 billion of which
R9,6 billion are skills levies that go to the
Sector Education and Training Authorities
and the NSF
It’s important to note that these 600
students recognise that they have
been given a rare opportunity and as a
consequence, they show a high degree of
seriousness about not wasting it.
During their learnerships (school-leavers)
and internships (graduates), students
learn valuable practical skills, which, in our
case, focus on business IT and industrial
IT. This prepares them for the real world
and forms an important part of their CVs.
What’s more, having had their fi rst job,
they fi nd it a lot easier to fi nd another and
soon realise that education is the key to a
bigger pay cheque.
During the past fi nancial year, the EOH
group spent nearly R22 million on
skills development as we believe that
government alone cannot shoulder the
responsibility of job creation. Business has
the capacity and capability to do more and
unemployment poses a major business
risk. We are working with our top 300
customers and business partners to devise
ways and means of creating more jobs and
to develop and train young people. EOH
is also working with existing government
departments to mobilise existing and new
job creation initiatives.
Today, the novice’s journey to profi ciency
is certainly very different to what it used
to be and they need all the help they
can get. Many present-day control room
operators, for example, are mature
people who have come up through the
ranks and have had exposure to most
aspects of the shop fl oor which has given
them a depth of understanding of the
company’s production processes over the
decades they’ve been with the company.
But someone who today starts off as
a technician, say, rarely stays with the
company for decades and so tends to stick
in the technical fi eld with the result that he
most probably will not rise to the rank of
Stop complaining, start training
4 | www.protocolmag.co.za
supervisor. The result is that operators are
trained for a career as operators.
That training starts with teaching them
about the processes they’ll be supervising
and what to do under various conditions.
But this is rarely good enough when
they actually have to control those same
processes for real. Like all of us, they can
make mistakes, some of which can have
serious safety or monetary consequences.
One reason for these mistakes is that
they simply don’t have the experience
necessary to deal with all the various
problems they’ll have to face. This is why I
believe that on-the- job simulator training
has become such an important issue.
Presently, there is no way that a pilot can
retain his commercial licence or switch
from one aircraft type to another without
many hours of simulator training. Yet, we
put people in charge of huge, expensive
plants and dangerous processes with a
smattering of academic education and the
fervent hope that they’ll cope.
It’s time that the mining and manufacturing
industries follow the lead of the aircraft
industry and start using simulators to
properly train their operational personnel
(at all levels). The petrochemical
industry has been doing just that for
years because of the hazardous nature
of their operations. Bringing simulator
training to the shop floor isn’t because
the plant is likely to explode or poison the
surrounding population (although that’s
not always strictly true) but because lack
of knowledge on how to handle situations
goes hand-in-hand with lack of production
due to unnecessary stoppages.
It’s not as if we don’t have the tools to do a
good job of educating our wealth-creating
personnel. From the Invensys stable alone
we have the suite of simulator solutions
from SimSci-Esscor which can simulate any
eventuality in any plant. Then there’s ArchestrA
Workflow that provides scripted scenarios
for responding to various situations while
IntelaTrac provides guidance and instructions
to mobile personnel on how to handle events
from routine maintenance to emergencies. Of
course there’s always software solutions such
as intelligent HMIs, trending tools, Statistical
Process Control, Artificial Intelligence Neural
Networks and others that have been designed
to mitigate surprises but none of these can
measure up to a well-informed, situation-aware
human when it comes to dealing with the
unexpected.
It’s quite predictable that simulator
training for industry will become the
norm rather than remain the exception.
The technology for this is nowhere as
complicated as flight simulation and has
become very cost-effective – especially
when compared to what can happen as a
result of decisions taken by ill-informed or
insufficiently-trained personnel.
So, what have we got? A government
with deep pockets that pays for all skills
training, a wealth of technologies and
expertise to provide some of the best
training in the world and the potential
of retaining much needed jobs in South
Africa. In my mind, there’s nothing much
left to complain about.
March/April 2013 | 5
Human-level process control and ArchestrA WorkflowDenis du Buisson – Editor, Protocol Magazine
In the May-June 2011 issue of Protocol,
you were introduced to the concept of
SCADA-b, the application of process
principles to the entire company and at the
time, we briefly touched on how ArchestrA
Workflow contributed to this end. Now is
probably a good time to investigate this
further because after you’ve implemented
all the available technology and still find
your bottom line wanting, you’ll want to
know what comes next.
Memory refresh
As I’m sure you already know, the term
SCADA stands for Supervisory Control And
Data Acquisition – a well-known technology
used at the manufacturing or production
level to supervise and control processes
that would otherwise be too complex to
handle on a manual basis and in real-time.
I’m explaining this acronym because this
is intended to be read by all levels of
management and not only engineers.
In the real world, SCADA and MES are in
charge of the company’s wealth–creating
processes; it’s the heaviest of responsibilities
and they do it extremely well. So why not
use these same principles everywhere in
the company? While trying to see how this
could be done, I was struggling to come
up with a snappy name but the best I could
do was SCADA-b – SCADA at the business
level. I grew to like this unimaginative
name because it didn’t suggest yet another
mind-bending technology, it incorporated all
the proven process control principles to be
found in SCADA and it wasn’t a three-letter
acronym. Is SCADA-b the same as Business
Process Management? Very much so but it
explains it from an engineering and well-
understood angle.
I found that the benefits of adopting
these principles uniformly throughout the
company were impressive if not staggering.
Companies would have an unprecedented
degree of control and clarity that allows their
personnel to be more creative and effective
while their business, administrative and
information processes moved to a new and
purposeful level of reality. For the first time
I could see (and prove) why such things as
empowerment and delegation were not only
“nice-to-haves” but logically indispensable.
SCADA-b also showed the necessity (or not)
for performance improvement initiatives and
what Information Services (IS) should really
be doing.
Suddenly, SCADA-b glued everything
together and explained in a logical way
where all the thousands of applications,
approaches, standards and everything else
mining and manufacturing companies have
been exposed to for the past half a century
fitted.
Physicists have their unified field theory and
the article in the May-June 2011 issue of
Protocol was titled SCADA-b – the unified
firm theory because I think it’s high time that
all the bits and pieces of solutions available
were brought under a single, unifying
umbrella that showed where they were
needed and how they should collaborate
towards helping the company achieve its
business objectives.
About processes
If we’re going to have unified companies,
then it would be a good idea to have a
unifying principle; an approach that caters
for all eventualities at every level of the
company – and we find such a principle in
the concept of processes.
Process principles work with or without
our consent, so you don’t have to concern
yourself that this is yet another opinion-
based business religion created for the sole
purpose of enriching its creator – it would be
like trying to convince you that gravity is a
good idea (most of the time, it is).
If it wasn’t for process principles, we couldn’t
live more than a few minutes. The fact
that you’re reading this proves that your
metabolic processes are working – without
your consent or knowledge. And that’s a
good thing. If you contracted a virus and
your antibodies had to get your consent
before springing into action, you’d be dead
in minutes – far quicker than it would take
for you to have a board meeting in your
head as to what actions should be taken.
If the antibodies encounter difficulty, you
get a warning through increased body
temperature so that you can take the
appropriate medicine.
Process control on the shop floor works in a
similar way. PLCs do what they’re told to do
without resort to higher levels of control until
an alarm or unforeseen error occurs.
We can learn a lot from this. If you were
constantly busy monitoring and controlling
your bodily functions, you would have no
time for higher level processes such as
creative thinking. The same holds true for
a company. If the company’s sub-processes
can’t look after themselves, management
is constantly putting out fires rather than
thinking about new ventures, making the
most of business opportunities or improving
existing processes.
While most other disciplines can blame
someone or something else for non-
performance, engineers don’t have that
luxury. They have to make things work. That’s
why they’re hired and that’s why they, in turn,
have to adopt principles that will ensure an
income through the provision of working
results (usually within tight performance and
budget constraints). Buildings don’t stand
up because people think it’s a good idea
or television sets don’t work because of
Human-level process control and ArchestrA Workflow
6 | www.protocolmag.co.za
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Traffic that flows. Intelligent buildings that save energy. A public infrastructure that delivers whole new levels of service at lower cost. Systems, assets, people and the environment living in harmony.
You have imagined ArchestrA, the Wonderware technology that lets you manage your infrastructure as you like in an integrated way. Open, scalable, affordable.
Turn imagination into reality with Wonderware. Visit wonderware.com/Infrastructure for more info.
imagineimaginea better future
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BetterServices
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of the City
Public Utilities management
© Copyright 2012. All rights reserved. Invensys, the Invensys logo, Avantis, Eurotherm, Foxboro, IMServ, InFusion, Skelta, SimSci-Esscor, Triconex and Wonderware are trademarks of Invensys plc, its subsidiaries or affiliates. All other brands and product names may be trademarks of their respective owners.
Facility Management • Environment • Power • Smart Cities • Transportation • Waste • Water & Wastewater
March/April 2013 | 7
Avantis Eurotherm Foxboro IMServ InFusion SimSci-Esscor Skelta Triconex Wonderware
Traffic that flows. Intelligent buildings that save energy. A public infrastructure that delivers whole new levels of service at lower cost. Systems, assets, people and the environment living in harmony.
You have imagined ArchestrA, the Wonderware technology that lets you manage your infrastructure as you like in an integrated way. Open, scalable, affordable.
Turn imagination into reality with Wonderware. Visit wonderware.com/Infrastructure for more info.
imaginea better future
Building intelligence
Resources Optimization
Cost ReductionSecurity
BetterServices
integrated management
of the City
Public Utilities management
© Copyright 2012. All rights reserved. Invensys, the Invensys logo, Avantis, Eurotherm, Foxboro, IMServ, InFusion, Skelta, SimSci-Esscor, Triconex and Wonderware are trademarks of Invensys plc, its subsidiaries or affiliates. All other brands and product names may be trademarks of their respective owners.
Facility Management • Environment • Power • Smart Cities • Transportation • Waste • Water & Wastewater
their price. It’s engineering principles that
have made our modern world a marvel of
technology.
But, when it comes to business processes,
what’s really improved? (let’s leave out the
computer thing because that’s just another
engineering milestone). The fact that
companies still show their structure in the
form of a hierarchical and position-based
organisation chart (never mind how “fl at”
the structure) goes to show that not much
has changed.
It’s important to note that processes apply
equally across the board and can involve
mechanical and human involvement. So
far, the term “process” – at least as far as
the mining and manufacturing industries
are concerned, has been mainly applied
to mechanical production methods. In
actual fact, these are the least troublesome
and least numerous of all the processes
in an enterprise. The most worrisome
are those that involve human interaction
and workfl ows because these are largely
unstructured. What to do when something
goes wrong? SCADA systems know
exactly what to do because they’ve been
programmed that way. Humans, on the other
hand, immediately call meetings that rarely
achieve anything other than to confi rm that
nobody’s really sure about what to do next
– meetings are usually directly proportional
to uncertainty and inversely proportional to
productivity.
The fact that companies could not operate
if they weren’t process-oriented (at whatever
unconscious or accidental level) seems to
rarely occur to anyone. That’s right. Your
company must already be process-based to
some degree otherwise you wouldn’t be in
operation. You wouldn’t be able to process
orders or manufacture anything if there
wasn’t a process in there somewhere (it’s
important not to confuse work fl ows – what
you do to get things done – with processes
of which work fl ows are only a part – see
later). What’s needed is to structure your
company consciously and with intent as
a real process-oriented and logical entity.
As soon as this happens, a lot of things
will fall into place and some things may go
away. The important thing is that you will
have a logical, dynamic and self-correcting
structure that isn’t the result of an accident,
coincidence or uninformed opinions
(informed opinions are something else
altogether).
The difference without and with such a
structure can be likened to alchemy and
chemistry. With alchemy, there’s random
and futile groping around for the elusive
philosopher’s stone whereas with chemistry,
there’s a precise science involved in getting
to a desired end-result (as well as an
explanation of why the philosopher’s stone
doesn’t exist – at least in this dimension).
With a ship, the captain lets engineering
and process principles run the engine
room as well as navigate the ship to its
chosen destination. But in a company, while
Figure 1: Immune system processes keep us alive yet we don’t even have to think about them because they’re on “automatic” leaving us free to be
creative. The same can apply to company processes.
8 | www.protocolmag.co.za
the CEO will allow the same engineering
principles to govern his wealth-creating or
value-adding processes (e.g. the “engine
room” of the manufacturing plant), he
will turn to the business equivalent of
alchemy and uninformed opinions for
everything else – including the direction
the company is taking. This is quite scary
stuff and explains the random directions
companies often take in an attempt to
achieve changing and elusive business
objectives. Competitors can rarely do as
much damage.
How processes work
Supervisory Control And Data Acquisition
(SCADA) systems are part of an overall
structure called a Process.
A process is a series of controlled
and measurable actions that involves
feedback, learning mechanisms and
contingency plans to transform energy
and / or matter from one form into
another
So SCADA is the “controlled and
measurable” aspect of processes which
are made up of the following components
(figure 2):
1. An objective or desired end-result
2. A reason why achieving the objective is
desirable (without a good reason, what’s
the point?)
3. A list of operational requirements of
what has to be done to achieve the
objective
4. A list of performance specifications
against which performance and progress
can be measured
5. The workflow of actions necessary to
address the operational requirements
6. A Supervisory Control Mechanism
(SCM) - a computer and/or a person that
will monitor the workflow performance
against its specifications and which is
informed on how to correct malfunctions
and learn from them. The SCM must
have a high level of situation awareness
at all times.
7. A measurement facility that will
get the relevant data for the above
measurements (at the shop floor
level, this is a combination of PLCs
(Programmable Logic Controllers) and
one or more databases – historians
- while at the business level this could
include Information Services and their
access to relevant data repositories.
Measurements are done from the
output to the input (M1 to M5 in figure
2) because there’s no point in fixing
something that works.
The objective gives rise to a set of
operational and performance requirements
Figure 2: Example of a process at the shop floor level
Figure 3: Example of a company process
March/April 2013 | 9
that must be in place to achieve it. The
operational requirements result in a series
of tasks known as a workflow while the
performance requirements specify time,
quantity and quality targets for the tasks.
The Supervisory Control Mechanism or SCM
(with business processes, this is usually a
manager), monitors the performance of the
process at each measuring point and checks
this against the performance specification
for that task. If the performance is not “up
to spec”, then the workflow needs to be
adjusted accordingly. If the workflow is
continuously achieving its objective, then the
SCM can set the sights a little higher with
more aggressive KPIs. This is what makes
processes dynamic, adaptive to change
and capable of continuous and incremental
improvement.
Each sub-process becomes a whole process
in its own right at a lower and more detailed
level. In this way, level 1 could give the
“big picture” for the company while level
3 or 4, say, could show detailed selling or
manufacturing processes. But the same
rules hold throughout and it’s easy to show
the necessity for detailed processes since
they are the natural evolution of higher
level requirements. This provides total
visibility throughout the company and lets
people see exactly to what degree they are
contributing.
Human-level workflow management
So far, we’ve seen how process principles
can be uniformly applied at any company
level but we’ve only been concerned
with the monitoring and measurement
of “mechanical” workflows or collections
of tasks during normal operations. What
happens when something goes wrong?
Maybe a SCM didn’t properly manage
the task for which he/she is responsible or
perhaps there’s been a machine malfunction
or an accident. By then, it’s probably too
late to think of something and that’s why
it’s important to script contingency plans
that can be enforced using proven process
control principles.
The armed forces never start an operation
without detailed contingency plans.
The raid on bin Laden’s compound in
Abbottabad on 2nd May 2011 is a good
example. Even though one of the Blackhawk
helicopters damaged its tail rotor and
made a controlled crash landing inside the
compound because of a condition known
as a vortex ring state (where the helicopter
descends into its own downwash), the
Figure 4: The extent of ArchestrA Workflow in a manufacturing process model. The software
monitors the interaction between the SCMs of the various physical processes rather than the
processes themselves which are monitored by devices such as PLCs (figure 2).
operation went ahead without hesitation
because this had been catered for. Two
Chinook helicopters were on standby for just
such an eventuality and also for refuelling
(even more Chinooks were on standby with
additional SEAL reinforcements but were
not needed). The raid was scheduled to
take 40 minutes – it actually took 38, in spite
of things not going quite as intended. This
is the result of contingency planning and
everyone knowing what to do if something
goes wrong.
ArchestrA Workflow facilitates the structured
monitoring of actions during normal and
abnormal situations by using process
control principles at the human interaction
level. This allows the right people to be
involved and provides for the organised
escalation of responses. Such organisation
also means that best practices are retained
and continuously refined with regard to the
resolution of issues.
Empowerment and management in a company process model
As we’ve already seen, the role of the SCM
is to make the process achieve its objective
through control. Figure 5 shows three
levels of processes and, although only one
sub-process is shown expanded at each
level, imagine that all the sub-processes
were expanded to the next lower level. This
would leave the SCMs at level 3 with the full
responsibility of making things go right. In
other words, the SCM at level 2 would really
only be monitoring the inputs and outputs
of the level 3 processes – and since these
would be self-correcting, the job of the level
2 SCM could rapidly become quite boring
if not redundant – let alone the role of the
level 1 SCM.
That’s why, in a process model,
empowerment has to increasingly go to
the lowest level while the role of traditional
management (SCMs) decreases at higher
levels. From this we learn that:
• The lowest level (and most important)
SCM is Fred on the factory floor. He,
with his lathe, smelter or soldering iron is
responsible for doing what the company
was created for in the first place. He adds
the value and creates the wealth and if
any top management reading this thinks
Human-level process control and ArchestrA Workflow
10 | www.protocolmag.co.za
that wealth is created elsewhere, then fire
all your Freds and see what happens in a
couple of days.
• In the business context, management is
the SCM
• Management is a function, not a
position. This is good news for everyone
except the empire builders whose only
reason for staying in their position is that
they have one. With traditional structures,
senior management has the leverage to
make those weighty decisions but are
they actually qualified? It’s the staff (all the
Freds) who know what’s really going on.
The process model puts all this in a logical
perspective by replacing the management
position with the SCM function. This
leaves “managers” with experience time
to improve their processes and to realise
their worth.
• It would appear that upper and middle
management will have little or nothing to
do because of empowerment at the lower
levels
This last point could be quite disquieting
if you’re a CEO because it probably takes
the “passing of the buck” thing too far for
your liking. Business consultants, however,
have been talking about empowerment and
delegation for long enough so this shouldn’t
come as a surprise. What should come as a
surprise (even to the business consultants)
is that they were right and the process
structure tells them why.
So, is there the necessity for middle and
top management and, if so, what should
they be doing? Of course there is and their
role is a vital one. They have the same job
as lower level SCMs in making sure that
their processes are on track and, because
they won’t be putting out fires any more,
they have more time to do what they were
supposed to do all along – improving their
processes. This means everything from
designing better products and streamlining
the supply chain to optimising inventory and
improving proactive maintenance – all the
time and with no distraction. This is what
humans are good at, so let the rest of the
self-correcting wealth-creating machinery
that SCADA-b allows your business to
become, give them the time they need to
excel rather than standing still with a fire
extinguisher just in case.
Conclusion
Structuring your entire company into an
efficient process and sub-processes isn’t
going to happen overnight but it can be
achieved bit by bit – especially by adopting
Figure 5: Empowerment and management in a process model
solutions like Business Process Management
principles and ArchestrA Workflow software.
All the way through this exercise, you’ll have
the certainty you’re doing the right thing
because the very heart of your company,
your wealth-creating processes, are using
the very same approach.
But automating mechanical processes is one
thing – automating human-level processes
is something else altogether. Change is
almost always seen as threatening rather
than exciting – especially by those people
who would rather not have their private
agendas exposed by the logic and visibility
of enterprise-wide process principles. Others
may feel that this will simply be another
imposition of management control – which
is completely wrong because that would
defeat the object of the exercise.
The objective of structuring your company
on process principles is to build an efficient,
responsive and well-oiled machine that
can deal with contingencies routinely
and in real-time. This would give the
“machine operators” (your staff) not
only the guidance and confidence they
probably lack today but it will also show
them the level of their contributions and
provide a logical rather than opinion-based
foundation for recognition and rewards. But
mostly, it will free them to do what humans
are good at; originating new ideas for
improvement.
Wonderware has proved the wisdom
of the bottoms-up approach for driving
reality-based information throughout the
enterprise. Well, structuring your company
on process principles is going to need a
top-down approach that can only succeed
with the commitment and dedication of top
management and the understanding and
acceptance of the entire staff.
So, is this the “final frontier” of
manufacturing excellence? Probably not
but it’s definitely one of the big ones we’re
going to have to face on the way.
March/April 2013 | 11
Product profile: ArchestrA Workflow Software
Enable true collaboration
In today’s business environment, companies
are faced with many challenging demands:
• Responding to market dynamics
• Driving higher levels of quality and
consistency
• Managing compliance and regulation
• Coordinating with suppliers and vendors
• Reducing operating costs
• Managing global operations
These ever-changing demands are forcing
companies to evaluate and improve
their business processes across their
organisation.
ArchestrA® Workflow software is an
advanced workflow application that enables
companies to digitise manual and automated
processes that include people and/or
systems. This sophisticated Business Process
Management (BPM) application enables
companies to Model, Execute, Analyse and
Improve processes inside and outside of
their organisation to drive higher levels of
collaboration, productivity and innovation.
With ArchestrA Workflow, companies can
institutionalise work processes that manage
normal, unscheduled or disruptive events
within their operations environment. This
industrial workflow application benefits
operations, maintenance, engineering,
quality, environmental and safety
departments within an organisation by:
• Increasing productivity. Automating
manual processes and best practices,
eliminating manual error-prone
procedures, effectively coordinating
people and systems to accomplish a
simple or complex task
• Providing ownership-driven innovation.
Employing a model-driven approach
Product profile - ArchestrA Workflow Software
12 | www.protocolmag.co.za
that empowers non-IT users to visually
compose processes, monitor and measure
the performance of processes, change
and adapt processes.
• Enabling knowledge management.
Digitising Standard Operating Procedures
(SOPs), Good Manufacturing Practices
(GMPs) and work instructions to ensure
that company policies and procedures
are being executed in a consistent and
compliant manner.
Workflow-enabled applications
Work processes span across many different
domains within a typical operating company.
These processes may include:
• Production related activities
• Maintenance related activities
• Quality related activities environmental
and safety related activities
• Lean related activities
Many of these processes are embedded
in commercial off-the-shelf applications
and custom applications. People-driven
processes are generally employed to fill
the “white space” that exists between
the applications. This landscape creates a
significant obstacle that organisations need
to overcome in an effort to drive higher
In a nutshell ...
ArchestrA Workflow is the systematic
collaboration tool you need for
modelling, executing, measuring and
adapting work processes within your
global enterprise. The software will
enable you to:
• Standardise, visualise and track
processes across all domains within
your organisation
• Digitise SOPs, GMPs and work
instructions
• Coordinate human-centric and
system-centric tasks
• Support comprehensive compliance
management and audit trails
• Synchronise with supply chain
and other plant floor/enterprise
applications
Business value
• Increase process agility
• Optimise resource utilisation
• Facilitate innovation
• Increase end-user ownership
• Manage process-related intellectual
property
• Maximise productivity
• Reduce operational costs
• Enable knowledge management
“BPM is an approach to improving business processes that helps organisations cope with frequent process change by making processes explicit and visible, by using highly agile and iterative methods and empowering business stakeholders to make changes to the underlying solutions supporting business processes.”
www.Gartner.com, Hype Cycle for Business Process Management, 2009
March/April 2013 | 13
levels of productivity and innovation.
ArchestrA Workflow has been designed
to seamlessly collaborate with existing
hardware and software assets to enable
organisations to Model, Execute, and
Analyse processes that require humans and
applications to be coordinated effectively
to accomplish specific business objectives.
Let’s take a look at how ArchestrA Workflow
can add value to your existing application
landscape.
HMI applications
• Operator Alarm Response Management:
Guide operators through a series of actions
to resolve a particular alarm condition. If
necessary, collaborate with other resources
or escalate to a supervisor to assist in
resolving the alarm condition.
• Electronic Work Instructions: Guide
operators through standardised and
validated processes that have been
established by the organization for
common activities such as machine setup,
line shutdown, plant start-up, product
changeover, material staging, etc.
• Model-Driven HMI Logic: Leverage the
visual modelling capability to eliminate
custom script used for defining process,
machine or line control logic at the
supervisory level.
MES applications
• Specification Change Management:
When a specification change has been
requested by a user, the system would
submit the request to the appropriate
resources (e.g. Operations, Process
Engineering), enforce the decision making
process, communicate the decision back
to the stakeholders, and update the
appropriate specification management
applications (e.g. PLM and MES).
• Positive QA Release: After a production
order or lot has been completed, the
system would compile data from the
appropriate data sources, highlight
information that is out-of-spec or requires
resolution, and coordinate any reviews
or additional actions required for the
selected disposition (e.g. release to
distribution, hold for QA review).
• QA Hold Resolution: After a QA hold
has been issued against material by an
operator, the system would coordinate the
appropriate resources (e.g. QA, Operations)
to review the issue, as well as coordinate
any reviews or additional actions required
for the selected disposition (e.g. remove
hold, return to vendor).
• LIMS Integration: When a laboratory
sample is required for a particular process,
the system would prompt the operator for
the sample, collect the sample data, send
the sample data to the LIMS application,
receive the sample results from the LIMS
application, and coordinate any additional
actions required based on the sample
results (e.g. continue batch, place batch
on hold, change batch parameters).
• Model-Driven Business Rule
Management: Leverage the visual
modelling capability of ArchestrA
Workflow to eliminate the custom script
or code used for defining classic MES
business rules.
ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) applications
• Material Receiving and Inspection:
When raw materials are received by a
customer, the system would enforce the
QA sampling plan defined for the product
and vendor, highlight information that is
out-of-spec or requires resolution, and
coordinate any reviews or additional
actions required to complete the
receiving and inspection process prior
to submitting the information to the ERP
application.
• Master Data Approval: When master
data is changed in the ERP application,
the system would coordinate the
appropriate resources (e.g. QA, Process
Engineering) to review the change,
potentially capture additional information
required to make the change at the plant
(e.g. effective date, qualified production
lines), enforce the plant-level signoff
process, and update the appropriate
applications (e.g. LIMS, MES, Quality) on
the plant floor.
• Production Order Download
Synchronisation: When bulk production
orders are downloaded to the plants
within an enterprise, the system would
apply plant specific business rules
to break down the bulk orders into
manufacturing orders that look at the
capacity constraints of a particular plant.
• Production Order Reconciliation: When
production orders have been completed
on the plant floor, the system would
compile of all the production records
associated with the order (e.g. production,
consumption, labour records) from the
MES application, coordinate the resources
required to review the production
records (e.g. Production Supervisor, Shift
Supervisor), highlight inconsistencies
with the data, capture any changes made
to the data, and send the reconciled
information to the ERP application.
Comprehensive cash flow management with accounts payable
Product profile - ArchestrA Workflow Software
14 | www.protocolmag.co.za
Key features of ArchestrA Workflow
ArchestrA Workflow software provides
a collaboration framework that enables
end users to create composite workflows
that include Invensys applications, as
well as other third party or custom
applications.
Workflows can be modelled at all levels
(1, 2 and 3) and, depending upon the
required degree of sophistication, some
workflows may span across multiple levels.
The ArchestrA Workflow process design
and workflow task execution components
are seamlessly embedded into the InFusion
Enterprise Control System applications.
These components may also be embedded
into third party commercial applications or
custom applications.
Process Designer
• Intuitive, visual modelling environment for
easy process design
• Over 50 out-of-the-box configurable
workflow activities
• Processes can be designed and imported
from Microsoft® Visio
• Workflow actions secured through
itemised security features
• Supports complex branching and decision
trees
• BPMN (Business Process Modelling
Notation) compliant
Business Activity Monitoring (BAM) and KPIs
• Out-of-the-box activity reporting and
activity monitoring views
• Associate workflows with BAM events
• Customisable Key Performance Indicators
(KPIs)
• Standard out-of-the-box performance
analysis
• Visibility to workflow instances and
genealogy
ArchestrA Workflow has gone mobile!
ArchestrA Workflow’s new Mobile Client allows
you to manage your Work Task via an iPhone
or iPad.
• Update tasks anywhere, anytime
• Receive new task notifications
• Approve or Reject a task
• Flag a task based on importance
• Fill out a form
• Proactive alerts of business exceptions
and KPIs
Forms Designer
• Model complex forms to collect and/or
visualise data at a particular step in the
process
• WYSIWYG editor enables end users to
create new forms or maintain existing
forms
• Forms can be linked to, or initiate,
workflows
• Multiple forms can be associated with a
particular workflow
• Scripting is available to perform more
advanced tasks
• Security can be applied to different fields
on the form
• Supports use of Microsoft InfoPath®
forms
Communication Channels
• Comprehensive Microsoft Outlook
integration support for two-way
communication on mobile phones
• Supports web, PDA, email, voice and IM
for task delivery and response
March/April 2013 | 15
• Extensive APIs and web services support
ArchestrA Workflow connectors and accelerators
ArchestrA System Platform
• Provides configurable read/write and
wait-for-event workflow activities for
Application Server integration
• Provides access to Enterprise Console
from Wonderware® Information Server
• Extends standard objects in ArchestrA IDE
with a workflow tab to configure workflow
events
• Enables Wonderware Historian events to
invoke workflows
• Provides ArchestrA graphic templates for
task delivery and response
• View and respond to workflow tasks in
Combine paperless processing and workflow technology
InTouch® for System Platform
Wonderware MES Connector
� Provides configurable workflow activity
to transact with Wonderware MES
middleware
� Enables MES middleware extensibility
hooks to invoke workflows
� Provides configurable workflow activity
to retrieve data from the Wonderware
MES database
Wonderware IntelaTrac Connector
• Provides configurable IntelaTrac Action to
invoke workflows
• Provides configurable workflow activity to
invoke IntelaTrac web services
• Provides configurable wait-for-event
workflow activity for IntelaTrac procedures
• Provides configurable workflow activity to
retrieve data from the IntelaTrac database
SAP Connector
• Provides configurable workflow activity
that reads/writes information from / to
SAP
• Exchanges data with SAP using standard
RFCs/BAPIs
BizTalk Connector
• Invokes workflows from BizTalk
orchestrations for human workflow
integration
• Invokes BizTalk orchestrations from
workflows for advanced system
integration
Product profile - ArchestrA Workflow Software
16 | www.protocolmag.co.za
SharePoint Accelerator
• Provides advanced workflow capability
that seamlessly integrates SharePoint with
your manufacturing processes
• Integrates with SharePoint database
• Delivers tasks to SharePoint lists
• Allows initiation of workflows from
document libraries, lists and content types
Offers a rich set of SharePoint Actions that
inherit and manipulate SharePoint metadata
during a workflow process
Databases supported
• SQL Server Versions
• MS SQL Server 2005 Standard - SP3
• MS SQL Server 2005 Enterprise - SP3
• MS SQL Server 2008 Standard - SP1
• MS SQL Server 2008 Enterprise - SP1
Both 32 and 64 bit systems are supported
Operating systems supported
• Windows Server 2003 Standard
• Windows Server 2003 Enterprise
• Windows 2008 Server Standard
• Windows 2008 Server Enterprise
• Windows 2008 Server R:2 Standard
• Windows 2008 Server R:2 Enterprise
Both 32 and 64 bit systems are supported
Microsoft Internet Explorer versions supported
• IE 7.0
• IE 8.0
Extensions provided
ArchestrA Workflow Software builds on WCF
/ SOA / Web Service and .NET technology
as an extension to the existing suite of
Invensys Operations Management products.
ArchestrA Workflow Software provides
extensions to:
• Wonderware Application Server
• Wonderware Intelligence
• Wonderware Historian Server
• Wonderware InTouch for System Platform
• Wonderware Information Server
• Wonderware MES 4.0/ Operations and
Performance Software
• Wonderware IntelaTrac
ArchestrA Workflow enables organisational best practices
ArchestrA Workflow Software is a
comprehensive workflow solution for
manufacturers that allows organisations
to build specific business processes that
help in monitoring key business activities.
Whether it is for regulatory compliance, or
best practice sharing, or to enhance other
systems of record (Manufacturing Execution
Systems; Enterprise Manufacturing
Intelligence; Enterprise Asset Management;
Enterprise Resource Planning), ArchestrA
Workflow provides collaboration, visibility
and process enforcement.
Involve ArchestrA Workflow from within BizTalk for
human workflow services
Enhance the native functionality of SharePoint
March/April 2013 | 17
Why should you consider ArchestrA Workflow Software?
Introduction
We first of all have to clear up some possible
confusion. In this magazine and other places,
you will see BPM intimately linked with
ArchestrA Workflow and you may correctly
think that you can’t remember when you and
Wonderware were last seen to be involved
with business processes. Our software warns
you when the boiler’s going to blow and you
go and do something about it. It’s been a
great relationship and hopefully one we can
continue to nurture.
The truth of the matter is that any process
in a manufacturing or mining enterprise is a
business process because any and all such
processes are there for the success of the
business. And so BPM came to include any
activity. But we’ve come to associate business
with ERP and almost everything else with
production (SCADA, MES, EMI, etc.).
The REAL truth of the matter is that your
entire company is run by processes. ERP,
MES, etc. are only tools designed to provide
information in such a way that the process
owners (managers) can run the company
efficiently and profitably. But who oversees
the process owners and everybody that
makes it all happen? Who provides the
guidance when things go wrong?
So BPM isn’t just about business
processes. It’s mainly about the
coordination of human effort in any
process or interlinked groups of processes.
It could just as well as being tagged as
Human-Level Process Management but
that’s quite a mouthful.
Cutting to the chase, ArchestrA Workflow
coordinates human-level processes as well
as their physical counterparts so that they
work in harmony within a unified monitoring
and control structure.
In Aberdeen Group’s 2009 benchmark study
on Manufacturing Operations Management
(MOM), BPM adoption was one of several IT
tools and standards to be examined. It turned
out that BPM was both one of the most
widely-adopted tools and one deemed to
deliver the most value, with Best-in-Class
manufacturers being almost three times as
likely as Laggards to have adopted BPM.
The reason BPM tools are delivering so
much value to manufacturers is closely
related to the problems that BPM solves by
leveraging human intellectual property and
IT and standards used to support Manufacturing Operations Management (Source: Aberdeen Group 2009
Why should you consider ArchestrA Workflow Software?
18 | www.protocolmag.co.za
putting humans squarely in control of the
processes for which they are responsible.
How does ArchestrA Workflow differ from traditional business process mapping applications?
While a process map stuck on a wall lets
you see the relationships between various
activities, that’s where it stops. It’s like
pinning a P&ID up in your office and thinking
that it represents what’s actually going on in
the plant. It’s only a map of what the system
looks like. It can’t tell you what the system
is doing. For that to happen, the P&ID
needs to be represented in a HMI which
is connected via PLCs to real-time sensors
that measure the real and physical process.
Only then can the P&ID become “live”,
show you what’s going on, measure system
performance and let you control the process
being monitored.
In this way, ArchestrA Workflow is to
human-level processes what SCADA is to
mechanical processes. Although process
definition starts with a map (in the same way
as a P&ID), measurements and feedback
as well as the issuing of guidance and
instructions is all done in real-time – the
same as with a SCADA system.
Where is ArchestrA Workflow likely to be
most useful in your company?
The most immediate application areas for
ArchestrA Workflow are probably in those
areas where automation leaves off and
manual operations take over such as:
• Manual task tracking
• Monitoring Six Sigma activities
• Handling contingencies (e.g. abnormal
alarms, unforeseen events, etc.)
• Monitoring inspections and quality control
activities
• Preventing tasks being started without
proper authorisation (e.g. a batch without
approved LIMS input)
• Product sampling (e.g. non-automated
LIMS)
• Batch pre-weighing
• Logging maintenance procedures and
providing guidance to procedures
• Interacting with the mobile workforce (e.g.
via IntelaTrac)
• Capturing and applying best practices
• Linking currently disconnected processes
to promote collaboration
• Coordinating security
Depending on whether you’re an end user
or system integrator, you will benefit from
ArchestrA Workflow in different ways –
perhaps surprisingly to some, it would seem
that ArchestrA Workflow is most beneficial to
... but you’ll have to read on to find out:
ArchestrA Workflow benefits if you’re an end-user
• Enterprise unification – Enterprise
processes are all interconnected and they
must all share and conform to higher and
cross-level objectives and requirements
otherwise they would be rogue and
detrimental. So BPM provides the “glue”
and reality for enterprise unification.
• Consistent application of best practices
– Once a process based on best practices
and captured intellectual property has
been defined, its application is consistent
and independent of various owners and
operators.
• Defined operating environment – Under
normal circumstances, no more guesswork
and endless meetings as to what to do
when something goes wrong. When
something abnormal occurs, its solution
is documented and becomes normal
operating procedure next time around.
• Staff confidence and consideration –
Staff have prescribed guidance as to what
to do given any number of recognised
circumstances. They also know precisely
what’s going to happen when they
don’t know what to do because that’s
simply another defined process (but not
necessarily their responsibility although it
will require their involvement).
• Defined responsibilities – Process owners
are solely responsible for making sure
their processes meet set performance
criteria and to correct them if they don’t.
• Improved collaboration – Processes
have defined inputs and outputs and so
helping their owners understand their
relationship to other staff members and
their needs in other processes promotes a
new level of cooperation.
• Improved efficiency and response
time – Because the actions needed to
be taken to handle abnormalities are
scripted, virtually no time is lost in endless
meetings and normal operation can be
restored very quickly. If the corrective
action taken repeatedly fails to correct the
situation, then a script can be developed
to handle that situation too. Of course
every case is going to be different and has
to be judged on its merits but the process
of arriving at a solution will almost always
be the same.
• Improved responsiveness to market
demands – For example, the company’s
objectives may need to change if
faced with insurmountable competitive
challenges. This is rather drastic and
changing a company’s objectives without
good reasons can be disastrous. But
there are certain conditions when this
may become necessary. What are those
conditions? How are new objectives
defined and once they have been
changed, what follows? BPM forces the
discipline of thinking things through in
order to minimise surprises later.
• Important change in the perspective
of staff towards the business – True
business process ownership means that
process owners (everyone in the company
at whatever level they are) recognise their
role and contribution towards achieving
the company’s business objectives.
To that degree, they adopt a sense of
responsibility that isn’t possible with
traditional approaches.
• Quick and significant results – You and
your company have probably spent a
great deal of time and money trying to
improve production efficiency in order
to get a corresponding improvement of
your bottom line. There’s nothing wrong
March/April 2013 | 19
with that and it’s part of the deal for
continuous incremental improvement.
Doing so, however, leverages
technologies and approaches whose
incremental contribution and focus may
be decreasing as you approach a certain
ideal result for a given level of production
and circumstances. Leveraging human
intellectual property and ingenuity, on
the other hand, unleashes potential that
you probably thought you never had and
results in true, collective origination that is
not only attuned to your exact needs but
that can probably outstrip any other form
of technology-based contribution.
• Continuous incremental improvement
– Process rules are the basis for this
because it doesn’t naturally happen
any other way. The rules are really quite
simple: If something is wrong, fix it and
learn. If something is right, improve it
(because there’s nothing else to be done).
• Measurement and control – if you
can’t measure it, you can’t control it. By
transforming business workflows into
business processes, management can
measure and control their effectiveness.
• Time to think – Business processes are
like manufacturing processes. If they’re
running correctly, it gives their managers
time to think on how they could be
improved.
ArchestrA Workflow benefits if you’re a System Integrator
As a solution supplier in the high-tech field
of industrial automation and enterprise IT,
you can greatly improve the effectiveness
of your business if the process of problem
investigation, design, project management,
implementation, testing and deployment
can be made more predictable and
controllable. This is not only beneficial to
you but also to your customers. In fact, by
adopting BPM, you will enjoy all the above
benefits in addition to the following:
Broaden your business landscape
considerably – Adding ArchestrA Workflow
to your list of offerings will give you the
opportunity of integrating your domain
knowledge to more areas of your customers’
businesses. For example, if you’re currently
specialising in SCADA installations (e.g.
InTouch) with say, food manufacturers, you
already have an intimate knowledge of how
processes work in that industry. It’s this same
knowledge that will help you implement BPM
solutions elsewhere in these companies.
You may have noticed that, over the last
few years, the role of SCADA historians
has changed somewhat and they are now
responsible for far more information than
their original mandate. That’s because
your customers don’t just do SCADA.
They also do MES, EMI, ERP, etc. and the
information in shop floor historians is a vital
link to how the company is performing. So,
although you may think that you’re not really
interested in these other application areas,
you’re already involved with them directly
or indirectly – like it or not. So why not
like it? Who better to spread the concept
and implementation of business process
management than process control specialists
like you? Granted, the processes to be
controlled will have humans and workflows
rather than PLCs, pumps, valves and sensors
but the principle of process management
remains the same and you already know all
about that.
The alternative to diversification is to wait
until your customers need an upgrade to
their SCADA systems – that could be five
to ten years away. What will you do in the
meantime? The only block between jumping
from SCADA to BPM is a mental one. You
know what your customers need and you
also know that they’d rather get it from you
than anyone else because they trust you to
make things work for them. And, although
you may not yet be aware of it, you also
know how to use ArchestrA Workflow to your
advantage. It would be interesting to know
who’s better qualified to provide the solution
that your customers have been looking
forward to for so many years.
Become more valuable by adding value
from a different point of view – It’s often
difficult for your customers, as the saying
goes, to see the wood for the trees. As
an outsider, you can add value to your
customers’ processes by viewing them
from an objective viewpoint that will not be
biased by years of “that’s the way we’ve
always done it”. That’s worth far more
than you may think – and don’t forget that
your customers are also reading this and
know the value that you can add to their
bottom lines if you will only give yourself the
permission to do so.
Conclusion
So who will benefit most from ArchestrA
Workflow? It’s your customers of course!
Whether you’re an end user or system
integrator, you will win the confidence and
retain the loyalty of customers through
reliable and excellent service – and you’ll
be able to do so with confidence, greatly
improved predictability and improved
profitability.
Contents
20 | www.protocolmag.co.za
Plant Engineering names ArchestrA Workflow software from Invensys a Product of the Year
Collaboration across business and
production applications recognized for
operational excellence in reader survey
In March 2012, ArchestrA Workflow software
won the Gold Award in the Productivity
Training Software category of Plant
Engineering magazine’s annual Product of
the Year contest.
Winners of the contest were selected by the
magazine’s readers, comprising engineers
from leading global manufacturing
organisations who buy, specify and use the
products every day. The magazine’s panel
of industry experts nominated finalists from
hundreds of entries, after which readers
selected the winners in more than a dozen
plant and manufacturing product categories.
“Worker collaboration is a major challenge
for today’s manufacturing managers and
engineers, especially as an aging plant
workforce contemplates retirement,” said
Bob Vavra, editor and content manager,
Plant Engineering. “Hiring and training
new employees, as well as retaining their
knowledge and expertise, continues to
be a critical function. Workflow tools
can be of great help because they can
enforce standard operating procedures
and appropriate incident response. Our
readers have identified the products they
feel will help them run their plants more
efficiently, and on their behalf, we’re happy
to recognise Invensys with this year’s Product
of the Year award.”
ArchestrA Workflow software is an advanced
workflow application that captures and
enforces operational processes across
multiple plant domains, including
operations, maintenance, quality and
engineering. The software synchronises
human and system activity by enforcing
standard operating procedures, as well as
standard responses to abnormal events,
such as downtime, quality breaches or yield
decreases. ArchestrA Workflow software
can be embedded in the overall automation
system configuration, readily equipping
users to configure the operational workflow
activities of people, systems and equipment.
In addition, the software can extend other
manufacturing and business applications,
enabling new collaboration capabilities.
Now supporting Invensys Operations
Management’s IntelaTrac mobile workforce
solution, for example, ArchestrA Workflow
software allows workers on maintenance
rounds to adhere to established procedures,
report and respond to abnormal process or
machine events and take approved remedial
actions.
“Driving collaboration across all your
resources by streamlining workflow is the
new frontier for achieving operational
excellence in industrial automation,” said
Tom Troy, director, operations and execution
portfolio, Invensys Operations Management.
“ArchestrA Workflow software readily equips
users to configure the operational workflow
activities of people, systems and equipment
as an integral part of the automation system
configuration. And its embedded approach
enables new collaboration, standardisation
and cross-enterprise visibility for processes
that have typically been isolated or
addressed on an ad-hoc basis.”
March/April 2013 | 21
The clearest path to modernisation.
Secure your future with Foxboro and Triconex
Bypass the risk and cost of obsolescence through our unique and
comprehensive approach. To start mapping out your path,
visit us at iom.invensys.com/Modernise.
Avantis Eurotherm Foxboro IMServ InFusion SimSci-Esscor Skelta Triconex Wonderware
© Copyright 2012. All rights reserved. Invensys, the Invensys logo, Avantis, Eurotherm, Foxboro, IMServ, InFusion, Skelta, SimSci-Esscor, Triconex and Wonderware are trademarks of Invensys plc, its subsidiaries or af�liates. All other brands and product names may be trademarks of their respective owners.
Real Collaboration. Real-Time Results.TM
INV-347 Modern2-GenericA4.indd 1 9/10/12 1:57 PM
0800 INVENSYS | [email protected] | iom.invensys.co.za
22 | www.protocolmag.co.za
Workforce empowermentThere’s no doubt that a capable workforce can adapt to changing circumstances
a great deal faster than programmed process responses and that human training
can often yield faster and more dramatic results than investments in technology.
Today, the drive is to increase situational awareness through simulator training and
other initiatives that help production and other personnel excel and to bring their
expertise and knowledge to the forefront of operations.
March/April 2013 | 23
The resilient plant: The truth about building capabilities for workforce enablementCharles Mohrmann, Product Marketing & Strategy Director, Invensys
Introduction
According to a recent ARC Advisory Group
study, “Why We Need a Better Approach
to Procedural Automation”, it was reported
that operator error is the leading cause
of significant plant incidents. In process
industries, these incidents account for the
highest dollar loss per incident resulting
in 42% of unscheduled plant shutdowns.
Recently, a major oil company paid:
• $15M in fines to the U.S. Environmental
Protection Agency (EPA) as part of a
consent decree
• $51M in fines to the U.S. Occupational
Safety and Health Administration (OSHA)
related to one facility
• $20B in escrow to the U.S. government to
cover potential costs of an oil spill
Is this an exception? Hardly. A recent J & H
Marsh & McLennan report documents the
average cost per major incident related to
operator error exceeds $80M. The Chemical
Safety Topical Committee, sponsored by
the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE),
findings reveal there is one chemical
incident per day, on average, in the U.S.
These incidents have an estimated cost of
over $2 million per incident to comply with
the Occurrence Reporting and Processing
System (ORPS) which is required by the
DOE’s Office of Health, Safety and Security
(HSS). This ORPS cost does not take into
account other direct or indirect costs such
as repairing equipment/facilities, employee
injuries, revising procedures, increased
training, work slowdowns, stoppages during
accident investigations, corrective action
implementations and others.
There has to be a better way … and
there is. This white paper looks at the
issues facing process industries today and
presents a strategy framework that can
yield step-change process improvements
to your operational excellence objectives
The resilient plant: The truth about building capabilities for workforce enablement
24 | www.protocolmag.co.za
and can help you achieve true Workforce
Enablement.
Why is achieving world-class workforce enablement so difficult?
The problem is compounded by aging
workforces and the need to assimilate
new workers faster. The problem is further
exacerbated by an ongoing deluge of
new regulations creating an operating
environment which did not exist the previous
year. Traditional training alone can no longer
overcome this aging workforce/regulatory
compliance crossfire. All organisations train
their people and most spend significant
money doing so. 90% of the respondents
to the July 2010 McKinsey Quarterly survey
said building capabilities was a Top 10
priority for their organisations. In addition,
the study stated only 25% of the companies
surveyed said that their training programmes
were effective at improving performance
measurably and only 8% percent track a
programme’s return on investment (ROI). Do
these situations sound familiar?
Here are what major companies have stated
during interviews with Invensys:
• “Our traditional training was moved out
of the actual job context and moved to
less and less real situations.”
• “Our experts were removed from
working with novices. For most roles in
manufacturing environments there are
very few situations where the experts in
our organisation can spend time coaching
and mentoring others.”
• “There is very little post-training support;
most of it is limited to manuals.”
Many organisations have no idea whether
or not they are getting real business value
from their training investments. Companies
typically measure training impact by
conducting surveys of attendees or counting
how many employees complete courses
rather than assessing whether or not those
employees learned anything that improved
business performance. We therefore have
to ask:
Has anything really changed much in training
over the past 20-30 years? Cell phones
are now a necessity, the Internet is vital to
daily business and increasingly technology
advances that drive real-time decision-
making are becoming critical factors in
operating manufacturing and industrial
facilities. Considering how dramatically
and rapidly the technology landscape has
evolved in only the past decade, it is worth
time questioning the status quo:
• When industry experts estimate it takes
10,000 hours to develop an employee’s
expertise, what can you do differently to
reduce the learning curve?
• When 30% of plant managers switch sites
and/or companies annually, how can you
best sustain a safety culture?
The McKinsey Quarterly report also noted
that it is imperative senior executives not
only understand these training issue trends
but think strategically about how to adapt
March/April 2013 | 25
management and organisational structures
to meet these new demands. The report
emphasises that training programmes
generate greater value for organisations
when the curricula reflect key business
performance metrics (e.g., testing real-world
outcomes is crucial).
Workforce enablement defined
Workforce Enablement encompasses
many areas of plant operations, both
inside and outside the control room (board
operators, field operators, maintenance,
EHS personnel, etc.). It is recognised as one
of the foremost contributors to bottom-line
performance improvements for industrial
operations and is credited with safely
delivering the highest possible availability,
reliability and throughput to create a
“resilient” plant environment. Workforce
Enablement results from a combination of
skills, tools and system design which include
the following important elements:
• Competency-based learning
• Accessibility of information and
procedures on demand
• Work processes/workflow decision
support systems
• Human factor issues (situational
awareness/responsiveness)
• Effective communications and
collaboration
• Control room/system design and
environment
• User interface design for relevance
• Abnormal situation management
(including alarm system effectiveness)
• Automation and control system integrity
and reliability
• Asset performance management
(mechanical integrity and reliability)
• System data integrity (accuracy, reliability
and security)
Many companies may not need or be
able to resource process improvement
initiatives across all of these elements.
Instead what they require is prioritisation
which necessitates a Workforce Enablement
strategy.
A strategy to improve workforce enablement
Let’s first make sure we understand the goal.
The goal: Operation executives want to run
plants safely and profitably and know that
in order to achieve these objectives they
must empower employees to make better
decisions faster. That’s it.
The workforce enablement strategy
framework should address the company’s
management of:
• Content, control and decision support
systems (knowledge, documentation,
intellectual property)
“... having a high-performance team of empowered field and control operators running mission-critical processes, making better decisions faster while complying with procedural best practices is no longer a potential advantage … it is a mandatory requirement to stay in business from year to year. Success is revealed by consistently delivering execution of best practices at the point of incident as the norm, not as an exception”
The resilient plant: The truth about building capabilities for workforce enablement
26 | www.protocolmag.co.za
• Learning (classroom and experiential)
• Business processes and workflow
(required to support the organisation’s
performance needs and continuous
improvement)
These three key elements of workforce
enablement success can be accelerated
and sustained by innovative technologies
to achieve the behavioural and culture
change required for a high-reliability
organisation to make better decisions
faster. Manufacturing competitiveness today
requires a culture where people’s behaviour
becomes more proactive, they take pride
of ownership and actively contribute
to continuous improvement. In today’s
multi-billion dollar business, simply having a
high-performance team of empowered field
and control operators running mission-
critical processes, making better decisions
faster while complying with procedural best
practices is no longer a potential advantage
… it is a mandatory requirement to stay
in business from year to year. Success is
revealed by consistently delivering execution
of best practices at the point of incident as
the norm, not as an exception.
Getting it right by design
An effective Workforce Enablement
programme should be customised to
a company’s specific situation. The
programme assessment must at all times
consider the impact changes will have on
people, processes and assets. “Getting
it right” requires identifying and
prioritising where Workforce Enablement
capabilities can best improve operational
performance. Where there is no situational
awareness, there is complacency. Factors to
be considered include:
• Organisation – field workforce, control
room and/or decision support
• Disciplines – operations, health/safety/
environmental, maintenance/reliability
• Locations – process areas, control rooms,
offsite areas
• Workforce Enablement tools –
simulation, work process management,
mobility, workflow, communications, etc.
• Scope – determining how the project fits
into a risk management plan
• Validation – leveraging industry
references and experts who have “been
there – done that”
• Justification – quantifying the ROI
payback period for management
• Auditing – assessing/tracking the benefits
based on situational data
Workforce enablement as a response to operational challenges
Operations management faces many
challenges in today’s global economy
as a result of intense competition, tight
budgets and limited resources. In addition,
the increasing complexity of plant
processes coupled with greater risk in
terms of environmental, health and safety
considerations strain operations as they run
closer and closer to safe operating limits.
Workforce Enablement can help address
many of the symptoms caused by these
concerns including:
• Inexperienced employees who lack
situational awareness to take proper
actions
• Increased complexity of processes and
procedural compliance
• Inconsistent execution of best practices
across shifts, units and sites
• Inability to rapidly access proper
documentation and procedures
• Immature safety culture that is not an
integral part of day-to-day operations
These issues affect plant employees and
supervisors at all levels. So, what can leaders
do differently to combat the “crossfire”
of high workforce turnover and increasing
regulatory compliance and to better retain
learned knowledge for future workers?
According to ARC Advisory Group, 42%
of all corporate knowledge is actually
held by employees in personal memory
(tacit knowledge). This recent report
states the downward trend in staffing
and the increased demand for accurate
real-time information will translate into
the deployment of additional operations
systems and higher, more sophisticated
levels of automation and decision support.
How does a company effectively transfer
knowledge possessed by older workers
and properly train new workers? ARC
Advisory Group suggests the smaller,
less-experienced workforce that will exist
in the future must be empowered with
new technologies and workflows that can
transfer knowledge on demand. Due to
the critical nature of operator response
and the multitude of interactions with key
operations personnel, a new generation
of training, operations and workflow
management tools are required to
capture and transfer knowledge while
empowering personnel with real-time
process and procedural support.
Workforce enablement technologies drive
behaviours that can positively impact culture
The value of any good technology is
determined by its ability to accelerate and
sustain process improvements that make
operations more safe, reliable and efficient.
When the right Workforce Enablement
technologies are in place, they support and
enforce situational awareness and proactive
behaviours which help deliver a superior
safety culture.
Many employees are in the field or in control
rooms. Management teams are responsible
for running mission-critical processes across
multi-billion dollar businesses with the most
important goals in mind—operate them
safely and profitably. Empowering these
employees with tools and “know-how” are
vitally important to enable them to make
better decisions faster while simultaneously
following the company’s procedural best
practices. Let’s look at technology solutions
aimed at addressing gaps in operational
excellence, as identified in the U.S. Chemical
Safety and Hazard Investigation Board
(CSB) 2007 findings from their review of the
BP Texas City explosion which highlighted
the need for managing and executing
better procedures in operations. The CSB
report emphasised that their findings
were not unique to one company, the site
investigated or specific accident reviewed
but are instead prevalent within the process
industries.
March/April 2013 | 27
FACT – Great safety cultures are observed where everyone is always looking out for each other to prevent accidents and employees take pride of ownership of the company assets by actively contributing to continuous improvement.
Challenge area #1: Content, Control and Decision Support Systems
According to the CSB report, workforce
enablement challenge areas related to
control and decision support systems are:
• Poor or no maintenance of safety systems
• Start-up proceeded even though there
were reported instrument malfunctions
• High level alarm failed to activate
• Control board display was inadequate for
optimal response
• Shift handover communication was poor
or non-existent
A new approach: The control management
“toolkit”
The dissemination of process knowledge is
an important objective in a comprehensive
training programme. Interaction between
board operators, field operators,
maintenance technicians and other plant
personnel is critical to success. There
are several types of tools which enhance
knowledge of operations management and
line workers. These include simulation to
provide training in various environments,
alarm and event-notification software
to alert workers of processes that go
offline, workflow software applications
for procedure enforcement/tracking and
wireless applications which provide a mobile
infrastructure for remote data collection,
event tracking, procedure execution
according to best practices and process
validation.
A capable solution should eliminate the
distractions operators traditionally face
such as alarm storms, manual control of
process loops and tuning/optimisation of
those same loops. With the distractions
eliminated, operators can then focus on true
effectiveness by enhancing their skills and
knowledge.
Event notification and alarm management,
in addition, are important elements in the
implementation of a successful Workforce
Enablement strategy. ARC Advisory Group
has identified alarm management as an
important process automation system
function contributing to an environment
of flawless intervention. By linking
telecommunications to industrial automation
software systems, alarm management
applications enable real-time data and
immediate notification of process issues
in the facility. Operators can monitor the
entire network 24/7 and deliver validated
information to the right person at the right
time. A variety of software applications are
available which enable operators to hear the
details of an alarm through loudspeakers,
intercom systems, radios and telephones.
The technology allows operators to select
alarms and access the proper diagnostic,
identify root cause and/or access the correct
Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs).
These applications also enable alerts via
alphanumeric text messages and/or emails
sent to the correct employee cell phones,
handheld computers and other mobile
devices so that plant and facility issues are
resolved quickly and accurately.
Challenge area #2: Learning (classroom and experiential)
According to the aforesaid CSB report,
Workforce Enablement challenge areas
regarding training and experiential learning
are:
• Inadequate operator training
• Lack of training for abnormal situation
management (emergencies)
• Lack of structured formal training that was
auditable and reinforced
A new approach: Experience-based
learning
With the availability of low-cost and powerful
computing, it is time to revisit simulation
as now it is a cost effective means to
assimilate new workers rapidly. Industry
leaders recognise training simulators are
a vital component to a site’s preparation
and learning programmes, placing workers
in virtual high-risk conditions and testing
their responsiveness within a risk free
environment. Operator training simulators
(OTS) provide plant field and boardroom
operators, maintenance and HSE personnel
efficient knowledge transfer and skill
development in a matter of months rather
than years. With OTS, employees are able
to improve overall skills and performance by
experiencing plant “issues” and “problems”
in a virtual reality digital environment. This
approach improves operator responses
which can reduce the number of abnormal
situation occurrences or unplanned
shutdowns and lowers the risk of loss of life,
assets, production and/or environmental
releases. In both “green field” projects
and start-ups after shutdowns at existing
facilities, these systems help ensure faster
start-up times, quicker recovery from process
upsets with less equipment stresses, and the
ability to correct procedure errors prior to
online production.
Operator training simulation software is
an essential ingredient to a successful
Workforce Enablement strategy. Many
solutions on the market today provide a
rigorous dynamic simulation and control
system emulation for process engineers,
plant engineers, operators and managers
to improve plant design, check out
controls, train operators and boost plant
performance. These solutions feature
comprehensive, dynamic process simulation
programmes which enable users to meet
and overcome the dynamic challenges
of designing and operating a modern
process plant safely and profitably. They
expedite comprehensive engineering
workflow including design, operational
analysis and dynamic simulation. In addition,
operator training and plant performance
improvements reduce capital investment
costs, increase process yields and enhance
management decisions while leveraging
existing technology investments.
3D — The next generation in OTS
Some applications take simulation one step
further by providing simulation training
in a 3D environment. These applications
are particularly useful when training
field operators working in hazardous or
mission-critical locations. This type of
The resilient plant: The truth about building capabilities for workforce enablement
28 | www.protocolmag.co.za
advanced simulation also enables training
and operations practices to be enforced,
standardised and proliferated, from
employee to employee and maintains
consistency by shift, by plant or by site.
Comprehensive 3D simulation solutions
link control room operators to field and
maintenance operators by means of a high-
fidelity process simulation and virtual walk-
through plant environment. As a result, plant
crew training improves safety by enabling
operators to perform tasks in a simulated
environment, react quickly and correctly,
facilitate reactions in high-stress conditions
and instil standards for team training and
communications.
Challenge area #3: Business processes and workflow
According to the CSB report, workforce
enablement challenge areas regarding
procedural management and execution of
best practices are:
• Out-of-date, ineffective or unenforced
operational procedures which lead to
ad-hoc operations
• Incomplete or disregarded safety and
work permit procedures
• Insufficient absent abnormal situation
management procedures for emergency
or upset operations
• Nonexistent or passed over Management
of Change (MOC) procedures
• Irrelevant, outdated and unused written
(hard copy) procedures
A New Approach: Mobility as a key
enabler
Advancements in mobile and wireless
technology solutions provide an effective
on-the-job tool for operations management
to facilitate mobile learning. A mobile
workforce is better equipped to address
issues at the location of a problem and
determine the best course of action to
resolve the problem, leveraging remote
data. Configurable software and ruggedised
mobile hardware solutions enable a
smooth workflow, accurate data collection
and general task management for plant
operations, maintenance management,
production tracking and compliance
applications. Wireless applications are a
vital component of a complete plant and
operations management solution which
connects all wired and stranded assets,
enabling even broader visibility into
operational performance than ever before.
Mobile technology combined with intelligent
workflow technology now provides field
workers and desk workers with intelligent
on-demand dynamic procedures, pushed
to the right people based on best practices.
These procedures are not “dumb text”
documents but instead smart procedures
with decision tree logic to ensure proper
steps are followed and auditable. No more
dumb documents sitting on the shelf …
instead better, faster decisions. A capable
solution should eliminate the distractions
operators traditionally face such as alarm
storms, manual control of process loops
and tuning/optimisation of those same
loops. With the distractions eliminated, it is
possible to focus on true effectiveness by
enhancing operator skills and knowledge.
March/April 2013 | 29
Chevron: The new path forward
Chevron was recently named by Managing
Automation as a “Progressive Manufacturing
Top 100 Award Winner” in the category
of Operational Excellence Mastery. What
are some of Chevron’s keys to success in
Operational Excellence? Let’s start with
understanding Chevron Corporation’s Top
Ten Tenets of Operation:
• Always operate within design or
environmental limits
• Always operate in a safe and controlled
condition
• Always ensure safety devices are in place
and functioning
• Always follow safe work practices and
procedures
• Always meet or exceed customers’
requirements
• Always maintain integrity of dedicated
systems
• Always comply with all applicable rules
and regulations
• Always address abnormal conditions
• Always follow written procedures for high
risk or unusual situations
• Always involve the right people in
decisions that affect procedures and
equipment
Their recent award also recognises the
company for being a leader in mobile
learning—handheld computers with
intelligent work process management
software for executing procedures according
to best practices. Chevron identified more
than half of most process manufacturing
plant assets are non-instrumented and
require numerous manual inspections.
Previously, data was often collected on
clipboards and entered into databases
or spreadsheets manually, which was not
timely enough to identify and act upon
process data when issues arose. With
the implementation of the Workforce
Enablement mobile technology, Chevron
achieved significant savings by standardising
refinery process steps using mobile workflow
software and rugged PDAs to deliver
decision support to field workers. The
company implemented a solution which
increased refinery operating reliability,
reduced maintenance costs and improved
safety and environmental compliance.
As cited at Microsoft’s Global Energy Forum
2011, the Chevron programme delivered
“higher equipment availability and faster
reaction to plant concerns (typical $1M hard
dollar annual savings per site from reduction
in unplanned downtime and maintenance
cost savings)”. The company has also
found the solution helps capture process
knowledge before workers retire and speeds
new worker assimilation through mobile
learning—both desirable outcomes of an
effective workforce enablement solution.
Summary
Plants and factories today face numerous
challenges resulting from the loss of highly
knowledgeable workers to retirement,
workforce reductions and the increasingly
complex nature of manufacturing and
industrial processes and technologies. With
such resource deficits expected to continue
during the immediate future, companies
must continually review and revise their
strategies to operate more efficiently and
profitably. Importantly, the tools they use
must be focused on specific needs and
goals.
Many of your employees in the field, control
rooms and management are responsible
for running mission-critical processes across
your enterprise with the most important
goals in mind—safe and profitable
operations. A focus on enabling these daily
decisions through Workforce Enablement
technologies is one of the most cost-
effective means of achieving greater levels of
effectiveness. With quantifiable performance
improvements for the majority of industrial
operations, Workforce Enablement not
only improves safety in control rooms,
process areas and factory floors, but is
acknowledged as one of the most important
means of maximising availability, reliability
and throughput.
Fortunately, there are new, constantly-
evolving technologies designed to address
the issues of a changing workforce and
increasingly sophisticated automation
systems. These solutions empower plant
operators with real-time information, highly
capable decision support and workflow
tools and ultra-realistic training simulation
scenarios designed to test new operations
procedures and solutions without impacting
safety or expense lines. Ultimately,
companies can manage business continuity
and profitability by leveraging a variety of
technology solutions specifically addressing
the realities of today’s streamlined – yet
highly technical – industrial environment.
At the heart of a resilient plant is your
workforce; they provide the creativity and
agility to respond to normal and abnormal
situations. Closing gaps in Workforce
Enablement requires we look at roles, tools,
resources, incentives, knowledge and skills.
An assessment is the first step to target the
right objectives and answer basic questions
to help set new Workforce Enablement
priorities.
• What performance results are expected
of the team or individual related to
short- and long-term business goals and
strategies?
• What competencies are required to meet
the target performance results?
• What gaps exist between required
practices and current performance of the
team?
• How are current work environment factors
and programmes either encouraging
the workforce to perform as needed or
discouraging them from doing so?
• What current programmes are working
and what new programmes or content
should be made available?
From the initial assessment, a recommended
solution can be derived and tied to the
business KPI targets. To learn how Invensys
can help you create the “Resilient Plant”
by enhancing your workforce enablement
strategy and plan execution, contact your
account manager.
The resilient plant: The truth about building capabilities for workforce enablement
30 | www.protocolmag.co.za
Minimising time-to-experience and maximising performanceDr. Peter G Martin,
Vice President, business value solutions, Invensys Operations Management
About the author
Peter Martin, Vice President and
Invensys Fellow, has been hailed by
Fortune Magazine as a “Hero of U.S.
Manufacturing” and was selected by
ISA as one of the industry’s “50 Most
Infl uential Innovators.”
Over his three-decade tenure in
the process automation industries,
Dr. Martin has authored the books,
Bottom Line Automation and
Dynamic Performance Management:
The Pathway to World Class
Manufacturing, as well as numerous
articles and technical papers about
real-time performance measurement
and resource productivity. He also
holds several patents relative to
performance measurement.
Dr. Martin has held a variety of
positions at Invensys and Foxboro®
in engineering, product planning,
marketing and strategic planning. Dr.
Martin has BA and MS degrees in
Mathematics and an MA degree in
Administration and Management and
a Ph.D. in Industrial Engineering.
Background
It is generally recognised that industrial
companies are in the midst of a human
resource crisis. In a recent survey of
industrial executives, each indicated that
the aging workforce is one of their most
diffi cult challenges. The average age of
the industrial worker has been on the
increase for decades. With a large segment
of the industrial workforce on the verge
of retirement, just about every aspect of
every industrial operation is challenged with
fi lling in positions with new talent without
a signifi cant drop off in productivity. This
is particularly daunting since many of the
jobs most affected are in skilled positions
that normally require years of experience to
reach desired levels of profi ciency.
Fortunately, the sciences of human
performance management, education and
industrial technologies have advanced to
the point that the “time-to-experience” of
employees can be signifi cantly reduced over
traditional approaches. Even better, utilising
state-of-the-art approaches to human
performance improvement, the performance
of key personnel can not only rapidly grow
to meet the needs of industrial operations
facing huge personnel replacement
challenges, but their performance can
increase to new levels which are far beyond
those traditionally possible.
Traditional approach to personnel
performance management
One reason the aging of the industrial
workforce has become such a crisis is that
it has normally taken considerable time
to evolve employees to profi ciency at
their jobs. When operational employees
joined industrial organisations years ago,
they were initially put through some kind
of formal training programme. Following
initial training, they were then put on
the job under the supervision of highly
experienced workers, or work teams, so that
the knowledge of these highly experienced
workers could be slowly transferred to the
less experienced employees. Over the
years, the employees would progress in
both experience and profi ciency until they
reached a level of effi ciency and expertise,
enabling them to transition into positions
of leadership on their respective teams.
Industrial jobs were so challenging and
industrial operations so complex that it
might take years or even decades for a
worker to progress to the desired level.
The traditional progression of talent to
profi ciency works quite well if the workforce
is continually comprised of a number of
employees at different levels of progression.
This provides a continual group of talent
in position to take over as the more
experienced talent leaves the workforce.
Unfortunately, from the early 1990s to today,
March/April 2013 | 31
there have been fewer people entering
the industrial workforce due to economic
downturns, technological innovations that
replaced head count, and better work
opportunities in other market sectors.
Coupled with significant downsizing that
accompanied the economic downturns,
the result is a critical talent gap for many
industrial companies. Many companies
now have a large number of older, highly
experienced personnel preparing to
retire and a large number of relatively
inexperienced workers not quite ready to
take over the vacated responsibilities. Today,
the traditional approach to bringing on and
training inexperienced employees does not
suffice.
Educational sciences
Much educational design prior to the 1970s
was focused on how to make lecture-style
classroom training more effective. We often
refer to this as academic education. In areas
such as the natural sciences, classroom
training was typically supplemented by more
experientially-oriented training in the form
of lab exercises. It has long been understood
that there are certain things that are much
better learned, understood and retained if
the student can be exposed to the theory
through a more academic classroom lecture
approach and experience the results through
experiential laboratories.
As I was taking graduate courses in
education during the late 1970s, the
educational community in the United States
had just started to formally recognise
the power of experiential education in
areas other than the natural sciences. A
number of the courses were set up to
work through case studies as though the
student was going through an actual,
real world experience. The effectiveness
of experiential programmes for certain
types of training was significantly better
than a traditional classroom experience. A
number of colleges and universities started
introducing experience-based courses into
their curriculum. As a result, the power of
experience-based education to bring up a
novice to a reasonable experience level for
certain aspects of training started to become
generally recognised.
Today, the most effective results in human
resource development typically involve
an effective combination of academic
and experiential training. The academic
training is effective at communicating
overall theory while the experiential training
provides a more pragmatic perspective.
The time to effectiveness of people
encountering new work environments can
often be significantly reduced through the
effective combination of academic and
experiential training approaches. Certainly
the ultimate experiential training approach
is direct on-the-job training. People grow
in effectiveness at the highest rate when
actually performing tasks on the job.
Minimising time-to-experience in industrial environments through simulation
Since industrial companies are facing a
huge human resource experience gap
issue, it has become absolutely essential,
for the sustainable performance of
these operations, to reduce the time-to-
experience of new employees and workers
who have been brought into the operations
over the last five years. It has become clear
that the most effective way to accomplish
this is through a combination of academic,
experiential and on-the-job training.
Although classroom training is critically
important in setting the overall context of
the plant operation and getting employees
to understand the overall theory of
operation, research has demonstrated that
students retain less than 30% of what they
are presented in this manner. Instructors are
typically trained to go over important points
and issues at least three separate times
during the classroom sessions in order to get
to the 30% level. You might hear instructors
repeat the adage to “tell them what you are
going to say, say it, then tell them what you
said” to get the three repetitions. Although
this is good instructional methodology, it
still only gets the students to a basic level of
comprehension.
Experiential training approaches provide
a higher level of retention than academic
approaches, and are even more effective if
they are used as a follow-on to a classroom
session. Employees can immediately put
the knowledge they have gained in the
classroom to practice − thus reinforcing what
they had learned to increase retention and
adding to what they had learned to further
drive to effectiveness.
Unfortunately, many industrial processes are
significantly negatively impacted through
inexperienced operations and maintenance
teams. Plant management is justifiably
reluctant to allow inexperienced operations
personnel to get the level of live on-the-job
experiential training required to truly reduce
their time to effectiveness. The solution to
this is “near-time experiential training” using
training simulators or even virtual reality
systems. Training simulators are available
today at multiple levels of sophistication
from simple process loop simulators all the
way to full rigorous first principle model
simulations of the entire plant. Very effective
training can be done with all levels of
simulation to give operations personnel
firsthand experience to multiple levels of
detail.
Full rigorous, first principle model simulators
allow operators to experience a simulation
which is as close to a real plant operating
Minimising time-to-experience and maximising performance
32 | www.protocolmag.co.za
environment as possible. Instructors can
help operators walk through what would
be extremely dangerous situations in the
plant, but with the simulator they can learn
to effectively respond in a safe environment.
This near-time experiential approach to
training can significantly reduce the time-to-
experience for operators by enabling them
to learn through a hands-on approach to
deal with both normal operational situations
as well as exceptional and abnormal
situations that only occur infrequently in live
plant operations.
Recently, there has been a major
breakthrough in the area of near-time
experiential training with the introduction of
low-cost virtual reality interfaces to rigorous,
first principle model simulators. These
virtual reality systems enable operations
and maintenance personnel to engage in
highly effective, yet safe, immersive training
environments that are incredibly true to
live plant operations. These immersive
training systems, when effectively deployed
and used in conjunction with training
simulators and classroom approaches, can
significantly reduce the time-to-experience
for operations and maintenance personnel,
and help close the experience gap that is
plaguing industry.
Beyond time-to-experience – continuous performance improvement
Closing the experience gap is absolutely
essential to the effective operation of
industrial plants, especially as the departure
of the present aging workforce continues
to accelerate. Closing the experience gap
however, will only sustain operations at the
same levels that they are achieving today.
Plant business performance must improve
or it will become increasingly difficult to
compete in industrial markets that are
rapidly becoming commoditised.
Again, technological advances have
provided an ideal solution for driving
continuous profitability improvement from
industrial assets. It has been commonly
accepted for decades that on-the-job
training (OJT) is critically effective, but
most traditional OJT approaches involve
a highly experienced worker supervising
the behaviour of less experienced workers.
Although this has been adequate, it
is constrained by only allowing the
less experienced workers to get to the
experience level and efficiency of their
mentors.
Recent advances in the areas of real-
time Key Performance Indicators (KPIs),
real-time accounting, real-time workflow
management, and real-time contextualised
business intelligence are providing
environments in which automatic,
electronically produced information on the
operations and financial performance of
the enterprise is available, and accessible
to every person in the operation. Whether
they are a stationary worker at a traditional
workstation or a remote worker using a
mobile wireless unit, real-time operations
intelligence can be provided in a format
commensurate with each person’s
experience, training and capability. The
resulting real-time “dashboards” or
“scorecards” provide an online, real-time
performance training environment for any
person who has the potential to impact the
operational or financial performance of the
plant.
With this immediate performance feedback,
each person can assess the performance
impact of their actions, immediately after the
actions are taken. For example, a common
activity of a process operator may be to
adjust a temperature. Traditionally they just
hoped that the new temperature was a good
idea. With real-time performance feedback
they can immediately discern if the change
added or detracted value. Over time, they
will learn how to perform their actions in a
manner that continually creates the most
value of the operation.
Experience with real-time OJT performance
can drive both the operational and financial
performance delivered by every person to
measurable and previously unattainable
levels. In fact, on average this type of
training realises a 100% return on investment
within three months.
Sustainable, measurable performance
improvements come from a combination of
training approaches geared to minimising
time to efficiency, then driving to new levels
of operational and financial performance
(Figure 1). The exact combination will be
different for each industrial organisation and
will depend on current experience, training
level and complexity of the operation.
Consultants familiar with both state-of-the-
art training approaches and the needs of
industrial operations can help design the
programme that specifically meets the needs
of each operation.
Every effective programme should be looked
at as a continuous and integral part of an
industrial operation rather than a “training
event.” The goals and objectives should be
clearly set to:
• Ensure there is an effective approach to
minimise the impact of the experience
gap in the organisation
• Drive continuous performance
improvement of the operation
Figure 2 represents the impact of traditional
Figure 1: Improving time-to-performance through training
March/April 2013 | 33
Figure 2: Human resource proficiency progression model
training approaches (orange line) and
illustrates the potential positive impact that
an effective approach to training can have
on time-to-experience.
Conclusion
The aging of the workforce and the growing
number of experienced industrial personnel
ready to retire over the next few years,
coupled with the gap in experience of the
remaining workforce, is creating a crisis for
industrial operations. As highly experienced
personnel are retiring, the remaining
workforce is not at an adequate level of
proficiency to take over operations. A new
approach, based on state-of-the-art training
approaches and technological capabilities,
is now available to both minimise time to
efficiency and drive incremental continuous
operational and financial performance
improvements.
The Invensys Business Value Solutions team
can design a solution that meets the needs
of any industrial organisation experiencing
this gap. The Invensys approach is not only
starting to reap benefits in terms of raising
the overall experience level to fill the gap
left by retirements, it is also helping to drive
measurably increased profitability through
better human performance management,
resulting in 100% returns within three months.
If the experience gap is a problem in your
operation, or if you would like to drive more
performance from your current workforce, it
may be time to engage the Business Value
Solutions team – from Invensys. Find out at
iom.invensys.com.
Minimising time-to-experience and maximising performance
34 | www.protocolmag.co.za
Product profile: EYESIM Immersive Virtual Reality Training System
In a nutshell ...
EYESIM™ is a comprehensive solution that links control room
operators to field operators and maintenance operators by means
of a high-fidelity process simulation and virtual walkthrough plant
environment. EYESIM provides complete plant crew training to
improve skills that are safety-critical by enabling operators to
perform tasks in a simulated environment, allowing them to react
quickly and correctly, facilitating reactions in high stress conditions,
and instilling standards for team training and communications.
The EYESIM solution is comprised of a modelling engine, powered
by SimSci-Esscor’s DYNSIM®; services through the SIM4ME® bridge
and is coupled with a high performing virtual reality engine and a
high quality 3D modelling/scanning toolset.
Key Benefits:
• Provide a realistic virtual environment for trainees with the
opportunity for extended practice sessions
• Improve environment, health & safety (EH&S) compliancy by
promoting safer shutdowns and turnarounds and lowering
emissions
• Boost operator knowledge management, capturing best
practices procedures, site-specific processes and reducing
operator errors
• Decrease upfront training costs for new personnel
• Reduce maintenance budgets
Key Capabilities:
• EYESIM can be used for predictive analysis in support of EH&S
initiatives
• Implement a standardised process for analysis, tracking, accident
investigation, escalation and remediation
• Encourage collaboration across departmental lines and facilitate
communication & coordination among team members
• Allow remote access of processes and remote management
through unmanned execution
• Boost productivity with localised plans, processes visualisation
and standard work procedures
• Allow maintenance activities to be improved during an outage
though a comprehensive virtual analysis of equipment
Production processes are only as effective as those who control them
and that’s why effective training is perhaps the quickest way to an
improved bottom line. EYESIM from SimSci-Esscor has earned an
enviable reputation doing just that.
March/April 2013 | 35
A comprehensive plant crew training solution
EYESIM™ Immersive Virtual Reality
is a comprehensive solution linking
Control Room Operators to Field Operators,
Maintenance Operators and other critical
team members in your process by means
of a High-Fidelity Process Simulation
coupled with a Virtual Walkthrough Plant
Environment. EYESIM provides a complete
Plant Crew Training System, capturing
best practices, rarely-used procedures and
other operations and makes them systems of
record for continuous use and refinement.
Modular architecture
EYESIM’s modular architecture allows
you to link to major DCS systems, as
well as “traditional” Operator Training
Simulators. Leveraging the SIM4ME®
Portal, which provides simple, web-based
bidirectional transfer of variables between
SimSci- Esscor’s™ Dynamic Simulation
Suite software and Microsoft Excel®, a
collaborative engineering environment is
created to facilitate drag and drop, multi-
variable application simulation control.
Traditional training simulators don’t cover field operators
As figure 2 shows, the second-highest
source of accidents in plant operations are
operational errors. Your challenge? How
to ensure that the practices you create are
enforced, standardised, and proliferated,
from employee to employee, and maintain
consistency by shift, by plant, or by site.
Static control systems using DCS systems
don’t allow for rich simulation or software
emulation of processes. Traditional
operator consoles with HMI interfaces
don’t allow for heuristic learning; and the
plant systems that are reflected cannot
accommodate the dynamic process model
that is required to capture ongoing changes
and refinements.
Now, virtual reality comes to the plant
What if your process could be simulated,
with full operator interaction? Emulating
not only the existing hardware and software
systems, but the physical plant design and
layout, and operator consoles? And creating
an interactive, 3D environment for training,
testing, and process simulation? That is what
EYESIM Immersive Virtual Reality Training
brings.
Modelling your plant the way it is and the way it
will be. Integrating CAD/CAM designs through
DYNSIM® for complete design simulation.
With a new Virtual Reality HMI paradigm
Figure 1: Some of the components of EYESIM’s modular architecture
Product profile: EYESIM Immersive Virtual Reality Training System
36 | www.protocolmag.co.za
using Interactive, 3D Stereoscopic Models for
operator familiarisation and training.
EYESIM benefits: optimise training throughout the plant
• Provide more realistic environments for
trainees, with the opportunity for practice
of procedures in training sessions
• React quickly and correctly in medium/
high stress situations (accident
investigation and training)
• Improve skills for rarely-performed, but
safety-critical tasks such as emergency
shutdowns
• Optimise the transfer of skills from “off-
line” training environments to the work
environment
• Reliable and valid evaluation of
operational procedures and individual
operator performance
• Maximise team training and
communications in the control room
or field by shift and by operations
management
EYESIM brings real value to operations
EYESIM has been shown to reduce the
time-to-value and costs of on-the-job training
by 30 to 40%. It reduces the time of start-up
when recovering from a planned or unplanned
shutdown, or from warm/cold conditions, by
15 to 20%. And, it contributes to maintenance
budget savings of 1 to 3%. These costs can
rapidly reduce the total cost of ownership for
EYESIM within the first year of deployment.
EYESIM’s solution components
EYESIM represents the “best in breed” of
training components from SimSci-Esscor,
representing generations of design and
operator training simulation:
• For the Modelling Engine, DYNSIM
simulation is used
• For collaboration and integration,
SIM4ME portal
• A rigorous Virtual Reality Engine adds
capabilities
• A 3D Model and Viewer offer state-of-the-
art operator interaction and experience
Services offerings
To complement the software, offerings include:
• A managed service model for total system
maintenance and upkeep
• 3D Photo Scanning and 3D Modelling
Figure 2: Accident percentages due to the most common causes
March/April 2013 | 37
• Virtual Reality configuration
• Systems integration
• Training Programmes
Infrastructure
Whether you need a virtual reality facility to
test your designs, hardware and equipment
for deployment, or mobile solutions for
remote data entry and operator feedback,
these components are available to complete
your Virtual Reality system.
Basic architecture
EYESIM’s Virtual Reality experience starts
with the control room—a Virtual Reality
engine provides operators with a rich, 3D
experience using special visors for field
training. DYNSIM Dynamic Simulation
Software from SimSci-Esscor contributes
High-Fidelity Simulation for operator training
and process engineering design studies. All
contribute to increasing the operator’s basic
understanding of the processes, equipment,
and procedures necessary for safe and
reliable operations.
EYESIM savings
Use EYESIM to accelerate cost savings that
can show a lower total cost of ownership
after just a few months’ use. Typical savings
include:
• Save 30 to 40% on time and costs of
on-the-job training
• Reduce time of start-ups, from planned/
unplanned shutdowns, or from warm/cold
conditions, by 15 to 20%
• Save 1 to 3% on maintenance budgets.
Figure 3: System overview
Figure 4: A greenfield refinery
producing 200 000 barrels per
day can make annual savings
of $3M to $4M using EYESIM.
Product profile: EYESIM Immersive Virtual Reality Training System
38 | www.protocolmag.co.za
Operator simulator training improves GenOn power station efficiency
Invensys improves GenOn Power Station’s operational efficiency, enhances workforce enablement and reduces costs with operator training simulator solution
Goals
• GenOn Energy needed to develop a training program to enable
the easy transfer of technical knowledge and real-world experience
from veteran power plant operators to new trainees in the shortest
possible time period
• The company required a training solution that could deliver a high-
fidelity model of the Circulating Fluidised Bed (CFB) waste coal-fired
combustion process
Challenges
• Seward Generating Station management had to overcome initial
scepticism from veteran operators that a computer simulator solution
could replicate the intricacies and nuances of running an advanced
technology waste coal-fired power station
• New equipment and upgrades required the testing of alternative
procedures and processes, which needed to be conducted without
impacting live plant operations
Solutions and Products
• SimSci-Esscor® DYNSIM®
• SimSci-Esscor DYNSIM OPC Server
• SimSci-Esscor DYNSIM OPC Client Link to ABB Harmony Training
Simulator (HTS)
Results
• The simulator is successfully being used to qualify new trainees and
simulation training has standardised responses to specific problem
or error conditions
• All control changes are first made and tested on the simulator before
implementing on the plant, improving operational efficiencies and
adding higher levels of confidence to control room management
Coal remains an abundant source of energy and is a strong, economical
alternative to costlier fossil fuels such as oil and natural gas. New
technologies and processes are being employed at coal-fired power
stations that can significantly reduce the environmental impact while
providing economical power to a community.
GenOn Energy’s Seward Generating Station is in this new class of
“The Invensys solution has helped us significantly, that’s the pure dollars and cents of the project. But there’s also been quality of life improvements regarding overtime for the control room operators.”
Alan Metzler Operations Manager GenOn Energy’s Seward Generating Station
March/April 2013 | 39
environment friendly power generation
because it is specifically designed to
economically use low quality waste fuel while
assisting in reclaiming fallow land. The plant,
located in the lush valleys and rolling hills
of western Pennsylvania about 70 miles east
of Pittsburgh, turns waste coal not suitable
for traditional coal-fired generating stations
into safe, reliable power with significantly
reduced environmental impact.
Invensys offers track record with power station training solution
The Circulating Fluidised Bed (CFB) power
station was commissioned in 2004, replacing
a traditional coal-fired plant constructed on
the same site in 1919. The new plant now
produces 525 megawatts, nearly three times
the power output of the prior plant. Plus
the Seward station hit the record books as
the largest waste coal power station in the
world. The power station was named the
2004 “Plant of the Year” by Platt’s Power
magazine and the facility was additionally
honoured with the Pennsylvania Governor’s
Award for Environmental Excellence.
When GenOn Energy looked for unique
solutions for bolstering the efficiency of the
power station through enhanced operator
training and procedural improvements, the
company turned to Invensys Operations
Management after a search of companies
specifically with extensive experience in
power station systems. Invensys already had a
demonstrated track record with power station
boiler simulators, with the added advantage
of on-staff engineers who had previously
worked for CFB boiler manufacturers.
“What made Invensys stand out over others
was the technology and expertise of the
proposed team members that were going
to be part of the simulator,” said Brian
Rematt, controls engineer at the Seward
Generating Station. “It made my decision
pretty easy as to which company to go with.
When it all came down to it we felt Invensys
could deliver the best simulator for the final
outcome we were looking for.”
The CFB combustion process for coal-fired
power installations was developed in
Europe more than 30 years ago, and has
more recently found favour with U.S. power
generators. The CFB process turns blighted
piles of waste coal into reclaimed green
space for community use. Since the other
CFB power plants are much smaller than the
Seward station, the plant has a unique set of
operational and training needs.
The Seward power plant is a relatively
new facility within GenOn Energy, one
of the largest generators of wholesale
electricity in the U.S. with a total capacity
exceeding 24,000 megawatts via coal,
natural gas and oil. It is regarded as a critical
generating plant in the fleet because of
the considerable investment in the CFB
technology and the commitment to the
environmentally friendly use of coal. With
corporate eyes focused on the success
of the Seward facility, plant management
relied on Invensys to deliver new training
approaches that would turn the plant into a
showcase for the entire GenOn organisation.
“The quality, professionalism and
knowledge of the Invensys team exceeded
our expectations,” said Paul Demi, shift
supervisor and simulator trainer. “The
Invensys engineers wanted to make a
simulator that they could sit back and be
proud of as much as we wanted the same.
That helped drive all of us to do the best we
could and work closely together.”
Challenges of a sophisticated, new power generation process
Transitioning from a standard pulverised
coal-fired process to CFB did not come
without overcoming a few hurdles. In
addition to increasing regulatory compliance
and implications of an aging workforce,
managers were concerned about worker
performance issues; specifically day-to-
day plant operations and the analysis of
processes and procedures.
The start-up and shutdown sequences as
well as equipment maintenance procedures
for a CFB plant are distinct from traditional
coal-fired power station operations. The
control technology and power generation
systems are highly specialised and
require heightened levels of vigilance
by well-trained operators. As a result,
plant management focused on ways to
leverage the knowledge of its experienced
operators so that it could be easily
transferred to staff involved in the operator
training program. The power generating
station needed a solution that could train
prospective operators in an extremely
dynamic environment so that the nuances
and operational sensitivities of the CFB
combustion process could be experienced
in the assured safety of a simulated control
room environment.
“We felt we had to do something with a
simulator and it seemed to be a potential,”
said Alan Metzler, operations manager for
the Seward Generating Station. “We did
a lot of upfront investigation regarding
understanding simulators and how they might
model a CFB. Invensys made us feel even
more comfortable by telling us it was going
to be a tough project and that they weren’t
sure they could do it with the accuracy that
we were asking for. We knew that would be
an issue because of the nature of the CFB.”
The alternative to plant simulation was to
drill down on conventional management
and operator training approaches, with a
focus on classroom instruction with carefully
supervised on-the-job training. Instead,
plant management decided to step outside
of the traditional training envelope with
operator training simulator (OTS) technology
already proven in other types of fossil fuel
power stations. However, the simulator
training approach wasn’t received without
some scepticism from the veteran operators.
“When we first told the people about the
simulator they initially laughed at it and
thought it was going to be a waste,” said
Larry Borsa, control room operator at the
Seward station. “Now the people that have
gone through the training come into the
control room totally amazed about how the
simulator closely mirrors the control room.
Their confidence level is very, very good.
They are not afraid to make changes; they are
not afraid to do different things. Also, with
the observations of the equipment running
they’ve become very aware of what’s going
on around them. I trained a lot of operators
at the old station and it took a long time just
to get people to touch something. We no
longer have that issue with the people going
through this new training procedure.”
The SimSci-Esscor DYNSIM solution selected
for the project is a comprehensive, dynamic
process simulation program designed to
enable Seward power plant operators to
tackle the challenges of operating one of the
Operator simulator training improves GenOn power station efficiency
40 | www.protocolmag.co.za
world’s largest CFB plant safely and with a
bottom-line eye on performance and operating
cost efficiency. The simulation technology
offers a basis for a comprehensive approach
to operator training, which in turn improves
plant performance and reduces capital
investment costs by improving the consistency
of operations and lowering the probability of
equipment damage due to incorrect operation.
The Seward plant operates two CFB boilers
that produce steam to power an Alstom
steam turbine. CFB technology increases
the residence time of the fuel in the furnace
significantly, allowing low BTU waste coal
fuel to burn completely. Also, CFB furnaces
operate at a lower furnace temperature
than traditional coal firing technology,
which, when combined with the selective
non-catalytic reduction system installed in
the flue gas path, results in low NOx (nitric
oxide and nitrogen dioxide) emissions.
Sulphur dioxide emissions are controlled
by injecting limestone into the furnace and
via an ash hydration and re-injection system
installed at the plant. Particulate emissions
are controlled with a bag house.
“The expertise and knowledge of
our people along with an unwavering
commitment to customer success was
the differentiator in the selection process
and the key contributors in a resoundingly
successful project. DYNSIM once again
showed itself to be the industry leading
software platform for both Power and
Hydrocarbon Processing Operator Training
Simulators. The team worked tirelessly with
GenOn to understand the requirements
and deliver a project that far exceeded
customer expectations,” said Alastair Fraser,
V.P. Global Consulting/Solutions Services,
Invensys Operations Management.
The simulator was created using the SimSci-
Esscor DYNSIM. It was designed to create
first-principle models of process operations,
including typical power plant equipment.
The flexibility of DYNSIM made it possible to
extend the existing furnace model to achieve
a realistic representation of the Seward CFB
boilers. The system used a virtual stimulation
of the plant’s ABB Harmony distributed
control system (DCS). In addition, the
Invensys solution also emulated the Alstom
steam turbine controls and the PLC-based
controls for the ash-handling and air-heater
leak detection systems. Communication
between the DYNSIM model and the ABB
HTS virtual controllers was accomplished
through the DYNSIM OPC client
communicating with a server embedded in
the ABB HTS system. The link between the
DYNSIM emulation of PLC controls in the
plant and the Harmony DCS was conducted
through the DYNSIM OPC server.
Invensys simulator technology sways the sceptics
Despite operator reservations that the
complex CFB coal-burning process could
not be easily modelled in a computer
simulation, Invensys was able to deliver
a solution with an extremely high level of
process fidelity. Invensys extended the
capabilities of its existing high-fidelity
furnace model, adding calculations related
to the inventory and circulation of ash in
the furnace, which allowed the addition
of heat transfer, combustion and pressure
gradient calculations specific to the CFB.
These equations could be tuned to match
the start-up behaviour observed at the plant.
Another simulator accomplishment was the
modelling of the coal ignition process.
“The hardest part is to get an operator
to understand the process and the
interactions,” said Metzler. “They are able
to see all that in the simulator. That’s not
something you get in a classroom or a
textbook or in a procedure. You have to
live it. Fortunately our operators are now
able to ‘live it’ via simulation, and they are
able to deal with many more scenarios and
situations in a much smaller amount of time
than someone could possibly experience
under any other training program.”
Indeed, the simulator has been so true-to-
life that plant operators have been able
to use the technology to identify control
issues and create what-if scenarios off-line,
then incorporate new processes and
control solutions into plant operations. The
simulator training is considered so realistic
that it can both qualify new plant trainees
and maintain and enhance the skills of even
the most senior power plant operators.
Mirroring live operations is the key to success
The control room layout is a horseshoe design.
The centre HMI screen controls the steam
turbine, and to the left and right are four DCS
screens, complemented by a set of PLC HMI
screens for a total of 13 HMI monitors. The
simulator training room is virtually a mirror
image of the control room setup and, to help
trainees stay close to the pulse of the plant, is
located within 30 feet of live operations.
“When we are doing the training we can
compare what we are doing in here to what’s
going on in the real plant -- it makes a good
connection for the trainees,” Metzler said. “It
was important for us to have the simulator
in an area that would be representative of
real-life control conditions. The research
we had done stressed the importance of
making it as realistic as possible so that it’s
not just a bunch of computer screens in an
unrealistic setup on a worktable in the back of
a conference room. We spent a good amount
of money to have a special area available and
the team spent a significant amount of effort
in the design application and then in the
construction of the system to have it be an
almost exact replica of the real control room.
Space is at premium in the plant but we made
a commitment to have it located near
the actual control room as opposed
to putting it in a trailer in a parking lot
somewhere.”
A number of considerations weighed into
the decision to implement an operator
training simulator solution. Factors included
new plant equipment, new operating
procedures and insufficient or inappropriate
training. The Seward plant confronted the
additional challenge of training additional
personnel as the new CFB equipment came
online. Staffing needed to be doubled to
increase the number of trained control room
operators at the 24/7 plant, and on-the-job
training was no longer a practical approach
for knowledge transfer of the sophisticated
CFB combustion process.
“When we first started there were people
who didn’t think it could be done,” said Demi.
“There was always a question as to whether
we were ever going to reach our goal. Now
we bring a person that has never worked in
the control room and give them four weeks
of intense training, 10 hour days, five days a
week. When they go into the control room
they not only know how to operate the
equipment but they feel comfortable working
March/April 2013 | 41
with the controls. To be able to train someone
to operate the DCS for a plant our size speaks
volumes to what the simulator can do. I’d say
hands down we reached our goal.”
For watchers of the bottom line, simulation pays mighty dividends
The Invensys solution has provided
additional dividends that have exceeded
the success in operator training. DYNSIM
technology is now used to develop and
test new control logic options that can be
incorporated into the DCS.
“All in all, the simulator has saved our
bacon,” Metzler said. “We originally got
it to train control room operators and to
improve our existing operations. We can
say it scored an A+ for all of that. Our
human performance errors and resulting
loss in generation has been reduced
significantly. This came at a time when
capital dollars for the installation were
scrutinised as much as I have ever seen in
my career at power plants. But we were
committed that if we were going to do it,
we were going to do it right and we kept
to our guns and achieved a successful
outcome. We didn’t want something close
enough; we needed something right on.”
“After a recent turbine control system
upgrade the plant struggled to put the unit
online. There was a considerable amount of
computer handshaking happening invisible
to the operators. It wasn’t happening like
it should have so we decided to try it on
the simulator, and when we did that, sure
enough, we witnessed what we should have
been seeing in real life,” said Rematt. “And
then we actually applied it to our own device
and we were able to get the turbine online
the very first time. Prior to that we had two
to three failed attempts but after we saw it
on the simulator, how it should really go, we
took that onto the floor and applied that and
it worked the first time.”
Control development on the simulator delivers real-world solutions
The simulator was additionally used to
develop controls to mitigate relief valve
operation due to pump overpressure issues.
After running through several tests and
developing process approach options,
management implemented the new logic in
the plant, bringing additional safety to power
generation operations and shortstopping
potential undesired cascading shutdown
events involving pressure relief valves, feed
water pumps, the boiler furnaces and the
power-producing steam turbine.
“You can’t understate that, that is very
significant, the single occurrence of bringing
the turbine online saved a lot of time and
money but this issue with the relief valves, it
was significant dollars and significant time
and many other benefits,” said Metzler.
The simulator has enabled operators to
define alternative procedures for handling
certain process conditions. For example,
the procedure to handle a feed water
pump trip now calls for the trip of one of
the two boilers, which enables the plant to
continue safe operation at half load. Also
the simulator has been used to increase the
efficiency of the plant start-up and shutdown
procedures. Plus simulator training has
improved operational reliability and
established the standardisation of operator
responses to problem conditions.
Invensys’ dedication continues from project through support
The Invensys SimSci-Esscor simulator team
retains its “customer first” philosophy of
remaining dedicated through the life of the
simulator investment.
“We started with Invensys at a point when
we tried to fine tune the simulator to the
best areas that we could in comparison to
the plant and overall it took a long period
of time and dedication from Invensys,” said
Borsa. “They went above and beyond all
expectations in terms of trying to work with
us to try to make this simulator that would
be well worth the investment. It took a lot of
hours and dedication on everyone’s part.”
GenOn clearly saw the need to enable its
workforce so that employees would be in
a position to make confident, informed
decisions. A combination of skills, tools
and system design were brought together
in a manner that accelerated process
improvements from capturing, transferring
and institutionalising best practices.
“From a support perspective we haven’t
had many issues with the simulator; it’s been
relatively problem-free for more than two
years,” said Rematt. “A few months ago
the simulator was tripping off the boilers for
unknown reasons, but the screens would say
we still had pressure. But through a remote
connection we were able to troubleshoot
where the problem area was and correct it in
a relatively short period of time.”
Invensys solution prepares operators and enhances working environment
Since the Invensys solution was installed,
by all accounts it has exceeded the
performance expectations of GenOn Energy.
The Invensys simulator is now the gold
standard for preparing operators to work in
the plant, and training time has been cut in
half compared to the prior classroom and
on-the-job learning approaches.
“The Invensys solution has helped us
significantly, that’s the pure dollars and cents
of the project,” Metzler said. “But there’s
also been quality of life improvements
regarding overtime for the control room
operators. Our control room operators don’t
have to work 40 percent overtime to cover
when people are unavailable because of
vacation time or sick leave. We now have
highly trained operators available for the
central control room, fully confident in being
able to step in when needed.”
Experienced operators also now routinely
sharpen their skills in dealing with plant
problems and alerts, as well as test scenarios
to develop more efficient operational
procedures. Testing procedures in the
simulator reduce the risk and anxiety
associated with changing or modifying
control room procedures in the power plant.
While GenOn spearheads reclamation of
green space in Pennsylvania using its CFB
boilers, Invensys has served as a key partner
in helping the company achieve excellence
in preparing the workforce while maximising
the operational and cost efficiencies of the
power station.
Operator simulator training improves GenOn power station efficiency
42 | www.protocolmag.co.za
Product profile: IntelaTrac for improved situation awareness
In a nutshell ...
IntelaTrac is an enterprise-level software
and hardware solution that delivers a
mobile workforce management solution
to a wide range of industries.
IntelaTrac enables manufacturers and
processors to achieve reliable, safe and
profitable operations through consistent
execution of best practices by the field
workforce − accelerating and sustaining
mainstream process improvements.
Business value
• Key success factor for field operational
excellence
• Helps steward the consistent
execution of best practices
• Provides strategy for monitoring
stranded assets
• Supports rapid response to changing
business conditions
• Key success factor for equipment
reliability
• Helps assimilate new field workers
With about 50% or more of most plants left
non-instrumented, who’s going to pick up
the pieces when (not if) they go wrong? And
what about the instrumented parts? SCADA
systems are not well known for sniffing
out burning oil. Effective maintenance
relies heavily on human observational skills
provided these observations can be logged
and form an integral part of the greater
SCADA and maintenance picture.
The industry-leading mobile workforce and decision support system
IntelaTrac® accelerates and sustains
operational process improvements and is a
key component of an effective Operations
Management System. IntelaTrac helps
insure that best operating and regulatory
procedures are followed at all times, data
is collected on non-instrumented plant
assets, critical environmental, health and
safety inspections are performed on schedule
and mobile operators have the information at
their fingertips to operate plant assets in the
most effective manner possible.
Helping your front line manage your bottom line
Operational Excellence starts with operators.
IntelaTrac brings the field operator into the
automation loop by utilising a combination
of workforce management software, mobile
handheld computers, monitoring devices and
Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) equipment
tags or bar codes. This mobile framework results
in a significantly improved decision support
system for managing plant assets.
Workers are easily guided through a
question and answer process which helps
uncover hidden bottlenecks and process
or equipment problems. If problems are
found, IntelaTrac can immediately guide
workers through additional steps or actions
to properly identify and address the
developing issue.
IntelaTrac’s exception-based, web reports
keep everyone on the team up-to-speed on
the current state of plant operations.
IntelaTrac’s web services-based API
connectivity ensures the lowest total cost
of ownership by adding a highly extensible
mobile platform.
Enforce best operating procedures
Best practices are only meaningful if they are
consistently and broadly applied across an
enterprise. IntelaTrac rounds are presented to
mobile workers and each step can be tracked
to ensure compliance and accountability.
Strategy for stranded assets
Stranded or non-instrumented assets often
represent 40—60% of your asset base but
are too often “invisible” to management.
IntelaTrac provides a cost effective strategy
for monitoring and reporting back on the
performance of stranded assets.
Respond faster and improve your competitiveness
For the first time you can execute pre-
defined strategies when your business or
environmental conditions change allowing
you to improve your organisational agility
and competitiveness. IntelaTrac’s Dynamic
Procedures allow pre-configured procedures
to be automatically passed to your field
operators so they can begin securing a facility
March/April 2013 | 43
or ramping up production on a moment’s
notice. Teams know exactly what to do and
when. Lag time and confusion are minimised.
As conditions change IntelaTrac’s highly
extensible and open mobile platform can
also deliver mobile procedures directly from
a wide range of plant systems. The mobile
worker then executes these specific tasks
and forwards any collected information
back to the host system. Plant systems
never designed with a mobile capability,
such as historians, LIMS systems, MES
systems and CMMS/EMS systems can now
incorporate mobile task execution and field
data collection.
Achieve greater process reliability and asset effectiveness
IntelaTrac empowers field workers to be
part of the reliability solution, it helps
drive collective behaviour and a culture of
asset ownership between operations and
maintenance. Equipment condition data
such as vibration or temperature can be
easily collected by field operators using
the IntelaTrac mobile solution as they do
their regular operating rounds. Stranded or
Non-instrumented plant assets can now be
efficiently monitored.
Better manage workforce turnover
IntelaTrac’s innovative on-the-job
training approach gets your newest field
workers up to speed—FAST. IntelaTrac
allows experienced workers to incorporate
their knowledge into operating and
inspection rounds. This means best practices
can be easily documented and used by
all field workers, even the most junior of
operators—insulating plants or facilities from
a sudden loss of operating knowledge.
Unifying your field workforce with your plant automation system
Now the state-of-the-art Wonderware
System Platform can share data with your
IntelaTrac equipped mobile workforce. The
myriad of plant automation data can now be
funnelled to your mobile workers keeping
them up-to-date on current operational
conditions. You can also use the Mobile
IntelaTrac system to push field collected
data back up into the automation system
so it can be exposed in operator displays
or to engineers or managers utilising plant
information portals.
Improving the efficiency of your maintenance organisation
IntelaTrac is a natural tool for improving the
efficiency of maintenance activities. Mobile
IntelaTrac can be loaded with a complete list
of daily maintenance tasks (including step-
by-step instructions) so critical maintenance
can be done right the first time.
If a wireless network is present, information
on work order status, work requests and
current operating conditions can be made
available to your field workers in real time.
Maintenance workers will have the detailed
information at their fingertips so they can
get the job done in the shortest possible
time.
Better field management of capital projects
Even with the best team, managing the
installation and commissioning of new capital
projects and turnarounds can be challenging.
How do you know when specific field tasks
have been accomplished? And if things change
and they always do, how do you ensure that
everyone is on the same page? IntelaTrac can
provide the vital mobile infrastructure, including
RFID location verification technology, that you
can exploit to keep everyone informed and
working the task list.
Server components/integration software
• IntelaTrac Database Server: Microsoft
SQL Server based database management
server
• IntelaTrac Synchronisation Server:
Mobile device communication server
• IntelaTrac Web Server: Web report
server
Product profile: IntelaTrac for improved situation awareness
44 | www.protocolmag.co.za
• Integration Modules: Software modules
that integrate third party enterprise and
plant systems to IntelaTrac (SAP PM, IBM
Maximo, OSIsoft PI System, AspenTech
IP21, Syntex IMPACT and others)
Desktop IntelaTrac clients
• IntelaTrac Procedure Builder: Desktop
application for configuring and scheduling
field procedures and data collection tasks
• IntelaTrac Auditor Plus: Desktop
application for viewing the status of field
rounds, exceptions and notes
• IntelaTrac Web Report Manager: Web
client that allows users to view and
configure web based reports
Mobile IntelaTrac client
Mobile IntelaTrac: Windows Mobile client
that provides a “best in class” browser style
user interface for IntelaTrac procedures and
data collection tasks on mobile devices
Typical configuration
Mobile devices and peripherals
IntelaTrac supports a broad selection
of Windows Mobile based handheld
computers from Motorola/Symbol, Intermec,
Bartec and others. Supported peripherals
include; RFID and barcode readers, vibration
probes, temperature guns and wireless
communication devices.
March/April 2013 | 45
Plant operational excellence at
Infineum thanks to Wonderware
IntelaTrac
In a nutshell ...
Goals
• Increase plant’s availability by
anticipating any potentially damaging
situations
• Optimise operators’ efficiency and
reliability during inspection activity
• Limit production downtimes to
scheduled maintenance only
Challenges
• The proximity of the plants to
inhabited areas makes it essential for
the sites to be safe and reliable at all
times
• Detection of critical indicators, e.g.
vibrations or the presence of foreign
particles, which automatic instruments
do not usually detect effectively
• Maximise the value of the time and
experience of the field operators
Results
• The Wonderware solution has enabled
the plant to achieve a plant availability
factor of over 90%
• The system has allowed the
operational procedures for visual
inspections of equipment to be
optimised and standardised, thanks
to the removal of paper reports and
the intuitive nature of the handheld
devices
• Wonderware IntelaTrac’s features now
allow operators to identify potential
problems which were previously
neglected, thus avoiding the need for
any emergency intervention
Vado Ligure, Italy – Every time we start the
car, our gaze falls almost without fail to
the fuel gauge, since fuel is the essential
element for making a vehicle run. We only
think about oil when the indicator light
comes on and we rarely stop to think about
the additives that help optimise engine
function. And yet, engine oil and additives
are fundamental elements in ensuring that
the cars and other means of transport we
use to travel around everyday are working
properly.
The production of these additives for
lubricant oils is the core business of
the Infineum Group. The company was
established ten years ago through the
merger of Paramins (the additives division
of what was then Exxon Chemical) and Shell
Additives. In Italy, the factory in Vado Ligure
(near Savona) is the Infineum Group’s main
European supply centre for additives in
lubricant oils.
Human supervision in an automated industry
When working in the petrochemical sector,
it becomes essential to combine safety
and productivity by anticipating potentially
damaging situations. In addition, unforeseen
problems have immediate and financially
Plant operational excellence at Infineum thanks to Wonderware IntelaTrac
46 | www.protocolmag.co.za
The route to a simple solution is usually extraordinaryGet an end to end solution tailor-made for your business with Business Connexion’s Professional ServicesWhen it comes to making extraordinary connections, nothing comes close to the human brain. That’s why it’s the inspiration behind our ProfessionalServices. With our unique understanding of your business model, value chains and strategy, we can supply you with an end to end solution that helps youmake the most of your Business Processes, Applications Portfolio, Application Management and third party solutions. With our unique integrated solutions,we can help you build systems that enable you to enhance and grow your business. We call it the amplifying power of Connective Intelligence™.
www.bcx.co.za
March/April 2013 | 47
The route to a simple solution is usually extraordinaryGet an end to end solution tailor-made for your business with Business Connexion’s Professional ServicesWhen it comes to making extraordinary connections, nothing comes close to the human brain. That’s why it’s the inspiration behind our ProfessionalServices. With our unique understanding of your business model, value chains and strategy, we can supply you with an end to end solution that helps youmake the most of your Business Processes, Applications Portfolio, Application Management and third party solutions. With our unique integrated solutions,we can help you build systems that enable you to enhance and grow your business. We call it the amplifying power of Connective Intelligence™.
www.bcx.co.za
48 | www.protocolmag.co.za
significant repercussions for production and
therefore, to the business.
Inspections using the Manufacturing
Efficiency Index, carried out by management
in the years following the merger showed an
average plant availability of 80%. This is not
an acceptable value for a highly automated
firm looking to the future.
In response to this, Infineum launched the
Global Manufacturing Excellence Program
in 2004, with the aim of maximising plant
reliability, achieving availability of over
90% and limiting production downtimes to
scheduled maintenance only. Efforts have
therefore been concentrated on two specific
fronts: preventative maintenance and
operational management.
In this context, it is easy to understand the
importance of maintenance at large scale
plants. Seemingly less important, however, is
the periodic monitoring of the plant carried
out by field operations personnel.
However, these professionals, thanks
to their regular rounds, are in fact the
people who know the site best. They are
able to recognise abnormal or potentially
dangerous situations that are not detected
by plant instruments.
The plant’s production process is constantly
monitored by electronic instruments and
detects any deviation from the ideal working
parameters. All this information is fed back
to the DCS in real time. However, certain
specific factors such as noise, vibrations or
the presence of dirt or small internal leaks,
are not efficiently measured or detected by
automatic instruments.
Installing additional measuring
instrumentation would lead to higher
costs and could overload the DCS. Human
supervision therefore, remains fundamentally
important even in an industry that is
becoming more and more automated.
Traditionally, operators use paper for
reporting even though it is prone to
transcription errors. These reports then
had to be transferred manually, therefore
increasing the amount of time required to
obtain useful information. Moreover, some
inspections are not carried out from the
correct location, thus limiting the accuracy of
the observations.
Collecting critical operational information quickly and efficiently
As part of the Global Manufacturing
Excellence Program to increase plant
availability and optimise operators’ work,
the Infineum Group decided to equip its
staff with devices capable of collecting
critical operational information in a quick
and efficient manner. The group needed to
identify a reliable tool that optimises direct
inspection activities.
This was not a simple search, since each
plant has its own particular features. This
makes it impossible to standardise the
inspection processes. The whole search was
made even more complicated due to the
regulations in each country.
For this reason, it was necessary to start by
establishing a new method of inspection
procedures. The operators themselves were
directly involved in this task, leveraging their
specific experience to identify the correct
steps.
The organisational planning also required
the adoption of instruments that will enable
operators to work optimally so that they
could concentrate on their field of expertise
Infineum tested multiple solutions, but most
of them ended up being unsuitable to the
complexities of the plant’s production. An
intense software selection process began,
intended to identify a single platform
capable of adapting to the specific needs of
all production plants.
At the end of this search, only two products
were found to fulfil these requirements. Even
when narrowed down, the choice was still
complicated since the success of the whole
project depended on the selected platform.
“As we were faced with two possibilities,”
explained Enrico Bertossi, Infineum’s Global
Manufacturing Excellence Program Advisor,
“the real and concrete references presented
by the System Integrator, Rex, played a
crucial role in the decision-making process.”
Another factor was the need to achieve
integration with SAP, the business
system Infineum uses for planning plant
maintenance operations. The only tool
able to meet these requirements was
Wonderware IntelaTrac, the mobile
workforce and decision support system by
Invensys Operations Management.
This solution is designed to enable workflow,
procedural and general task management
activities required to achieve reliable
operations. These capabilities are enhanced
by the tool’s key feature: allowing on-site
operators to input information and receive
support at any location within the plant,
without the need of a physical connection.
The decision was made easier by the fact
that - “IntelaTrac was priced less than the
other supplier,” said Bertossi.
Staff approval of IntelaTrac usability
“All our expectations were confirmed
immediately after the application
deployment. We were able to obtain the
approval of all system users after only 6
months of development,” said Mauro
Tassistro, Infineum’s Applications Team
Leader in Italy.
Tassistro himself has an overall view of the
whole project, since the system architecture
is centralised in Italy, but has continuous
connection to the plants in France, Germany,
North America and Singapore.
These plants present extremely different
situations in terms of both production and
staff operating methods. However, the
approval of users, who appreciated the ease-
of-use and maintainability of the system, was
one of the critical factors in choosing the
IntelaTrac based monitoring system.
March/April 2013 | 49
Field operators previously used paper forms
for reporting during their rounds. This was
difficult, especially during adverse weather
conditions. By contrast, Wonderware
IntelaTrac installed on a handheld device is
simple and intuitive, allowing operators to
concentrate more on their traditional tasks.
As an added benefit, the integration with
RFID technology means data relating to a
specific observation can only be input when
the operator is in the correct position. This
procedure prevents errors. In addition, the
practical use of the IntelaTrac interface
made these operators really appreciate the
technology being developed, since they
understood the benefit for their day-to-day
work.
“The decision to involve users from the
very start of the project has enhanced the
advantages provided by an innovative tool
like IntelaTrac,” emphasised Tassistro.
“Staff approval is the result of the solution’s
usability in the plants. In addition,
installation was completed in just a few
months, therefore minimising the impact
on staff operations and avoiding any
interference with production,” confirmed
Bertossi.
Nothing escapes Wonderware IntelaTrac
“Using IntelaTrac has enabled the plant to
achieve a plant availability factor of over
90%. It has integrated perfectly with the
other innovations added to our equipment,”
said Tassistro.
The platform developed by Invensys
Operations Management has allowed the
identification of certain situations, usually
overlooked, which could have potentially
led to the progressive deterioration of
some pieces of equipment that would
subsequently need emergency maintenance
intervention.
Finally, the use of inspection support tools
has also increased on-site operators’ sense
of responsibility, as they feel more involved
in ensuring that the entire plant is run
properly and correctly.
Plant operational excellence at Infineum thanks to Wonderware IntelaTrac
50 | www.protocolmag.co.za
From labour worker to performance managerSimon Windust, Invensys
Introduction
The introduction of automation control
throughout the years has been partially
justified through lower personnel costs.
As repetitive operations were completed
accurately and routinely using process
control equipment, the need for manual
operators was removed. However, this
also meant the knowledge of the process,
methods to improve and issues to overcome
were gradually reduced with the removal
of each operator. As each operator was
dissociated from the overall operation
of the business or part of any collective
responsibility to improve productivity, the
understanding of the effect of losing key
personnel was not matched to the effect on
the business.
Advances in communications and network
technology have presented all roles
within an organisation with vast arrays of
data. These data must be appropriately
summarised and assessed to allow agile
business operations across multiple plant
and geographical areas. Furthermore,
businesses must quickly react to external
issues in real time, understand the affect
on production processes and make correct
decisions.
The business driver
When an operation is performing within
defined boundaries, everyone is satisfied,
but when problems arise, large financial
losses can occur. Therefore, the optimal
solution and how it can directly affect the
business bottom-line must be understood.
In addition, the ability to capitalise on
opportunities as they occur and provide
prompt action allows individuals to
positively affect the overall performance
of the business. For example, the ability to
defer maintenance and prevent operations
problems while safely running the business.
Therefore, a need to provide appropriate
information to individuals is required to
increase their contribution and involvement
within the overall business. This creates an
improved working environment, encourages
team spirit and increases an individual’s
performance.
However, the required information varies for
each individual and must be presented in a
precise manner with options and associated
risks. The overall business driver is to:
Improve the supply of innovative and
consistent product quality
Supply the required quantities of product in
the correct location and in a timely manner
to satisfy demand
Deliver product at a competitive price while
maintaining effective margins and respecting
safety and environmental requirements
The barriers our clients face
Today, there is a need to allow each
individual’s role to contribute to the benefit
of the business. This is limited by:
• Confusing data
• Limited knowledge
• Inconsistent information
• External influences
Confusing data
• Inconsistent forms of existing data
provided by disparate devices are
distributed throughout the organisation to
physically different locations
• Data is presented with no key identifier so
as data grows exponentially it becomes
irrelevant or more confusing
• User Interfaces that are difficult to work
• Difficult to find the valuable data
• Poorly grouped data that is not easily
understood
• Navigation that requires time and adds
further confusion
Limited knowledge
• Understanding how to use the data is
dependent upon a user’s background and
inherent knowledge of the process
• If data is not time consistent, the operator
action may be incorrect
• Lack of consistent and high-level
knowledge throughout the plant to advise
individuals on their actions
Inconsistent information
• Different legacy automation and hardware
systems
• Legacy applications that are not replaced
within the business and operations
environment
• Complicated report routing that does not
deliver to the correct personnel within the
organisation
• Inability to identify the point of no return,
adding additional cost to out-of-spec
product
• Unstructured capture of batch data that
provides additional cost
External influences
March/April 2013 | 51
• Unaware of today’s technological
possibilities
• Engineering mindset does not empower
people, only places them within
structured boxes
• Labour unions limiting the flexibility of
personnel
• Unclear decision rights that limit
individual’s decision boundaries
• Tradition and organisational inertia to
flexible workforce
• Existing work cultures that must be
aligned and evolved as mergers and
roll-ups occur
Clients’ ideal state related to this driver
This new way of doing business allows
operations to make decisions based on
profitability not expediency and provides
a total alignment of objectives within the
enterprise from top to bottom.
There is a need to reduce decision time
to match incoming events and allow an
individual to be in control of the operation.
This can be provided by:
• Ability to present summarised data that is
appropriate to the individual’s role within
the company. For example:
� Forecast trends (instead of unknown
future “events”)
� Context with targets and constraints
(instead of additional numbers)
� Better comparisons of client,
operations and maintenance schedules
� Better comparisons across shifts and
sites
� Personalisation of information and
contextual to role and skill set
• Data must be concise and present the
optimum next step to the product/
process/solution. Timely information
logically grouped for quick assimilation.
• A go/no go or pass/fail indication with
the ability to drill-down and investigate
further if required
• Recommendation of available options
for the next step and the risks/rewards
associated with each option
• Unified information model across the
enterprise that enables knowledge
sharing (e.g. industry Wiki) and provides
online training
• Clarification of an individual’s decision
boundaries and where/who to delegate if
outside of their defined authority
Summary
Individuals can contribute to the success
of the business when presented with
information appropriate to their role and the
best way to use that data. The aim is to:
• Provide correct decisions
• Within the appropriate time frame, and
• At a lower risk
This contributes to a performance culture
that creates world-class excellence and adds
to shareholder value.
From labour worker to performance manager
52 | www.protocolmag.co.za
March/April 2013 | 53
Empowering people to contribute with DPMDPM or Dynamic Performance Management / Measurement is a system
of measurement and a concept that extends business performance
measurement beyond traditional accounting to the realities of real-time
production. It was developed after more than 300 CEOs underlined the
inability of their offi ce systems to provide the information required to
address problems in a timely manner.
Capitalising on the fact that access to enterprise–wide information
is no longer a problem, DPM focuses on supplying individuals the
exact information they need to monitor and adjust their activities
and performance in terms of the company’s profi t-making strategy
and that means stepping across the artifi cial boundaries of ERP, MES
and automation. Why? Because CFOs need some production and
fi nancial information as well as a good reason if they are to authorise
or veto the installation of new plant. Because production managers
need scheduling, customer and production information if they are to
optimise throughput. Because production personnel need maintenance
information and some fi nancial feedback if they are to remain profi table
and competitive.
DPM precisely defi nes the critical performance measurement information
that IT must provide to support decisions at all levels of the organisation.
There’s no more guesswork as to what people may want to know or
swamping them with information ‘just in case’. DPM can also reduce
measurements to the common denominator of money – including real-
time profi t and loss. This provides personnel with a measurement of their
performance in terms of a measurement unit that’s real to everyone and
encourages them to better “own” their processes – just like professional
knowledge workers are supposed to do.
The proof of the effectiveness of DPM can be seen in the following
success story from SASOL.
54 | www.protocolmag.co.za
Dynamic Performance Measurement system improves energy and electricity consumption at SASOL
Energy and electricity savings progressed and improved throughout the second and third months, saving R3,5 million in the first 2 months.
Goals
• Monitor energy costs and usage in real time to better optimise the
energy within the plant
• Identify the amount of energy needed to meet internal requirements
and minimise its impact on the local electrical grid.
Challenges
• Energy costs and electricity usage has a very large impact on
business performance
Solutions and Products
• Dynamic Performance Measurement
Results
• Savings of 6% in energy and 4% in electricity costs within the first
month
• Saved R3,5 million within the first 2 months from two out of the five
targeted plants and over R8,7 million during the course of the year
• Over 2% reduction in variable costs associated with energy
feedstocks and electricity
March/April 2013 | 55
With increased cost pressures due to a
reduction in some of its commodity-based
business, the Sasol Corporation required
a new solution to minimise costs. Sasol
introduced a new technology within the
plant environment to manage its energy
costs and usage due to its large impact
on business performance. This new
solution must monitor energy costs and
usage in real time, allowing management,
operators, and engineers to better optimise
the energy within the plant, identify the
amount of energy needed to meet internal
requirements, and minimise its impact on
the local electrical grid.
Producing steam for internal and external consumption
The Sasol plant draws process water from
a nearby river to produce steam in two
steam stations and an automatic thermal
reformer (ATR) area that is used for internal
and external consumer consumption. The
process water is treated in one plant and
mixed with condensate that is recovered
from additional plants. Previously, steam
demand for external customers was
extremely high, especially for customers
involved in coal reformation. During
which, maximising output was the key to
the profitability strategy. However, as the
demand for coal decreased and imported
natural gas increased, steam demand
declined, shifting the strategy from
maximising output to minimising cost. The
price of steam for internal and external
customers is based on an algorithm that
approximates a fair market price at current
conditions. Steam stations are contractually
obligated to operate with 160 tons per
hour of spare steam, which is approximately
equal to the steam output from one boiler. If
plants cannot meet the demand for steam,
they must reduce supply to the electrical
generation customers, who buy electricity
directly from the grid. Excessive power
usage from the grid can be costly.
Collaboration
The Invensys Business Performance Services
consulting team worked closely with Sasol
personnel (from the Sasol One Site in
Sasolburg, South Africa) to develop real-time
dynamic performance measurements (DPM)
at Steam Plants 1 and 2. To determine the
underlying real-time performance measures
and calculate costs and profits, DPMs and
real-time financial metrics were created
for each process unit and area within the
two plants. Management and operator
dashboards, that utilise DPMs and real-time
financial data, were also created to provide
management, operations and engineering
with critical information in real time to
enable better and more informed business
decisions.
Initially, the consulting team conducted a
plant operation and strategy audit. They
interviewed Sasol personnel from all aspects
of plant operations, starting with plant
managers and continuing with the operators
and other pertinent personnel in the
operation. Invensys’ structured methodology
was used to determine the correct measures
of performance and to break down key
plant performance measures into lower-
level functional entities so that they can
be managed effectively. The component
solutions were then recombined into an
overall structure.
The Invensys-measured process helped to
reconcile differences in how raw materials
consumption was measured between the
engineering and accounting staffs. The
engineering production division measured
coal consumption using mechanical devices
(based on the number of revolutions
made by a wheel flow meter), while the
accounting division based its measurements
on weighing devices at the mine and silo
measurements that resulted in significant
weight differences. Therefore, reconciliation
was required to arrive at a working solution.
The process was also used to help identify a
water source cost that had previously been
incorrectly allocated.
Automation and IT systems
Sasol has made a significant investment in
its automation and IT infrastructure. Each
steam station has a dedicated Distributed
Control System (DCS) for control,
historisation and graphical interface. At the
start of the project, each DCS was found
to have some unused capacity. The unused
computing capacity in each DCS provided
Sasol an opportunity to host applications
beyond the basic process control such as
implementation and execution host for
real-time performance measurements and
business intelligence feedback.
The historian server collects critical data
from each DCS and other production layer
systems. Most connections between the
DCS and IT layer are through bi-directional
communications. Process data moves
from the DCS to the historian server and
is then transmitted back to the DCS for
management-level reports and dashboards.
Monthly financial reports provide an overall
representation of the steam generation
Figure 1: Real-time business intelligence / financial system
Dynamic Performance Measurement system improves energy and electricity consumption at SASOL
56 | www.protocolmag.co.za
business and the entire Infrachem Syngas
steam and utilities businesses. These
financial reports are generated using
Hyperion Financial Management reporting
capabilities that utilise key financial
data from various sources. Managerial,
operations, and maintenance reports utilise
input from the operational data store (ODS)
system, SAP, and other manually entered
sources to provide custom reports to meet
current requirements. Daily, production
supervisors use these reports to review the
production performance from the previous
day.
Development of DPMs
Modelled in the DCS, DPMs were developed
for each individual boiler, steam station, and
the steam generation. Three station-level
DPMs were developed: steam cost, steam
quality, and production rate. Each individual
boiler is required to produce the lowest-
cost steam at the proper pressure and
temperature specifications, maintain reliable
production, while managing production
rates. For each boiler, the variable steam
generating cost, including labour, consists of
four major components: coal, electricity, fuel
as well as and oil and water. Additionally,
emission levels were monitored and
improved to enhance Sasol’s environmental
footprint.
Maintenance and human resources metrics
Additionally, the steam stations management
rolled out a maintenance initiative that was
designed to improve the availability of key
assets and avoid emergency shutdowns.
This was accomplished by improved
planning, increased predictive-reactive
maintenance ratios, setting proper priorities
for maintenance activities, and reduced
cost. Real-time performance measurements
focused on the following within the
maintenance area:
• Reactive-predictive maintenance ratio
• Boiler availability
• Emergency maintenance reaction time
(the time from when a breakdown
occurred to when the repair was
completed and the equipment was back
in operation)
• Maintenance schedule deviations
(important for improving the maintenance
planning process
Implementing DPMs
DPM algorithms, real-time financial models
and unit levels were implemented in the
two DCSs. Using existing plant-level assets
for implementation; cost factors on the
plant floor can be tracked in real time. The
execution of these algorithms typically
takes place in the microprocessors in the
DCS. These algorithms are executed at a
frequency that is in close proximity to the
cycle time of the process, with the historical
collection performed at a similar frequency.
Unit-level metrics are then aggregated
at the station and plant levels using the
functionality of the historian. The totalling
can be performed at various periods,
including the shift, day and month.
Figure 2: Real-time financial information flows through to SAP
March/April 2013 | 57
Real-time financial data with allocated costs
are tracked using the ValuMax activity-based
costing system and provide an immediate
representation of product costs across the
portfolio. The same real-time financial data
is projected to eventually be integrated
into SAP as the fidelity and applicability of
the data is better understood. The figure
below provides a general overview of the
real-time business intelligence/finance
system for Steam Stations 1 and 2. Strategic
performance measurement, operational
KPIs, and Real-Time Finance (RTA) models
were developed and processed in the
existing automation system.
Developing a baseline
Once the performance measurement
models were installed, they were historicised
to provide a performance profile of each
unit, and station. This baseline enabled
an economic comparison of boilers
under various conditions. Using improved
procedures and training, improvement
initiatives, projects, and operational
improvements can be financially tracked
and validated. Creating this type of baseline
enables the development of data for
financial and accounting validation.
Training Sasol operators and engineers
to think and act strategically are key
opportunities for improved results.
Dashboards provide operations personnel
clear and simple feedback to individual
impact on Sasol’s business performance.
Integrating this type of strategy is helping
to improve Sasol’s business and build the
knowledge and skill base of its operators
and engineers. Providing operations
personnel with a tool that provides feedback
as to which boiler produces the least
expensive incremental steam enhances
performance of each steam station.
For example, operators can make spare and
spinning steam decisions based on economic
information. Spinning is the available spare
steam capacity when the feed rate on an idle
mill is increased. Spare steam is the amount
of potential steam available by starting the
third mill of a boiler running on just two
mills. Operators increase steam output on an
instantaneous or immediate basis according
to demand changes.
Positive results
As Sasol’s division continues to improve its
operation and drive business value for the
company, it will acquire new products and
process technologies to help achieve their
goals. Sasol Infrachem management views
development of its employees as one of the
company’s most critical tasks. Government
regulations and key personnel nearing
retirement underscore the importance of
skills and knowledge development.
The DPM methodology brings together
various functional areas (such as accounting,
engineering, management, operations, and
maintenance) to discuss the overall business
– seeing it in a holistic view. This type of
interaction creates understanding across
business functions, enables proper strategic
performance measures to be developed
across functions, and helps create new
and valuable business processes aimed at
improving the bottom line.
Invensys’ Real-Time Energy Usage
Monitoring Solution was a key tool for
helping Sasol in achieving positive results
on this project. Producing steam in Steam
Stations 1 and 2 resulted in a 6% savings in
energy and 4% savings in electricity costs
within the first month (approximately R2
million savings in the first month). Energy
and electricity savings progressed and
improved throughout the second and third
months, saving R3,5 million in the first 2
months from two out of the five-targeted
plants. The annualised direct benefit of
this project was initially expected to be a
2% reduction in variable costs associated
with energy feedstocks and electricity. The
results have far exceeded these estimates.
In collaboration with Invensys, Sasol will
incorporate future business information with
process data and identify other areas of
improvement through advanced multivariate
statistical analysis, continuous improvement
programmes such as Six Sigma, and other
business value-adding activities.
Dynamic Performance Measurement system improves energy and electricity consumption at SASOL
58 | www.protocolmag.co.za
Situation awareness – vital for a sentient enterpriseDenis du Buisson – editor, Protocol Magazine
Introduction
Situation awareness has many complex
definitions but it seems that it all comes
down to being able to answer these
questions:
• Do you know what’s really going on?
• What can affect the outcome?
• Are you prepared to cope with what could
happen?
A blinkered horse racing down the track
is aware of the commands of the jockey
on his back and the horses immediately
in front of him. The blinkers are there to
focus his attention on these main facts only
so that the objective of winning the race
can be achieved without distraction. The
jockey, on the other hand, is aware of the
betting odds, which horses are coming up
behind, which horses he should pass, the
weather, the condition of the track and the
responsiveness of the horse when prompted
to go faster. In this simplistic example, the
jockey is more aware of the situation in
which they find themselves than the horse.
However, it’s important to note that the
jockey is an active participant to the process
of racing. He doesn’t leave the horse to his
own devices just because the horse knows
what to do. If the jockey just sat there and
didn’t drive the process, there’s a good
chance that the pair wouldn’t win any races –
after all, there’s nothing in it for the horse.
Situation awareness is one of the critical
components of decision-making (figure
1) and highlights the importance of not
wearing blinkers and focusing only on a
narrow field of view. This is especially true
of people operating complex systems in
the domains of air traffic control, nuclear-
based power generation and advanced
manufacturing and mining systems to name
a few. Low situation awareness can cause
Figure 1: Components of the decision-making process. The result of actions taken become part of
the decision-maker’s experience to be repeated in the future if successful or discarded if not.
March/April 2013 | 59
catastrophic plant failures and even loss
of life. In a review of commercial aviation
accidents, 88 percent of those with human
error involved a problem with situation
awareness (Endsley 1994).
Of course, there’s nothing wrong with focus.
When former world chess champion Gary
Kasparov was planning his next move,
there was nothing else but focus. But at the
same time he had to be aware of dozens of
possible consequences of that move as well
as his opponent’s many likely countermoves.
So his situational awareness of the job at
hand was extremely high yet he probably
couldn’t describe the decor in the room.
Situation awareness makes the difference
between being “on top of it” or blaming
circumstances for failure. More importantly,
it makes the difference between mindless
automation and sentient control.
Situation awareness and production automation
The manual control of processes demands
the full attention of operators since they
have to be ever mindful of what’s happening
where and when. As automation crept
in, operators were increasingly distanced
from the production processes in their
care. Today, fully-automated processes
need virtually no operator involvement at
all, with the result that operators trust the
automation systems implicitly and become
complacent. And then something goes
wrong.
A PLC will keep a valve open to fill a tank
to its prescribed upper limit unaware that
the tank in question has sprung a leak. An
operator looking at the HMI screen will see
that the valve is logically open because the
tank isn’t full – so everything is OK. At this
point, there’s no difference between the
operator and the PLC – until liquid starts
sloshing around the operator’s feet.
By adding sensors, the PLC could be
provided with more situational awareness
and would therefore become a more
valuable asset. So, situation awareness
involves the broadening of one’s scope
of observation and humans who have this
ability are more valuable to the company
than those who don’t.
Computers do what they’re told and
watching them do it without extracting
valuable information can be a mindless
and futile occupation. Humans can do what
computers can’t do and that’s to observe the
broader operational landscape and to make
decisions based on a multitude of variables.
Running a plant doesn’t mean only aiming
towards one objective. A plant will have
numerous objectives that all have to
be achieved simultaneously and in an
optimum manner – and the objectives will
be changing dynamically. The only entity
that’s ever been able to solve a multiple
objective optimisation problem is a human.
So, the Lights Out Manufacturing approach,
which advocates total automation and
the elimination of humans, will have to
find another way of optimising multiple,
simultaneous objectives. We’ve been trying
to eliminate operators for years – now’s the
time to empower them.
As we all know, humans are a company’s
most valuable assets but they are rarely
empowered to use their natural talents
which have been suppressed by an
abundance of automation. That’s not to say
that automation is bad – on the contrary,
it’s what keeps us in the 21st century. But
the increasing dependence on automation
systems and their recommendations has led
operators and others to become passive
observers of process control rather than
active participants.
PLCs or SCADA systems can’t smell burning
insulation or see smoke – but a mobile
workforce can. Computers can’t reconcile
production capability with market demands
– but production managers can.
It’s been shown that automation systems
designed so as to involve a greater level
of human interaction are preferable to
fully-automated systems and that operators
were better able to assume manual control
when needed. This increased level of
participation requires that operators have
Figure 2: Example of increased situational awareness from the point of view of an operator on the shop floor.
Situation awareness – vital for a sentient enterprise
60 | www.protocolmag.co.za
an increased knowledge of the processes
being monitored as well as the automation
systems that control them. They should
be encouraged to build what-if scenarios
and to plan what to do when they observe
certain trends or events in as well as outside
the scope of normal monitoring. Much of
this can be done with scripted workfl ows
but a lot more will eventually be compiled
as a result of scripting successful corrective
actions taken on the spur of the moment by
alert operators who could think outside the
box (and for which they should be justifi ably
rewarded).
In a way, operators are showing this
initiative every day when they evaluate the
importance of alarms. A multitude of false
alarms will lead operators to mistrust the
system and take matters into their own
hands. This means prioritising alarms and
that, in turn, leads to thinking about the
consequences of temporarily ignoring
certain alarms while attending to those that
indicate real safety problems or production
downtime.
This kind of initiative and situation awareness
can lead to far greater things when applied
to process improvement across the
enterprise.
Situation awareness and the business
In the 1970s and 1980s, there was a
little-known management style called
“Management by Walking About” (MWA).
At the time, I was director of sales as
well as research and development at a
South African company involved with the
development of CAD/CAM systems. I
We are what we repeatedly do; excellence, then, is not an act but a habit.
regularly tracked the performance of the
sales personnel against their targets while
at the same time designing functionality
for the software we were developing – but
that was my “day job”. I also made it my
job to periodically and casually talk to the
sales people in their environment rather
than in my offi ce. This provided a wealth of
information that would never have come
to light during sales meetings and that
underscored their needs to be competitive
in the marketplace. I would relay this to the
R&D team who would immediately start
making provisions for these enhancements
in their production schedules while also
making me aware of their needs outside
of formal R&D meetings. Eventually, we
dispensed with meetings altogether and
enjoyed a 67% market share – all due to
humans being able to juggle and evaluate
more variables simultaneously than a
machine and being more aware of everyday
realities than with traditional management
approaches.
I didn’t know it at the time but I was
practising situation awareness and it really
worked.
Management is not immune from situation
UNawareness. Looking at reports and graphs
on a computer screen all day is all very well
provided all the required information is
available, contextualised and presented in a
useful format that will lead to decisions and
actions. The proliferation of smart phones
and tablets has made access to information
incredibly simple. No one can hide behind
the excuse of “I didn’t know that.” But
computer screens rarely tell the whole story.
If they did, then why did we have a global
fi nancial crisis in 2008 which we’re still
trying to put behind us? Computer screens,
tablets and smart phone are regarded
as an end result by spectators but simply
decision-facilitating tools by participators
and originators.
How many fi nancial managers are aware of
the inner workings and needs of their factory
fl oors and on what basis do they sanction
or veto a purchase request? How do
accountants account for loss of production?
After all, anyone in charge of the company’s
money should be intimately aware of how
that money is created in the fi rst place and
realise that money is only a by-product of
creativity. The lack of situation awareness has
turned many capable people into spectators
rather than contributors of solutions and
ideas.
Conclusion
If we humans are not going to contribute
more than computers, what’s to become
of us? Computers may be programmed to
beat us at chess or automate entire factories
but they can’t independently decide on
anything. That’s our speciality. But we can’t
make informed decisions without being
aware of all the circumstances, parameters
and consequences of these decisions. It’s
only a high degree of situational awareness
at all times that allows us to make the best
decisions and originate the best ideas in an
increasingly complex world. The alternative
is to be replaced by a laptop with the
situational awareness of a sofa.
March/April 2013 | 61
The Human-Machine InterfaceHMIs are the primary means of
interaction between humans and
expensive, often dangerous machinery
which churn out the company’s wealth. But,
various HMI implementations will not all obey the
same display rules which makes the migration of
operators between systems diffi cult if not dangerous
and contributes to lengthier training cycles. It’s with this in
mind that Bill Hollifi eld introduces a new paradigm for HMIs
that will improve performance while increasing the situational
awareness of operators.
We then take a look at how the security and access control of Lonmin’s
extensive SCADA assets have been dramatically improved using biometrics
before seeing how a properly designed alarm management system can relieve
operator stress and improve process management.
62 | www.protocolmag.co.za
The high-performance HMI
Bill R Hollifi eld, PAS Principal Alarm Management and HMI Consultant
The high performance HMI by Bill Hollifi eld
was reprinted from the November/
December 2012 issue of InTech magazine by
permission, Copyright © ISA 2012.
About the author
Bill R. Hollifi eld (bhollifi [email protected]),
PAS Principal Alarm Management
and HMI Consultant, is a 37-year
industry veteran with international
experience in all aspects of alarm
management and HMI development
for the petrochemical, power
generation, pipeline, and mining
industries.
Bill is co-author of The Alarm
Management Handbook, The
High Performance HMI Handbook,
and The Electric Power Research
Institute (EPRI) guideline on Alarm
Management. He is a member of
the American Petroleum Institute’s
API RP-1167 Alarm Management
Recommended Practice committee,
the ISA18 Alarm Management
committee, the ISA101 HMI
committee, and the Engineering
Equipment and Materials Users
Association (EEMUA) Industry Review
Group. Bill is a regular presenter on
these topics in such venues as API,
ISA, and Electric Power symposiums.
He has a BSME from Louisiana Tech
University and an MBA from the
University of Houston.
Process graphics to maximise operator effectiveness
• HMI improvement is justifi ed
by giving operators the tools to
successfully run the plant.
• Information needs to be displayed in
meaningful and actionable ways rather
than as “raw data.”
• Learn new concepts to improve HMI
design.
Almost three decades ago, we control
engineers were given a new task for
which we were ill-prepared. We installed
control systems with the capability to display
real-time process control graphics for the
operator. But the screens were blank and we
were responsible to fi ll them up.
We had no available guidelines as to
what constituted a “good” graphic. So,
we did the best we could with what we
knew—which wasn’t much! As a result, we
set in place a low-performance paradigm
of what a control system human-machine
interface (HMI) should look like, and inertia
has done the rest. Mostly for convenience,
we chose to depict the process as a P&ID
view covered in live numbers. We stuck with
that paradigm even as graphic capabilities of
DCS/SCADA systems improved,
mostly migrating rather than redesigning
the displays. Now, tens of thousands
of operators throughout the world are
controlling multi-billion dollar processes by
looking at primitive cartoons designed at a
time when we really did not know what we
were doing.
Poorly performing HMIs have been cited
as signifi cant contributing factors to major
accidents. The principles for designing
proper process graphics are now available.
A high-performance HMI (HPHMI) has many
advantages, including improved operator
situation awareness and process surveillance,
better abnormal situation detection and
response and reduced training time for new
operators. Many industrial companies have
graphic improvement efforts underway.
High performance displays depict
information. Information is data, in context,
made useful. HPHMI graphics show not only
the process value, but where it is relative
to “what’s good.” Abnormal conditions
are designed to stand out clearly. Colour is
used consistently, effectively, and sparingly.
Graphics are designed with a proper
hierarchy.
March/April 2013 | 63
Displaying information
In figure 1, much money has been spent on
the instrumentation. But can you answer the
simple question, “Is this process running at
peak efficiency, or very poorly?” To know that,
one must have specific training and months
of experience in normal and abnormal
situations. The operator must compare
each number to a memorised mental map
acquired through experience and upsets.
This is a difficult cognitive process. Most
operators have well over a thousand such
numbers and status indications spread out
over dozens of graphics. Detecting abnormal
conditions is difficult.
In the figure 2 depiction, a compressor’s
instruments are displayed in a different
fashion. The normal or desired range of
each value is clearly depicted using the light
blue range. The value’s proximity to alarm
ranges and automated interlock thresholds
is shown. (We normally expect operators to
also memorise which sensors are
interlock initiators). Values in alarm are
depicted with a redundantly-coded alarm
priority indicator.
With a single two-second glance at this
bank of properly designed analogue
indicators, the operators can tell if any values
are outside of the normal range, by how
much, and the proximity of the measurement
to both alarms and interlock activation.
Humans intuitively understand analogue
depictions. The abnormally high discharge
temperature shown is easy to detect even
though it is not yet in alarm. Alarm
conditions stand out.
By coding information into the display,
the operator can effectively scan
dozens of values in a few seconds. This
supports surveillance of the process and
early detection of abnormalities. We
do not wait for an alarm to indicate a
problem. The best knowledge of desirable
operating conditions is coded into the
display and in view all the time, not buried
in written procedures. Variability in the
proficiency and knowledge of individual
Figure 1: A typical 1990s graphic screen based on a P&ID
Figure 2: Analogue depiction of information
The high-performance HMI
64 | www.protocolmag.co.za
operators is reduced. Operator training
time is also significantly reduced, since
important knowledge is not acquired hit-or-
miss through experience. This is important
because most companies will lose well
over half of their experienced operators
and engineers in the next 10 years.
Use and abuse of colour
It is important to eliminate the common
overuse and misuse of colour. One
important principle is that colour alone
is not used as the sole discriminator of
an important status condition. The same
colours designated for alarms must not
also be used for other trivial purposes,
minimising their significance.
The most common and worst
colour principle violation is the red
(off)—green (on) equipment paradigm.
The power industry reverses this, with red
meaning energised. Who is right? Neither!
Figure 3 indicates poor colour-coding vs.
proper practice.
The red-green colouring shown
is (improperly) the only difference
depicting equipment status. Since red is
usually used as an alarm colour, it should
not be used for something as trivial as
depicting an “off” condition. Being “off”
is usually a normal and appropriate status;
a process running normally should not be
showing red. Brightness coding is a better
practice—imagine that a light bulb is inside
the pump. A status word is placed next
to the equipment to ensure clarity. This
paradigm can be usefully extended into
tables and other depictions.
Alarms are commonly indicated
by simply changing the colour of a
process value or its background, a
poor practice. Alarm conditions should
be shown by a redundantly coded
(shape, colour, text) element indicating
the alarm’s presence and priority. A
click on the alarm indicator can call
up its rationalisation information.
Alarm colours are not used for non-
alarm purposes. Bright colours are
used to draw attention to abnormal
situations, not show normal ones. A gray
background and muted colours minimise
screen glare and reflection, facilitating a
brightly lit control room. A colour palette
and the proper uses of each colour
are determined in advance. HPHMI is
not either eliminating colour or just
converting graphics to greyscale.
Graphic hierarchy
Displays should be designed in a
hierarchy providing progressive exposure of
detail. Displays designed from a stack of
P&IDs will not have this; they will be “flat”–
Figure 3: A Level 1 Overview display
March/April 2013 | 65
Figure 4: Depicting status and alarms with redundant coding and proper colour usage
like a computer hard disk with one folder for
all the files.
Hierarchy begins with a Level 1 Process Area
Overview. This is a big picture display
showing the operator’s entire span of
control. It is an overall indicator of how
the process is running. It depicts the
most important information and the key
performance indicators. The Overview is
a good use of a large-format wall screen.
Control interactions are not made from this
display.
A Level 1 Overview display of a large, coal-
fired power plant is shown in figure 3. At a
glance the operator can detect if the various
parts of the process are running well. We
sometimes hear, “But it doesn’t look like a
power plant!” Should your auto instrument
panel look like your engine?
Every process consists of smaller,
separate unit operations. A few
examples might include a compressor,
reactor, pipeline segment, distillation train,
furnace, generator, or feed system. A Level 2
Process Unit display (figure 5) is the primary
graphic for detailed surveillance and control
manipulations. It contains all the information
and controls required to perform most
operator tasks associated with that process
part. This cannot be accomplished by simply
replicating a P&ID. A typical operator might
have about a dozen Level 2 graphics.
Clicking on any value or element brings up
the detailed faceplate for that particular
element, through which adjustments are
made. In this example, the faceplate is
an element appearing in the upper-right
reserved area. Faceplates should not
obscure the primary portion of the graphic.
Two alarms are in effect on this reactor.
Embedded trends with indications of the
desirable range are used in all HPHMI
graphics. Control system “trend on
demand” capability works poorly in actual
practice.
Level 3 Process Unit Detail graphics address
a single piece of equipment or control
scheme. These are used for a detailed
diagnosis of problems. An augmented
P&ID type of depiction is often desirable
for Level 3 displays. Most of the existing
graphics in the world can be considered as
improvable Level 3 graphics.
Level 4 Process Diagnostic displays provide
the most detail of subsystems,
individual sensors, or components.
Screens, such as “Point Detail,” are Level 4.
Developing a hierarchy does not have to
be a complex and expensive effort. For
existing systems, most of the benefits
of HPHMI can be obtained by creating
about 20 new displays—typically a Level
1, a dozen or so Level 2s, and a few new
Abnormal Situation displays. The existing
graphics are designated Level 3. This will be
somewhat inconsistent, but most existing
graphics are already inconsistent. Over
time, the Level 3s can be improved.
There are dozens of additional
depiction improvements and HMI
topics addressed in detail in “The
High Performance HMI Handbook,”
available through ISA Publishing.
Proving these concepts
In 2009, the Electric Power Research
Institute (EPRI) conducted a major test
of these HMI concepts. A report was
produced, “Operator Human Machine
Interface Case Study: The Evaluation
of Existing ‘Traditional’ Operator
Graphics Versus High-Performance Graphics
in a Coal-Fired Power Plant Simulator, ID
1017637.”
The power plant chosen had used a
plant-training simulator for more than
a dozen years. In the test, several
operators detected and resolved various
abnormal scenarios using both their familiar
existing graphics and new, HPHMI graphics.
The HPHMI provided significantly-improved
operator performance in several areas. The
operator’s reaction to the overall test is best
summed up in this quote: “Once you got
used to these new graphics, going back to
the old ones would be hell.”
As an example of the power of
inertia, many plant scenarios require
an immediate half-rate reduction, or
“runback.” Done incorrectly, the plant
can drop to an undesirable zero output.
To accomplish this stressful and difficult
task, operators were trained for a
decade in using their normal graphics
for runback. This involved using a dozen
different screens, some to adjust only
a single item. Prior to this test, it had
not occurred to the plant to design any
The high-performance HMI
66 | www.protocolmag.co.za
special-purpose screens for use during
the runback, containing all the controls
and trends needed for that task. For the
test, a pair of HPHMI runback screens
were created, used, and evaluated as far
superior for runback accomplishment.
The High-Performance HMI work process
There is a proven seven-step
methodology for the development of a
high performance HMI:
• Step 1: Adopt a high performance HMI
philosophy and style guide with proper
principles.
• Step 2: Assess and benchmark
existing graphics against the HMI
philosophy.
• Step 3: Determine specific
performance and goal objectives/
targets for process control, such as safety
parameters, production rate, efficiency,
cost, and quality.
• Step 4: Task analysis identifies
which controls must be monitored
and manipulated to achieve the
performance and goal objectives,
determining the content of each Level 2
and 3 graphic.
• Step 5: Design high performance
graphics, following the HMI philosophy,
addressing the identified tasks.
• Step 6: Install, commission, and provide
training on the new HMI.
• Step 7: Control, maintain and periodically
reassess the HMI performance.
Justification for HMI change
Inertia, not cost, is the primary force
preventing HMI improvement. Operators are
usually on board immediately when shown
examples of HPHMI concepts. They see the
value compared to their existing screens
covered in raw numbers. Surprisingly, the
engineers tend to be the most resistant
to change. Based on actual incident
histories, HPHMI can produce significant
cost savings. The HMI is the primary tool
for the operator to successfully run the
process. The operator must succeed for
the plant to succeed. Alarm systems are
receiving considerable attention but are only
a small part of the operator’s HMI. Rather
than justify creating a good HMI, we would
ask, “Was there a justification for installing
a poor HMI in the first place?” Let’s fix what
is broken.
Conclusion
Our sophisticated control systems
are currently operated via ineffective
and problematic HMIs, designed
without adequate knowledge. Operator
performance can be greatly enhanced
by HMIs reflecting proper principles. A high
performance HMI is practical, achievable
and affordable.
Figure 5: Example Level 2 display of a reactor
March/April 2013 | 67
Lonmin uses biometrics to secure SCADA access
Goals
• 100% success rate when authorised users log into the InTouch
software.
• Impossible to bypass the security by logging in as someone else.
• Eliminate the need for usernames and passwords
• Auditable trail of users and usage
• Replace the password with a fingerprint template
Challenges
• Keeping pace with Microsoft’s changes in security and developing
a custom-made solution that would merge these changes with
biometric access to InTouch
Solutions and Products
• Wonderware InTouch HMI/SCADA
• In-house developed solution
Results
• Software savings
• Faster log-ins
• Proper identification of users
• Less admin work
“This project gave us security, improved login, less admin and an audit trail all in one and in a remarkably short time.”
Eduan Marais, MES Application Development Analyst, Lonmin Marikana
Lonmin uses biometrics to secure SCADA access
68 | www.protocolmag.co.za
Most manufacturing and mining operations
could not continue without SCADA
systems that are usually responsible for the
most complex and sensitive parts of their
production processes. While on-line hacking
is always a threat (viz. the Stuxnet virus of
2010), in-house threats are also ever-present
as is the operation of systems by unqualified
or unauthorised personnel. Lonmin took
steps to mitigate these risks.
Lonmin’s Marikana plant is a giant
undertaking by any standards. With well over
20 000 employees and a goal of producing
800 000 oz of platinum in the near future, the
company can’t afford production delays or
mishaps.
Lonmin has always looked for ways of
improving the efficiency of its production
processes by adopting the latest and
best technologies and approaches. The
plant uses dozens of SCADA/HMI as well
as view stations based on Wonderware
InTouch software throughout the facility
and management saw an urgent need to
eliminate unauthorised access to these vital
production assets by replacing InTouch’s
password-based security with fingerprint
recognition technology.
Project goals
• Ensure 100% success rate when
authorised users log into the InTouch
software.
• Users must not be able to bypass the
security by logging in as someone else.
• Eliminate the need for usernames and
passwords which users often swap with
one another leading to potentially
dangerous situations such as unauthorised
access to various functions
• Provide an auditable trail of who used
what and when
• Simplify the logging-in process by
replacing the password with a fingerprint
template. This would also eliminate
the need for resetting passwords and
unlocking accounts.
Challenges
In Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, and
earlier versions of the Windows operating
system, services and applications run in the
same session as that started by the first user
who logged onto the console. This session
is called Session 0. With the release of
Windows 7, Microsoft implemented changes
to isolate services from user applications,
making it harder for malicious software to
run with elevated privileges, which would
enable them to do a lot of harm. Doing
this made Windows a much more secure
operating system.
“This, however, meant that we could not
implement the Biometrix intelligence as a
standard Windows service as was requested,
as it would simply not talk to InTouch,” says
Eduan Marais, MES Application Development
Analyst at Lonmin Marikana. “So I developed
the solution in a Windows forms application,
but ran it as if it was a service. It starts as a
minimised task in the taskbar that can’t be
closed, so it is practically invisible, but we still
had the luxury of interfacing with InTouch and
communicating with users via dialogues if
necessary.”
Wonderware allows communication via DDE.
However, DDE is not available to Visual
Studio 2010 anymore. An external driver was
found on the Internet, called nDDE, which
was incorporated into the solution to enable
DDE communication between InTouch and
the fingerprint reader.
“Since the fingerprint reader does not
require a password, we had a problem as
InTouch uses a username and password
for ID authentication,” says Marais. “A
management decision was taken to
standardise on the password. This made
sense because users no longer had the
option to log in via the normal InTouch
login screen, making personal passwords
meaningless. And so the password was reset
to be the same for all users.”
A username is saved to a fingerprint
template on enrolment. Once the user
Lonmin at a glance
Lonmin is one of the world’s largest
primary producers of Platinum Group
Metals (PGMs) which are essential
for many industrial applications,
especially catalytic converters for
the control of internal combustion
engine emissions. PGMs also have a
widespread use in jewellery.
• Lonmin’s operations are based
in the North West and Limpopo
provinces of South Africa and
comprise 14 extraction shafts, 9
concentration plants as well as
extensive smelting and refining
facilities.
• Resources include 175 million troy
ounces of PGMs and 43 million
ounces of reserves
• The number of full time employees
is around 27,800 (year ending 30
September 2011)
• Lonmin has a primary listing on
LSE and the JSE
• 719,000 ounces of platinum in
concentrate (1.436m ounces of
total PGMs) produced and 721,000
ounces of Platinum sold (year
ending 30 September 2011)
“This biometric approach is very secure and surprisingly fast!”
Johan Louw, Automation Specialist, Process Systems, Lonmin Marikana
March/April 2013 | 69
uses the fingerprint reader to log into the
application, the username associated with
the fingerprint is returned, together with the
standardised password. This is passed to
InTouch via nDDE followed by the normal
ID authentication procedure to log the user
onto InTouch. This all happens in a few
milliseconds.
Implementation
From development to implementation on
the first workstation took 2 months. The
administrators were then trained and users
were scheduled to capture their fingerprints
(a process that takes about 30 seconds per
user). Once the fingerprints were captured,
users were able to continue operations as
normal.
The fingerprint software decrypts the user’s
fingerprint and then verifies it against
the database to return the matching
username. Remote monitoring is possible
via external software such as DAMEWARE.
The fingerprint software will pop up an
error if the authentication fails and anyone
monitoring remotely will be made aware of
the fact.
“Since this application runs in the
background, users do not have to click
anywhere. The application monitors the
fingerprint reader continuously and once
a finger is detected, the software does the
rest,” says Marais. “It’s important to note
that the integration was done in such a way
that no other systems had to change. Proper
research saved us a lot of time, as we did
not fall into the traps that exist with this
type of implementation. This project also
highlighted the fact that IT and production
can work together to implement a solution
that is useful to both.”
Benefits
• Software savings – by developing the
application in-house, savings of around
R1000 per workstation as well as the
elimination of yearly licence fees were
realised
• Faster log-ins – No more typographical
errors causing locked accounts that
must then be unlocked by the system
administrator. Forgotten usernames and
passwords are also no longer an issue
• Proper identification of users – Since
users can no longer use one another’s
Figure 1: The fingerprint encryption process
Figure 2: System topology
usernames and passwords, it is now
possible to know with certainty who was
actually logged in and when. This is also
important when tracing the root cause of
a problem since it is now possible to talk
to the right people who were involved at
the time.
• Less admin work - Since usernames
and passwords are no longer used,
administrators do not have the tedious
task of resetting passwords and unlocking
accounts due to finger trouble
Contents
70 | www.protocolmag.co.za
Why is alarm management required in modern plants?Stan DeVries, Director, Energy Management Solutions, Invensys Operations Management
Introduction
All modern process control systems provide
alarm systems to assist process operators in
managing abnormal situations. Nevertheless,
the integrity and effectiveness of alarm
systems can either provide assistance or
be a hindrance to the process operators
in responding to these situations. Through
the efforts of the Abnormal Situation
Management Consortium, EEMUA, and
other professional groups, a large amount
of best practice information exists to aid
the control system engineer in designing
effective alarm systems. However, due
to various reasons, most existing control
systems must be redesigned/re-engineered
in order to take advantage of these newer
system capabilities and best practices. The
re-design/re-engineering of alarm systems
in these control systems is a responsible
first step in responding to the increasing
frequency of industrial incidents and to begin
to address the billions of dollars that these
incidents cost manufacturers annually. By any
comparison, the re-design/re-engineering
efforts are well worth the investment. This
white paper presents a new alarm philosophy
and approach to achieve these objectives.
Alarm problems in Distributed Control Systems
Indeed, all DCSs have a sophisticated alarm
and HMI system for operators to monitor
and control plant status. These are powerful
platforms for users to design and configure
effective alarm systems. The DCS alarm
system can be a vital, productive tool for
managing industrial process control plants,
and can be configured to identify and notify
personnel of a wide variety of abnormal
conditions in a manufacturing process.
Alarm systems should alert the operator
to a possible problem, provide warning
early enough to allow remediation, guide
the operator to the problem, its cause
and corrective action, and confirm or deny
the effectiveness of the operators’ efforts.
However, a large number of existing alarm
systems do not perform well.
First, before the plant is operating, it is
difficult to make a good or optimal design
and configuration of the alarm system. For
example, too many alarms are configured;
unreasonable alarm limits or dead bands are
set; improper alarm orders are arranged; too
many unimportant alarms during start-up/
shutdown are triggered, etc. This is because
the plant status is not well known or there is
a shortage of more powerful alarm functions.
Second, the plant characteristics may
change with time, possibly resulting in an
improper configuration. Third, demands on
operators are increasing through:
• The need for process operation close to
maximum efficiency
• Higher costs of process interruptions
• More complex processes
• Lower safety margins (which give less
opportunity to recover from upsets)
• Environmental regulations (which may
prohibit venting to atmosphere, direct
discharge to waterways or landfills)
• Fewer operators
• Higher staff turnover (resulting in less
experienced operators)
For example, increasing sophistication of
control systems and processes means that
systems are being operated in multiple
modes by complex computer control, with
the mental model held by the operator
and this model changes significantly over
time. If human factors are not considered
during design, then these starkly different
operator roles ensure a continuation of
overload situations and further incidents. It
is becoming increasingly difficult for any one
operator to understand both the complete
process and the actions of the computer
control system. In fact, the potential for
problems is increasing in modern plants.
Finally, industrial plants are constantly
seeking to improve operations to achieve
better economic results. As a result, the
alarm system in particular is a significant
obstacle to further improvement.
Nevertheless, the importance and necessity
of improvement is often questioned by
asking “Is our existing Alarm System
sufficient?” The answer is usually, “No,”
based on the following questions:
• Are all alarms necessary, requiring
operator action?
• How many alarms occur during normal
operation?
• How many occur during a plant upset?
• How many standing alarms are there?
• Is there ever an overwhelming event
accompanied by alarm ‘floods’?
• Are there nuisance alarms, are large
numbers of alarms acknowledged in quick
succession or are audible alarms regularly
turned off?
In the last 11 minutes before the explosion the two operators had to recognise, acknowledge and act on 275 alarms!
March/April 2013 | 71
• Is alarm prioritisation reasonable?
• Do operators know what to do with each
alarm?
• Have there been any critical incidents
or near misses where operators missed
alarms or made the wrong response?
• Is there a written policy/strategy on
alarms?
Plants may make significant investments to
improve their overall operations by 2-3%
for the year only to lose two years’ profits
to one unscheduled shutdown. In fact, a
typical plant loses more than 5% of its total
capacity every year due to slow downs
and an approximately equal amount due
to off-spec product, quality giveaway and
other lost opportunities, not to mention any
unscheduled unit outages the plant may
incur. These costs are often underestimated.
Individual plants typically compute
lost opportunities only as a function of
production targets and margins. For
example, if a typical plant were to recover
the 5% productivity loss cited above, the
increase in profit would not be 5% but nearly
50-60%. Given that most fixed and variable
costs have already been covered, nearly all
of the additional revenue would be profit!
Furthermore, accidents like the following
example underline the need to do
something for alarm systems:
The 1994 explosion and fires at the Texaco
Milford Haven refinery injured twenty-six
people and caused damage of around
R662million as well as significant production
loss. Key factors that emerged from the
Health and Safety Executive’s (HSEs)
investigation were:
• There were too many alarms and they
were poorly prioritised
• The control room displays did not help
the operators to understand what was
happening
• There had been inadequate training for
dealing with a stressful and sustained
plant upset
In the last 11 minutes before the explosion the two operators had to recognise, acknowledge and act on 275 alarms!
Alarm management
Alarm Management is imperative to
assessing, improving and optimising plant
alarms, thereby increasing the effectiveness
of plant operators by only notifying them of
a need for their intervention.
What is an Alarm Management System?
Most plant personnel equate alarm
management with reducing alarms; however,
this is only one piece of the puzzle. The
whole puzzle involves providing operators
with enough information to prevent
abnormal situations and to prevent the
escalation of those abnormal situations that
cannot be prevented.
A poor alarm system results in billions
of dollars lost every year to accidents,
equipment damage, unplanned plant or unit
outages, off-spec production, regulatory
fines and huge intangible costs related
to environmental and safety infractions.
Alarm Management is about safety, the
environment, optimising operations and
increasing corporate profits.
One important philosophy is that the
operator must have some action for
any specific alarm. If the action is not
required, the alarm should be removed.
Further, reducing or eliminating alarm
floods liberates an operator to respond to
plant demands, enabling them to avoid
shutdowns and keep the plant running
at optimal performance. In addition, the
advanced alarming -- like alarm shelving
-- can dramatically reduce alarms temporarily
during a specific period so the operators
can focus on important alarms and reduce
start-up/shutdown time.
The relationship between a DCS alarm
system and an Alarm Management System is
shown in Figure 1.
The alarm system of the DCS is the executer
of all alarm functions. However, the Alarm
Management System is the monitor and
optimiser for the DCS alarm system, which is
used to reduce nuisance alarms, rationalise
related alarms, avoid alarm floods and so on.
In addition, some advanced alarm functions
like alarm shelving and alarm suppression
Figure 1: DCS alarm system and Alarm Management System
Why is alarm management required in modern plants?
72 | www.protocolmag.co.za
can be added to the existing DCS alarm
system to make it more effective.
As a result, it is possible to reduce
unscheduled plant shutdowns, improve
performance and mitigate the risk of
incidents and excursions and hence to
enhance reliability and profitability by
improving the performance of the existing
alarm system.
How does an alarm management system work?
The DCS alarm system can be optimised
and enhanced by an Alarm Management
System. An Alarm Management System
and service attempt to identify unnecessary
alarms, improper alarm set values and where
improvements can be made to the current
procedures for dealing with alarms, which
can be shown in figure 2.
As shown, the Alarm Management System
and service is not a one-time project; it is
a redesign/re-engineering and a life-long
process. Therefore the performance of the
alarm system is continuously being improved
and optimised. The key functions and
services are summarised as follows:
Alarm philosophy development
The modern alarm philosophy is introduced
to plant operations. The alarm philosophy
is the collection of guiding principles and
targets by which users configure alarms
and measure alarm performance. Most
philosophies cover the following criteria at a
minimum:
• What is an alarm?
• How are priorities set based on criticality
and time to respond?
• General alarm considerations, e.g., how to
deal with BAD I/O alarms?
• Alarm performance criteria and resolution
activities?
Most plants do not have a robust Alarm
Philosophy. All alarms are defined on an
ad hoc basis. This is the root cause of
most alarm problems. An effective Alarm
Philosophy outlines key concepts and
governing rules for alarm strategy, e.g.,
what constitutes an alarm and what risk
categories pertain to your site operations.
It outlines roles and responsibilities, change
management procedures and project goals,
such as target alarm rates.
Alarm analysis
The alarm analysis module identifies
potential areas for alarm system
performance improvement. This module
automatically collects configuration data,
alarm messages and the operator action
journal from the DCS. The data can be
automatically captured and imported
without any manual intervention. Main
Analysis includes:
• Alarm system performance (alarms per
time period, frequent alarms, chattering
alarms, priority distribution, alarm
summary, etc.)
• Alarm system settings (alarms set by
priority, disabled/inhibited alarms, etc.)
• Process changes (alarm enable states,
alarm priorities, etc.)
The results of the analysis reports can be
used to improve and monitor alarm system
performance.
Performance metrics manager
This module enables business personnel
at all levels to make informed and timely
decisions by providing timely and accurate
access to Key Performance Indicators (KPIs).
The performance metrics manager provides
comparable metrics through benchmarking
and normalisation for alarms and operator
interactions independent of control systems
and database formats.
Report manager
This module is a report mechanism. Report
sections may be created from specific
components and then included in a report
that may be scheduled for automatic
execution and publishing. In addition, each
report execution may trigger an e-mail
notification that can be customised to any
number of e-mail recipients.
Real-Time alarm viewer
This module provides real-time viewing of
alarm messages from the alarm system on
Figure 2: Alarm Management System
March/April 2013 | 73
any authorised client PC connected to the
Alarm Management Server. For Foxboro I/A
Series systems, the alarms are collected from
one or more printer ports on a Foxboro I/A
workstation. A serial to Ethernet converter is
used to send the alarm messages on a LAN
to the Alarm Management Server. This is
the same LAN used for transferring data for
statistical analysis.
The alarm messages can be sorted and
filtered in any column to facilitate analysis
and make the elimination of alarm printers
possible.
Advanced alarm management
This module provides more enhanced
alarm functions for the DCS alarm system to
reduce alarm floods:
• Alarm shelving
• Grouped alarms
• Alarm priority reduction
• Alarm load shedding
• Pattern recognition
• Alarm suppression (redundant voted
alarms, eclipsing alarms, etc.)
Alarm suppression provides significant
benefits in removing standing alarms
when a plant unit is shut down, provided
that the meaning of ‘shut down’ is clearly
understood. If inventory has been removed
as part of the shutdown process and the
equipment is fully isolated, then suppression
of all the alarms is likely to be appropriate.
However, if the plant may restart on short
notice, with key inventories in place, then
there will be a number of alarms that should
not be suppressed during a plant shut
down. In addition, in batch industries like
pharmaceutical plants, alarm set points or
whether an alarm is configured typically
change depending on the batch phase.
If it is not part of the automation, it may
generate alarm floods. Similarly, alarm
conditions may change during different
recipes, which may also result in alarm
floods. State-based alarm techniques are
used in these situations to suppress those
alarm floods.
Case study: Salt River Project
Salt River Project (SRP) is the 3rd largest
US public power utility with 6,500 MW
generated and supplied to 900,000
customers with annual revenue of R21.3
billion. It was named “Utility of the Year”
in 2004 by Electric, Light & Power. Invensys
performed Alarm Management at two SRP
power generation plants:
• Santan – 9 gas fired combined cycle units
with 1,100 MW
• Navajo – 1 of 3 coal-fired once through
supercritical units with 800 MW each
The existing situation is characterised by the
following comment: “We were getting alarm
horns all the time; at start-up, shutdown and
day to day operation. In one 18-hour period,
operators were confronted with 5000 alarms,
every one of which required intervention of
some sort and 98 percent were designated
top priority. The plant had to designate an
operator just for alarm management,” said
Ron Bewsey, SRP I&E Supervisor and I/A
Administrator.
Therefore, in the first phase, the main tasks
are to increase operator available time to
improve plant performance and reduce
the alarm rate and the chance of missing
important alarms. The project scope is:
• Initial alarm system performance
assessment
• Alarm philosophy workshop
• Alarm philosophy and design functional
spec
• Alarm rationalisation
• Alarm rationalisation implementation
• Advanced alarming – future
• Alarm rationalisation service team
The achievements in Santan are:
• Start-up time and effort is reduced from 2
operators up to 4 hours to 1 operator less
than 2 hours
• 40% of configured alarms and resulting
nuisance alarms were picked out and
deleted.
The achievements in Navajo are:
• Initial priority distribution (Priority 1: 98%,
Priorities 2 through 4: 2%) is updated to a
final priority distribution (Priority 1: 11%,
Priority 2: 14%, Priority 3: 75%, Priority 4:
Information Only, Priority 5: Non-critical
bad I/O)
• 44% of the configured alarms and
resulting nuisance alarms were picked out
and deleted
Conclusion
Unreasonably and improperly configured
alarm systems make contributions to
accidents at a non-trivial rate. Although
alarm systems are intended to minimise
incidents, too often they amplify the
consequences of these incidents. Nuisance
alarms, alarm floods and improperly
prioritised alarms all contribute to operator
confusion, and thus increase accident
frequency. DCS Alarm systems can be
improved and optimised through the
Alarm Management System and service.
This re-design/re-engineering procedure
restores the alarm system to a healthy and
helpful state by eliminating nuisance alarms,
reducing alarm floods and ensuring that the
necessary alarms are properly prioritised and
documented.
Why is alarm management required in modern plants?
74 | www.protocolmag.co.za
Dr. Kobus van der Merwe of Industrial Management Enhancement
MES and the human factorWe’ve seen how, with the assistance of
ArchestrA Workfl ow, it’s people that make
things happen rather than technology.
Well, without your staff’s assistance and
collaboration, your sweeping MES initiatives
may just not deliver what you expected
unless the humans in the loop are involved.
Dr Kobus van der Merwe explains how
cognitive decision-making can help.
Background
This article focuses specifi cally on decision-
making related to the production process
(i.e. where certain feed material is converted
into an intermediate or fi nal product).
All functions within the organisation are
effectively put in place in supporting
it. Examples of such processes are
metallurgical benefi ciation processes (pyro-
and hydro-metallurgical), power generation,
or sugar milling and refi ning to name a few.
MES is presented as a solution containing
an ‘accumulation of methods and tools used
to accomplish production’ of the mentioned
product(s). This provides a platform
facilitating effective utilisation of assets and
resources, inventory control and analysis
by improving decision-making. The latter
is achieved by presenting contextualised
information on a near real-time basis.
MES therefore recognises the potential
contribution of decision making towards
plant performance.
As decision making is a function of the
human’s cognitive process, it generates
special challenges. It is generally accepted
that people with more experience
generate higher quality decisions more
often. Differences in levels of education,
culture, process complexity, exposure to
hands-on training and couching, production
pressures and staff turnover all impact on the
experiential knowledge gained by decision
makers in the production environment.
Consequential symptoms observed in
production processes include:
• Non-repeatable production rate and
product quality
• Variance in energy effi ciency
• Certain shift performing better than
others
• Premature equipment failure
• Inability to meet production targets.
These symptoms are stimulating questions
regarding the effectiveness of technology
solutions deployed within manufacturing
plants as one would like to expect consistent
high performance in the presence of
technology. This article aims to highlight
some of the ‘not-so-obvious’ aspects to
consider when attempting to maximise
the returns on technology and asset
investments.
Performance measurement
MES is structured to provide contextualised
information regarding various aspects of the
manufacturing process. Using the ISA-95
structure as reference, Level 3 measurements
are those that report the level of compliance
with predefi ned business processes and
procedures – for example, feed/recipe
composition, production throughput in
various parts of the plant, product quality,
production cost per unit, maintenance
downtime, maintenance cost, energy
Figure 1: Controlling compliance with business processes and operating procedures
March/April 2013 | 75
About Industrial Management Enhancement
Experience has shown that most production
plants operate in an unstable or high risk state
for 60% or more of the time.
Operational risk encompasses the potential loss
due to the breakdown of controls. Breakdown
of control results in unpredictable and unstable
production processes. By implication, this
condition results in an inability to meet
production targets.
IME delivers Operational Performance
Management solutions to the process and
manufacturing industry. A structured and proven
methodology is utilised to construct process
status maps and to analyse and troubleshoot
the process to quantify Operational Risks.
Projects are characterised by high returns, a
strong emphasis on training and development,
and solutions facilitating asset sweating.
consumption per ton, inventory levels, etc.
Since process performance variability
persists in the presence of MES, it is
necessary to gain insight into root causes
of variance. The consequences of decision
making at the process level is quantified by
Level 0, 1 and 2 measurements (using the
ISA-95 structure as reference).
The approach followed by the Performance
Variance Management methodology is to
gain insight into the root causes of process
variance and link them to data/information
requirements that enable decision makers
to counter inefficiencies. In other words,
the outcome of a project defines what
information is required and how the
information should be applied; it identifies
the gaps that exist within the existing
performance management system and
process. It is in this context that Performance
Variance Management has been adding
value to MES installations and delivering
improved process performance.
The next section focuses on the decision
making process’ characteristics and
provides illustration of the application within
manufacturing. Figure 2 illustrates how
technical enhancements provide step-wise
increases in efficiency whereas quality of
decision making contributes progressively
over time. This graphic illustrates how
knowledge and deep understanding of the
underlying production process, systems,
processes and assets contribute towards
higher levels of efficiency. To achieve the
latter, one has to leverage the capability and
develop operational personnel.
Decision-making
Decision-making plays a central role in
plant performance even in the presence of
automation. Quality of decision making is a
function of the knowledge and experience
of decision makers. The cognitive process
supporting the decision-making process
is influenced by a number of factors – in
general, however, people’s choices are made
to maximise some kind of expectation [1].
This implies that most people try and make
good or optimal decisions. For example,
all people intend driving safely to their
destination. We can expect that more
experienced vehicle drivers will do so more
often by making higher quality decisions
compared to an inexperienced young
person (that’s why a person under 25 years
of age pays a higher short-term vehicle
insurance premium!). The same reasoning
can be applied to technical and operational
personnel within manufacturing.
In order to make some evaluation, the
decision maker has to formulate a mental
picture of the problem. Once this reference
point is established it is possible to
determine impact and probability of a
specific action. Decision makers will also
evaluate the quality of their choice in terms
of the gain or loss against the reference
point.
Experience is gained through repeated
pattern observations and subsequent
interpretation. For example, by experience
we know that certain parts of the roads we
travel are more prone to accidents. This
experience was gained by observing how
other drivers behave and by the frequency
of accidents. In order to make reliable
decisions while travelling this stretch of road,
we adapt our reference point continuously.
This adaptation is necessary since our
position relative to other vehicles and
conditions changes. Decisions we make
while driving are therefore governed by the
consequential impact. Circumstances are
also interpreted by the cognitive process to
provide feedback regarding the probability
of success.
It is also worth considering the impact (value)
and probability of choice for a moment.
Impact or value of choice can only be
evaluated if it is quantifiable. The absence
of experience and knowledge relating to
the environment within which such decisions
are made, will have a negative impact
on the quality of choice. This applies to
the probability of realising the expected
outcome as well.
This explains why people tend to revert
to what they perceive as ‘tried and tested’
methods of operation. It is common to find
that plants are operated in a specific manner
by specific operators. Operators will walk
onto the plant at the start of shift and alter
certain set points irrespective of the current
state of the plant. This behaviour is a result
of their mental models (or opinions) built up
through experience.
MES and the human factor
76 | www.protocolmag.co.za
It is commonly accepted that experience
and knowledge is built up over time. As
mentioned earlier, experience is gained
through observation and interpretation.
Due to the limited capacity of the human’s
cognitive process, it will apply a filter if
presented with large quantities of data. The
latter is more prevalent under situations
exposing higher levels of complexity. This
filtering results in bias since the same
filtering tends to be applied every time
similar situations occur.
The production plant is considered a
complex environment where it’s been
observed that changing set points to effect
certain changes (which didn’t materialise)
is common practice. Latter observations
imply that the decision maker wasn’t able
to distinguish between different process
conditions and subsequently applied a
decision which only seemed to be correct
based on biased interpretation. The
presence of biased interpretation is also
confirmed by the fact that the choice of
action by different decision makers will differ.
Bias and differences in mental models are
well illustrated when attempting to find
explanation for process inefficiency during a
morning meeting! There are many opinions
and unfortunately the opinion of the person
with the loudest voice is more than often
incorrectly accepted as fact.
Human behaviour within the manufacturing
plant is governed by the criteria against
which their performance is measured
(this actually applies to all areas of life!).
The need therefore exists to identify
current gaps within the performance
management process that leads to
suboptimal performance – in many cases it
is the result of using incorrect performance
measurements. Furthermore, it is necessary
to provide a platform for decision makers
to generate quality decisions. Within
the process environment, it is therefore
necessary to:
• Deliver unbiased insight into the
production process states –
� Quantify and describe the respective
process states
� Determine for how long the process
remains in respective process states.
This quantifies the chances of realising
the expected financial performance.
For example, if the plant is operating
for only 30% of the time within the
targeted range the chances of realising
the anticipated financial performance
is low.
• Visualise inter-relationships in a
practical and easy-to-use format. This
representation quantifies the current
circumstances (process state) and
therefore provides a mental picture of the
current state.
• Provide a practical method to manage
process conditions – this implies providing
guidance to steer the process towards
optimal performance and / or maintaining
the current state.
• Encapsulate process states associated
with ‘good’ and ‘bad’ performance.
This serves as documented ‘evidence’
of performance state and assists the
inexperienced decision maker to
recognise performance states. By
implication it delivers information that
reduces the time that decision makers
need to gain relevant experience.
• Facilitate change management and
people development. A well-structured
process needs to be followed to align
everyone to unbiased information
describing process states and methods
to manage the plant towards repetitive
performance.
Figure 2 - Quality of decision-making
March/April 2013 | 77
Summary
The above requirements are addressed
through the Process Variance Management
methodology. Results facilitate effective
interpretation of existing measurements
and / or result in the development of new
measurements utilised for performance
management. It leverages the functionality
offered by MES to improve decision making.
Technology can add exceptional value to
a manufacturing process and MES is no
exception. A prerequisite is to design the
content to facilitate appropriate behaviour.
Behaviour alignment is achieved by common
understanding of process states and
conditions, interpretation, and subsequent
decision making.
This article provided some background on
the cognitive process and its characteristics
in the context of decision-making. Future
articles will address aspects relating to
change management, reviewing existing
business processes and operating
procedures, training and development,
continual improvement and how people
can be encouraged to improve financial
performance while leveraging existing
technology and infrastructure.
Reference
Newell, B.R., D.A. Lagnado, and S.D. R.,
Straight Choices - The psychology of
decision making. 2007: Psychology Press.
For more information contact:
Dr. Kobus van der Merwe
Industrial Management Enhancement
Mobile: +27 (0)82 656 5601
Mailto: [email protected]
MES and the human factor
78 | www.protocolmag.co.za
Human differentiator dictionaryBest Practice – This refers to a technique,
method, process, activity, incentive or reward
which conventional wisdom regards as more
effective at delivering a particular outcome
than any other technique, method, process,
etc. when applied to a particular condition
or circumstance. The idea is that with proper
processes, checks and testing, a desired
outcome can be delivered with fewer
problems and unforeseen complications.
Best practices can also be defined as the
most efficient (least amount of effort) and
effective (best results) way of accomplishing
a task, based on repeatable procedures that
have proven themselves over time for large
numbers of people.
A given best practice is only applicable to
particular condition or circumstance and
may have to be modified or adapted for
similar circumstances. In addition, a “best”
practice can evolve to become better as
improvements are discovered.
Biometrics - Biometrics (or biometric
authentication) refers to the identification
of humans by their characteristics or traits.
Biometrics is used in computer science as a
form of identification and access control. It
is also used to identify individuals in groups
that are under surveillance.
BizTalk - Microsoft BizTalk Server, often
referred to as simply “BizTalk”, is an
Enterprise Service Bus. Through the
use of “adapters” which are tailored to
communicate with different software
systems used in a large enterprise, it
enables companies to automate business
processes.
In a common scenario, BizTalk enables
companies to integrate and manage
automated business processes by
exchanging business documents such as
purchase orders and invoices between
disparate applications, within or across
organisational boundaries. Human-centric
processes cannot be implemented directly
with BizTalk Server and need additional
solutions like Microsoft SharePoint server.
Business Process Management (BPM)
– This refers to a holistic management
approach focused on aligning all aspects
of an organisation with the wants and
needs of clients. It promotes business
effectiveness and efficiency while striving
for innovation, flexibility and integration
with technology. BPM attempts to improve
processes continuously. It can therefore
be described as a “process optimisation
process.” It is argued that BPM enables
organisations to be more efficient, more
effective and more capable of change than a
functionally focused, traditional hierarchical
management approach. An empirical study
by Kohlbacher (2009) indicates that BPM
helps organisations to gain higher customer
satisfaction, product quality, delivery speed
and to reduce time-to-market.
Decision-making – The ability to choose
one course of action rather than any other
based on available information, knowledge,
experience and situation awareness.
Difference between workflow and process –
A workflow is a series of connected activities
that are intended to achieve a certain
result. This is however, a free-wheeling
arrangement that often lacks the required
checks and balances. A process, on the
other hand, defines, monitors and controls
a workflow to ensure that it achieves its
objective(s) by conforming to its prescribed
operational and performance requirements.
Empowerment – Providing someone
with the necessary tools (e.g. training,
information services, etc.), authority and trust
to make decisions. This “puts out the fire”
at its source leaving higher level process
owners free to improve the processes in
their charge.
EYESIM – High-level simulation software
from SimSci-Esscor for the training of plant
personnel. EYESIM provides complete
plant crew training to improve skills that
are safety-critical by enabling operators to
perform tasks in a simulated environment,
allowing them to react quickly and
correctly, facilitating reactions in high stress
conditions, and instilling standards for team
training and communications.
IntelaTrac – Wonderware’s IntelaTrac
software manages the processes
and procedures used to ensure that
organisations consistently execute all field
tasks required to achieve reliable operations.
Through the use of mobile computers, the
workforce can provide feedback on the
non-instrumented portions of the plant and
receive maintenance information or other
guidance in return.
Process –
(1) A process typically describes the act of
taking something through an established
and usually routine set of procedures to
convert it from one form to another such
as in manufacturing where aluminium is
turned into aircraft or processing paperwork
to grant a mortgage loan, or converting
computer data into usable information.
A process involves steps and decisions in
the way work is accomplished. A process
monitors and controls workflows to
make sure that each step in the workflow
(sub-process) conforms to set performance
criteria. Depending on conditions, process
objectives may change, leading to a
change in their operational requirements
and performance criteria. This will result
in a new or modified process to meet the
new objectives. Because of the “feedback,
learn, redesign” loop, processes tend to be
largely self-correcting (e.g. the process of
evolution).
March/April 2013 | 79
(2) A process is a series of controlled and
measurable actions that involves feedback,
learning mechanisms and contingency plans
to transform energy and / or matter from
one form into another (e.g. a manufacturing
process transforms raw materials into
finished goods. A sales process transforms
prospects into customers.)
SharePoint - Microsoft SharePoint is a
family of software products developed by
Microsoft for collaboration, file sharing and
Web publishing. This family of products
includes: Microsoft SharePoint Server,
Microsoft SharePoint Foundation, Microsoft
Search Server, Microsoft SharePoint
Designer and Microsoft SharePoint
Workspace.
Microsoft SharePoint is a Web technology
based server that can be used to build
portals, collaboration sites and also content
management sites. It is very versatile in a
number of features and supports various
enterprise and Web scenarios. It is also
popular for document management
solutions. SharePoint can also be used as a
building platform to build systems atop its
framework.
Situational awareness - Situational
awareness is the perception of environmental
elements with respect to time and/or space,
the comprehension of their meaning, and
the projection of their status after some
variable has changed, such as time, or some
other variable, such as a predetermined
event. It is also a field of study concerned
with perception of the environment critical
to decision-makers in complex, dynamic
areas from aviation, air traffic control, power
plant operations, military command and
control, and emergency services such as fire
fighting and policing; to more ordinary but
nevertheless complex tasks such as driving an
automobile or bicycle.
Situational awareness (SA) involves being
aware of what is happening in the vicinity,
in order to understand how information,
events, and one’s own actions will impact
goals and objectives, both immediately and
in the near future. One with an adept sense
of situational awareness generally has a
high degree of knowledge with respect to
inputs and outputs of a system, i.e. an innate
“feel” for situations, people, and events that
play out due to variables the subject can
control. Lacking or inadequate situational
awareness has been identified as one of
the primary factors in accidents attributed
to human error. Thus, situational awareness
is especially important in work domains
where the information flow can be quite
high and poor decisions may lead to serious
consequences (e.g., piloting an airplane,
functioning as a soldier, or treating critically
ill or injured patients).
Having complete, accurate and up-to-the-
minute SA is essential where technological
and situational complexity on the human
decision-maker are a concern. Situation
awareness has been recognised as a critical,
yet often elusive, foundation for successful
decision-making across a broad range of
complex and dynamic systems, including
aviation and air traffic control, emergency
response and military command and control
operations and offshore oil and nuclear
power plant management.
Situational awareness is often studied in the
context of leadership and roles involving
time-critical applications, however it is
often referenced in other fields as well.
For example, in the study of influence,
situational awareness is found to be a critical
component. This is further extended into
the animal kingdom, where very often the
alpha pair demonstrates superior situation
awareness with respect to the well being of
those within the animal pack.
Workflow - A workflow consists of a
sequence of connected steps. It is a
depiction of a sequence of operations,
declared as work of a person, a group of
persons, an organisation of staff, or one
or more simple or complex mechanisms.
Workflow may be seen as any abstraction
of real work. For control purposes, workflow
may be a view on real work under a
chosen aspect, thus serving as a virtual
representation of actual work. The flow
being described often refers to a document
that is being transferred from one step to
another.
A workflow is a model to represent real
work for further assessment (e.g., for
describing a reliably repeatable sequence of
operations). More abstractly, a workflow is a
pattern of activity enabled by a systematic
organisation of resources, defined roles and
mass, energy and information flows, into a
work process that can be documented and
learned. Workflows are designed to achieve
processing intents of some sort, such as
physical transformation, service provision, or
information processing.
Acknowledgement: Some of the above
material is sourced from Wikipedia
Human differentiator dictionary
80 | www.protocolmag.co.za
Events: X-CHANGE 2013
The human differentiator: Driving measureable, real-time performance improvements by improving the value of the contribution your people make to your business
X-CHANGE 2013 will focus on how
Invensys can help empower your
operational and business personnel
to excel through the use of innovative
technology. While there’s no lack of
technology, it’s humans, at the end of
the day, that are the differentiators
between its success or failure. We know.
We’ve been involved with enriching the
contributions of people for over a century.
That’s a lot of experience.
The road to success depends on a definitive
automation and information strategy as well
as some notable landmarks. These include
the Invensys Enterprise Control System
and its many integrated applications, the
safeguard of past investments, integration
with existing corporate assets, providing
continuously current technology, supplying
outstanding customer support and an
enviable track record of delivering optimised
industrial information and operational
solutions to most of the world’s leading
companies.
X-CHANGE is your definitive window to
the industrial automation and information
landscape and brings together more
industry professionals than any other event
of its kind in Southern Africa. System
integrators, hardware and software suppliers,
end-users and international industrial
automation authorities come together to
X-CHANGE ideas, network and collaborate
at what is widely regarded as South Africa’s
premier industrial event.
Celebrating the conference’s 21st anniversary, X-CHANGE 2013 will be held from 21st to 24th April at Sun City and promises to once again add great value to the lives of industrial automation professionals country-wide.
So, we invite everyone who has something
to share or something they want to learn
to X-CHANGE 2013. If you’ve never been
to X-CHANGE before, you’re in for a most
pleasant and informative surprise. If you’re a
regular, on the other hand, we don’t have to
sell you on the idea and welcome you back.
X-CHANGE 2013 presentation streams
The presentation streams have been designed
to highlight and address the information needs
of executives, system engineers, production
managers, plant managers and engineers
involved in the mining and manufacturing
industries. That’s because they all need
different information in the right context and at
the right time – all the time.
The contents of the presentations range
from technical to more business-oriented
and you will be able to choose those
best suited to your current operational or
business needs.
Technology stream
Every year, Invensys Operations
Management introduces new and significant
products to its wide range of solutions.
This is your opportunity to see what these
products will do for your bottom line as
the presentations highlight the features,
advantages and benefits of each solution as
applicable to your industry. This year, there
are significant functionality upgrades and
enhancements to your favourite applications
as well as some new ones that continue to
populate the Invensys InFusion enterprise
control system space (e.g. Intelligent
Marshalling, plug-in DCS migration,
virtualisation, MES Quality Management
System, handling multiple ArchestrA
galaxies, Overview Client and many more).
Solutions stream
The solutions stream takes a broader look
at ways of addressing your enterprise
manufacturing intelligence needs, improving
asset effectiveness, streamlining your
manufacturing execution system for operational
performance excellence, getting you started on
the road to enterprise integration, empowering
your workforce, corporate energy management,
safety and reliability, business optimisation
and other topics on which the health of your
enterprise depends.
March/April 2013 | 81
Events: X-CHANGE 2013
Invensys Operations Management stream
From valves to virtualisation and from
sensors to simulation, Invensys Operations
Management does it all. Invensys
Wonderware is only one of nine Invensys
Operations Management business units, so
it’s no wonder that the range of solutions
available to you has grown phenomenally
and very rapidly since the company started
operations in South Africa in 2011.
This stream will demonstrate how hardware
and software solution from Avantis,
Eurotherm, Foxboro, InFusion, SimSci-
Esscor Skelta and Triconex all contribute to
providing a seamless information continuum
from sensor to boardroom.
User presentations stream
End-users and system integrators present
the successful implementation of projects
using Invensys solutions. From SCADA to
MES and Manufacturing Intelligence to
enterprise integration, come and see how
the concept of Invensys’ Enterprise Control
System is helping mining and manufacturing
companies map some of the world’s leading
solutions to their needs in a practical way.
All user presentations are entered into the
Invensys Operations Management Open
competition
Keynote speakers
We are fortunate in having access to some
of the leading local and international
authorities on subjects as far ranging as how
to survive profitably in the current world
economic climate to the adoption of new
approaches to information and control in
mining and manufacturing. Once they leave
their pedestals, you can have casual chats
with them or book sessions where you have
the chance of discussing your production
and business issues one-on- one.
Their wide and varied industry experience
will save you from reinventing the wheel and
cut through complexity to give you fresh,
practical insights that you can apply when
you get back to the office.
Invensys Operations Management Open
We have found that one of the most valuable
ways to assess a product and its suitability is to
speak to the people who use it. The Invensys
Operations Management Open was introduced
to encourage both end users and system
integrators to document their experiences of
successful implementations using Invensys
Wonderware solutions. These are customers
who have used the products extensively and
their first hand experiences offer insights not
available from any other source.
All user presentations are entered into
the Invensys Operations Management
Open competition where prizes are
awarded for the best presentations in
various categories such as best SCADA/
HMI, MES, EMI or Enterprise Integration
implementation. The presentations are then
documented in the form of articles and,
after approval, sent to various magazines
for publication. These articles also appear
on the Invensys Wonderware web site and
bi-monthly Protocol magazine as well as
Invensys Operations Management’s annual
international booklet of success stories.
82 | www.protocolmag.co.za
Delegates whose presentations are
accepted for X-CHANGE automatically
qualify to attend the conference free of
charge!
(If you are interested in submitting a
presentation, please see the booking
information below.)
Expo
System integrators as well as hardware and
software partners use this unique venue to
showcase their wares and achievements. They
do so because nowhere else is there such
an opportunity to talk to a more qualifi ed
audience eager to see what they have to offer.
(Should you wish to exhibit your solutions,
please see the booking information below.)
Hands-on training
At X-CHANGE 2013 you can look forward
to practical hands-on training sessions
where you get to test-drive the products for
yourself. These practical sessions will allow
you to evaluate how and where they may
best be applied in your environment.
Spouse programme
Such conferences are always better
when shared with your partner – who
may, however, not share your enthusiasm
regarding the benefi ts of advanced
technology. That’s why a rich programme of
entertainment has been planned for your
partner ranging from sporting activities to
sightseeing and game-spotting (depending
on the venue) among many other events.
On-line bookings
Visit www.x-change.co.za if you want to do
any of the following:
• Book your attendance at X-CHANGE
2013
• Book a stand at the Expo
• Enter the Invensys Operations
Management Open and have a chance of
attending the conference free of charge
by doing a presentation and providing
prescribed material for us to write a
success story of the implementation
of Invensys solutions in an interesting
application
Ask anyone who has ever attended
X-CHANGE in the last 20 years – you
won’t be disappointed – and neither were
they!
March/April 2013 | 83
Services
and Support
84 | www.protocolmag.co.za
Invensys Sentinel ServicesIn a Nutshell ...
Invensys offers advanced remote services
technology that enhances our ability to
deliver higher availability and reliability of
plant assets to your company.
Key benefi ts
• Increased uptime
• Frees you to focus on looking after
production rather than control systems
Key features
• 24/7/365 remote monitoring and
notifi cation of issues
• Detect and rectify issues or problems
before they become mission-affecting
• Provide better management of system
resources to improve asset performance
• Streamline diagnosis process
• Fast and systematic event resolution
eliminates trial and error and cuts costs
• Clear and regular reports provide insight
into possible improvements
Who’s supervising the supervisors?
You trust your Invensys Wonderware
Industrial IT solutions to supervise your
wealth-creating processes but who’s
supervising them? Let Invensys Sentinel
Services (ISS) be your SCADA’s SCADA
by remotely and constantly monitoring
and reporting 24/7 on the KPIs of your
Wonderware-based systems so that
potential problems can be nipped in the
bud. This will give you the peace of mind
you need to focus on improving your
company’s bottom line rather than looking
after systems.
Using technology to provide world-class support
Peak performance in our operating plants is a
continuous process that is being threatened
on a daily basis. As skills scarcity increases,
most production technicians are stretched
to the limit with their daily tasks. Little time is
left to maintain the running software systems
and very few can fi nd the time to develop and
maintain specialist knowledge to diagnose
faults on these systems.
As a result, Invensys offers ISS whose job is
to monitor the performance of your Invensys
Wonderware assets — continuously.
We achieve this by installing special “agent
software” on each Wonderware server
located at your sites. These agents monitor
the system on a 24x7 basis to ensure that
critical resources are performing within best
practice norms.
If an unacceptable threshold is reached, an
alarm is raised and Invensys engineers are
alerted before an issue develops. Remote
connectivity is also designed to ensure
that, if there is a problem, Invensys experts
can work with you to make appropriate
adjustments to correct the issue and return
your system to normal operation quickly and
easily.
The process
Our event management system monitors
anomalies or events that occur in the
Wonderware customer environment and
focuses on detecting issues and generating
meaningful notifi cations. These notifi cations
are reported to the Invensys Command
Centre which offers a single point of contact
for customer incidents and requests.
Reporting
A key aspect of Invensys Sentinel Services is
feedback to you. As a result, we ensure that
we provide monthly system health status
reports which include:
• Overall health status for the month
• Critical, major, medium and minor system
issues and errors for that month
• Changes or corrections made to fi x
errors that occurred in the Wonderware
environment
March/April 2013 | 85
• Proposals for Wonderware system
modifications to ensure that the system
conforms to best practice standards
Monitored events
Monitoring includes examining the KPIs
of the Wonderware System Platform and
Historian, hardware performance, event logs,
Wonderware machines (where applicable)
among others. There is also a monthly audit
of OS, Windows and Wonderware version
control, Wonderware licence status, IP
configuration and more.
Optional value-added services
• Anti-virus reporting
• Wonderware and Microsoft patch
management
• Operating system platform support
Contact us
For more information please contact:
Zaine Domingo, ISS Product Manager —
Invensys Operations Management
T +27 (0)11 607 8191 | 0800 INVENSYS |
Invensys Sentinel Services
86 | www.protocolmag.co.za
Customer FIRSTIn a nutshell ...
Comprehensive Services
Customer FIRST is not just technical
support, it’s a comprehensive
programme to help you manage your
systems and protect your investments.
Real Value
Customer FIRST members enjoy the
many benefits of a closer collaborative
relationship with Invensys.
• Responsive services
• Depth of expertise
• Proactive planning
• Continuous performance monitoring
• Emergency contingency provisioning
• Deep discounts on hardware
• Software and services
These important elements make the
Customer FIRST membership an
essential part of your business success.
Maximise asset performance
Downtime costs businesses millions of Rand
- Customer FIRST support gives you options
to maximise productivity by keeping your
operations running smoothly.
Outages, both planned and unplanned,
are costly; businesses increasingly need to
employ effective pre-emptive strategies
to reduce risks and employ efficient and
effective resourcing strategies to ensure that
non-productive time is kept to a minimum.
Customer FIRST is not just technical support,
it’s a comprehensive programme to help
you manage your systems and maximise the
performance of your assets.
Downtime hurts - Customer FIRST can help
Even the most reliable equipment requires
downtime, perhaps for routine maintenance,
preventative maintenance, upgrades or
replacement. You need to ensure that
downtime is kept to a minimum and to
ensure that there is minimal production loss
as a result.
• Customer FIRST provides you with
access to great hardware maintenance,
software maintenance and comprehensive
lifecycle management services to help
you optimise your planned downtime and
minimise unplanned downtime events.
Recovery time is critical and any delays
in acquiring either replacement parts, or
the expertise required to quickly resolve
problems, can have a significant financial
impact on your business.
• Customer FIRST provides you with timely
access to critical spare parts with the
ability to manage spares more easily and
ensure the reliability of your systems.
What’s more, extended downtime presents
other risks to your business such as failing
to meet contractual obligations to your
customers and the loss of business that
may ensue.
• Customer FIRST also gives you access
to Invensys technical resources to
help you ensure that your system is
back to capacity in as short a time as
possible. Our world-class global service
organisation is available locally, so the
help you need is never far away.
Asset performance is not just about
maximising availability though; you need
to ensure that your assets are working to
their maximum potential. You also need
to minimise the risk to your business of
missed schedules, poor quality or regulatory
violations, with the business consequences
that may follow.
Customer FIRST gives you proactive remote
health monitoring services to spot warning
signs before problems occur and advanced
consulting services to tune your systems to
maximum performance.
Customer first – our mission: your success
Customer FIRST membership gives you
access to award-winning technical support,
hardware and software maintenance
services, lifecycle management and remote
Services, training and consulting services
and much more. The programme provides
you with comprehensive services and flexible
options to choose exactly the right kind of
programme to suit your business needs and
help you to maximise asset performance.
Contact information
Support Telephone Number:
0861-WONDER (0861-966337) or
0800-INVENSYS (Toll Free)
E-mail: [email protected] or
March/April 2013 | 87
2013 Training Schedule(Johannesburg)
NOTE:
The dates shown apply to training
at our offi ces in Bedfordview,
Johannesburg. Regional training is
presented on demand. A minimum of
six delegates is required to arrange
a course.
Regional training venues:
Durban: Khaya Lembali,
Morningside.
Cape Town: Durbanville Conference
Centre.
Port Elizabeth: Pickering Park
Conference Centre, Newton Park.
i Did you know that your bottom line is directly proportional to the effectiveness of your workforce?
2013 Training Schedule
As the owner of some of the world’s
most popular, advanced and versatile
industrial automation, information and
MES software solutions, you’ll want to
get the most from your investment and
that includes getting the best training
in the business. We routinely train about
600 professionals like you every year not
only on how to use our solutions but how
to turn our product features into real
business benefits.
InTouch Part 1 Fundamentals (includes New Graphics)
• 27 – 31 May
• 1 – 5 July
• 29 July – 2 August
InTouch Part 2 Advanced (includes New Graphics)
• 3 –6 June
• 8 – 11 July
System Platform – Application Server (includes new graphics)
• 11 – 15 March
• 6 – 10 May
• 24 – 28 June
• 22 – 26 July
Historian (includes Historian Client)
• 13 – 16 May
• 18 – 21 June
• 19 – 22 August
InBatch
• 4 – 8 February
Bundled courses
In addition to the above, we offer the
following bundled courses at reduced rates:
For maintenance and engineering personnel:
• InTouch only (includes InTouch
Fundamentals and InTouch Advanced)
• InTouch and Historian (includes InTouch
Fundamentals, InTouch Advanced and
Historian)
• System Platform – Application Server
(includes InTouch Fundamentals, InTouch
Advanced, Historian, System Platform and
Application Server)
For system integrators:
• System Platform – Application Server
(includes InTouch Fundamentals, InTouch
Advanced, Historian, System Platform and
Application Server)
For non-technical personnel (operators, managers, supervisors):
• Historian (includes ActiveFactory basics
for non-technical staff)
For all your training requirements, contact
Emmi du Preez at
[email protected] or call
Emmi on 011 607 8286.
88 | www.protocolmag.co.za
Use Protocol Magazine to generate business opportunitiesProtocol magazine continues to be well
received on a bi-monthly basis by 6500
industry professionals like you, at every
level of the country’s leading mining
and manufacturing companies. You can
leverage this highly-qualified readership
to be heard.
How do you promote yourself right now?
Some of the things you might be doing
could include inserting opinion pieces,
adverts, editorials and other material
into South Africa’s leading manufacturing
and mining magazines. A good choice
since these are excellent and professional
publications that land on decision-makers’
desks every month.
What Protocol offers is all the advantages
of a professional magazine with a large
circulation but the cherry on the cake is
that all the readers of Protocol have one
thing in common – Wonderware solutions
in the areas of SCADA, MES, EMI, BPM and
enterprise integration – in fact, anything to
do with industrial and corporate production
IT. Everything in Protocol is aimed at helping
end users get more from their Wonderware
investment and trigger them to look at new
possibilities. Nobody wants to reinvent a
costly development or investigation wheel
and what you have to offer will go a long way
to stopping that happening.
Let’s think for a minute about your perfect
promotion vehicle and what it should do for
you:
• It must convey your message in a
professional manner to a large, targeted
and qualified audience
• It must generate incremental business (if
you’re a solution supplier) or recognition
(if you’re an end-user)
• It must generate market awareness of
your capabilities
• It must do all that at a reasonable cost
Protocol magazine meets all these criteria.
If you’re an end-user, your stakeholders are
most interested to know how well you’re
looking after their interests by lowering costs
and improving efficiency. Your colleagues
in the industry are keen to see how you’ve
implemented Wonderware solutions so that
they can evaluate if these will have the same
benefits in their environments.
If you’re a system integrator, end-users
want to know what you’ve done so that they
can consider you as a solution supplier for
their next project.
If you’re a hardware or software vendor,
end-users and system integrators want to
know about how well your offerings work
in the Wonderware environment and how
they can help them do a better and more
cost-effective job.
What medium will work best for you?
Success stories:
They won’t cost you a cent and you don’t
have to write them. Simply send an e-mail
to your account manager stating that you
have the makings of a good story and why
you think it is so. You will then be sent a
Guideline and a Permission to Publish form
to complete and return.
The Guideline is in the form of prompts to
which you supply the answers to the best of
your ability. This, together with the graphical
information required, will be used to write
the article which will be sent back to you for
editing, approval, etc.
The Permission to Publish form must be
signed by the end-user of the installation
and system integrator / solution vendor
(if applicable) before work on the article is
started. This ensures that all the work that
goes into compiling the story will not be
wasted.
You are free to use the completed success
story in any marketing sense you wish and
you have hundreds of examples on our
web site and in past issues of A2ware and
FutureLinx.
Opinion Pieces:
Once again, there’s no cost involved and
you don’t have to worry about probably
not having majored in English. Decide on a
central theme and the idea(s) you want to
put across, then jot down all the reinforcing
arguments you can think of (as well as
references if applicable). Also include any
supporting graphics you feel will better
illustrate the point.
Send your draft article to your account manager
and, if necessary, we’ll make the necessary edits
before returning it to you for approval.
Comments to the editor, Q&As, Product and/or service information:
Send your submissions to Denis your
account manager and they (as well as the
March/April 2013 | 89
Use Protocol Magazine to generate business opportunities
i Did you know that if you don’t talk to anyone, they’re not likely to talk to you or send orders?
answers) will be published in the next issue
(if interesting and relevant).
Material formats
Text – In Microsoft Word format
Graphics – In PowerPoint, Bitmap or JPEG
format (the last two in the highest possible
resolution you have)
Advertising:
For all your advertising requirements –
including the drafting of effective adverts
from scratch – contact Heather Simpkins at
The Marketing Suite.
So what are we really saying?
As an end-user or supplier of Invensys
Wonderware and associated solutions, you
form part of the world’s largest ecosystem
of professionals in the fi elds of industrial
automation and the delivery of actionable
intelligence from the shop fl oor to the top
fl oor.
That makes you pretty special.
That makes what you have to say signifi cant
and important.
In other words, what you have to say matters
and we have made it as easy as possible for
you to say it!
You will be talking to people with the same
reality as you and who have the same
problems and concerns.
So, what we’re really saying is, use Protocol
magazine to say what you believe needs
to be said.
90 | www.protocolmag.co.za
On the lighter sideOnly in Africa... Here’s some more brain
itching powder guaranteed to make your eyes water:
• I think I might be getting over my
insomnia. The other day my foot fell
asleep.
• Absence of proof is not proof of absence.
• Reality is nothing but a collective hunch.
• I can win an argument on any topic,
against any opponent. People know this,
and steer clear of me at parties. Often, as
a sign of their great respect, they don’t
even invite me.
• I’m at the age where food has taken the
place of sex in my life. In fact, I’ve just had
a mirror put over my kitchen table.
• The will to be stupid is a very powerful
force, but there are always alternatives.
• Expediting is doing at the office what,
if your wife does it at home, you call
nagging.
• If a cluttered desk is the sign of a cluttered
mind, what is the significance of an empty
desk?
• When dealing with the insane, the best
method is to pretend to be sane.
• I’ll be more enthusiastic about
encouraging thinking outside the box
when there’s evidence of any thinking
going on inside it.
• A man’s respect for law and order exists in
precise relationship to the size of his pay
check.
• Girl who do back spring on bedspring
have offspring next spring.
• Every 4 seconds a woman has a baby. We
must find this woman and stop her.
• Teamwork is essential; it gives the enemy
someone else to shoot at.
• Wisdom comes with age. Death comes
with age. Therefore, wisdom is dangerous.
• I’ve got about as much self control as two
rabbits on a first date.
• My wife ran off with my best friend last
week. I miss him!
• We are all time travellers moving at the
speed of exactly 60 minutes per hour.
• When in doubt, poke it with a stick.
• Okay, brain. You don’t like me and I don’t
like you, but let’s get through this thing
and then I can continue killing you with
beer.
• The children of Israel wandered around
the desert for 40 years. Even in biblical
times, men wouldn’t ask for directions.
• No man is an island, but some of us have
pretty long peninsulas.
• Give a person a fish and you feed him for
a day, teach a person to use the Internet
and they won’t bother you for weeks.
• So many stupid people and so few
asteroids.
• The roundest knight at King Arthur’s table
was Sir Cumference.
• I know Karate! ...and several other
Japanese words.
• Bulimia: twice the taste, none of the
calories.
• What’s all the fuss about same-sex
marriages ? I’ve been married for years
and I keep having the same sex.
• A true friend stabs you in the front.
March/April 2013 | 91
On the lighter side
Only in Africa...• Always guard your rear while you’re in the
hospital...You’re in enema territory.
• The family that sticks together should
bathe more often.
• If I was a ghost on “Ghost Whisperer” the
first thing I would ask Jennifer Love Hewitt
is “are those real?”
• Marriage certificate is just another word
for a work permit.
• Keep the dream alive: Hit the snooze
button.
• Liberty without learning is always in peril;
learning without liberty is always in vain.
• If there is anything the nonconformist
hates worse than a conformist, it’s another
nonconformist who doesn’t conform to
the prevailing standard of nonconformity.
• I’m sick of following my dreams. I’m just
going to ask them where they’re going
and hook up with them later.
• The greatest mystery is not that we
have been flung at random between the
profusion of matter and of the stars, but
that within this prison we can draw from
ourselves images powerful enough to
deny our nothingness.
• That is the saving grace of humour, if you
fail no one is laughing at you.
• Disbelief in magic can force a poor
soul into believing in government and
business.
• It takes a big man to cry, but it takes a
bigger man to laugh at that man.
• My grandmother is over eighty and still
doesn’t need glasses. She drinks right out
of the bottle.
• Contrary to general belief, I do not
believe that friends are necessarily the
people you like best, they are merely the
people who got there first.
• Programming today is a race between
software engineers striving to build bigger
and better idiot-proof programmes, and
the universe trying to produce bigger
and better idiots. So far, the universe is
winning.
• What’s another word for Thesaurus?
• What do you have when you have
two little balls in your hand? A man’s
undivided attention.
• I do not have a psychiatrist and I do not
want one, for the simple reason that if he
listened to me long enough, he might
become disturbed.
• As I grow older, I regret to say that a
detestable habit of thinking seems to be
getting hold of me.
• Never knock on Death’s door: ring the bell
and run away! Death really hates that!
• What we call ‘progress’ is the exchange of
one nuisance for another nuisance.
• When I am abroad, I always make it a rule
never to criticise or attack the government
of my own country. The country I’m
visiting usually does a better job than I
ever could.
92 | www.protocolmag.co.za
Protocol Crossword #59
When you’ve completed the crossword, the letters in the coloured
boxes state that which you must be alert to if you are to have situation
awareness.
Note: This magazine contains the answers to a number of the clues.
E-mail your answer to: [email protected]. The sender of the
first correct answer received will get a hamper of Invensys Wonderware
goodies.
Clues across: 1. That which keeps us in control (9,9) (follow the arrow
around the corner)
9. Proper ________ _______________ helps operators
cope and trust the control system (5,10) (follow the
arrow around the corner)
13. Delete (5)
14. Square, flat-bottom boats (5)
16. A single article (4)
17. How well something like operations are doing (11)
20. Sodium symbol (2)
21. Thanks
23. It’s all around us (3)
24. Charged particle (3)
25. The king of HMIs (7)
28. Latest (6)
30. Was consumed (5)
32. We’re all doing it (5)
34. Software available from SimSci-Esscor (6)
38. Tiny (3)
39. Denotes maiden name (3)
40. A thin plate, sheet, or layer (6)
41. Backbone (5)
44. Hovercraft cushions (6)
45. Cut (5)
46. He ______ out a meagre living (4)
47. Verdi opera (4)
48. American girls (4)
50. Iron oxide (4)
52. Reorder Lead Time (3)
54 Roman six (2)
56. Not applicable (2)
57. Nerd (4)
59. Toy (4)
61. Input/Output (2)
62. Hopping amphibians (5)
64. Cape Town registration (2)
66. Human-level process control ArchestrA ___________
(8)
69. This issue of Protocol is about this factor (5)
70. Over and above (5)
71. SA six-wheeled armoured vehicle (5)
73. True North (2)
74. Underlying technology of all Wonderware products
(9)
75. Notion (4)
Clues down: 1. Invensys solution for looking after your Wonderware
assets 24/7 (8,8)
2. Infra-red (2)
3. Faucet (3)
4. Utilise (3)
5. ___ Lingus (Irish airline) (3)
6. Standards organisation (3)
7. Edible pods of Asian plant also known as “ladies’
fingers” (4)
8. The chosen one (7)
10. Prevarication (3)
11. Preposition (2)
12. Second most populous city in Nevada (4)
15. Tin symbol (2)
18. Criminal habits? (4,5)
19. One of the things that separates humans from
computers (10)
22. Indefinite article (2)
24. Trip agenda (9)
26. Swarming (7)
27. Hectare (2)
29. Specific Gravity (2)
31. Copy siblings (4)
33. Neon symbol (2)
35. Tibetan ox (3)
36. Title (3)
37. Mobile workforce solution from Wonderware (10)
42. Identical pod dwellers (4)
43. Donkey’s name (3)
49. Indefinite article (2)
50. Holiday place (6)
51. United Kingdom (2)
53. Find (6)
55. Jupiter moon (2)
58. Event-Driven Language (3)
60. Circular openings at the apex of domes (5)
63. Denotes that things are fine (2)
65. Girl’s name (4)
66. World Technologies Association (3)
67. John ___ (was he the senior investigating officer at
the Lockerbie air disaster or what?) (3)
68. Conflict (3)
69. The man (2)
72. Thanks (2)
Answer to Protocol crossword #58:
Question: What is the name of the
ArchestrA-based human-level process
enabler?
Answer: WORKFLOW
March/April 2013 | 3
Achieving competitive and efficient process plant operation is an increasingly tough challenge in today’s fast moving business environment.
Measurement Under Control
Selecting the most reliable and longest life measurement instrumentation is more important than ever. Invensys Foxboro offers time proven innovative measurement solutions that make this possible, leading the way with longer life pH, redox and conductivity measurement sensors and instrumentation.
View our full range of measurement tools and instrumentation at:
www.invensys.co.za or call 0800 INVENSYS for more information
4 | www.protocolmag.co.za
When market tastes change.You’ll be ready.
Monday Tuesday Wednesday
Thursday Friday Saturday
Flexibly manage change, while maintaining product quality, consistency and safety with Wonderware MES software. For more information, visit wonderware.com/FlexibleMES and get a free whitepaper called “Be ready for changing tastes, a new approach to plant software”.
© Copyright 2012. All rights reserved. Invensys, the Invensys logo, Avantis, Eurotherm, Foxboro, IMServ, InFusion, Skelta, SimSci-Esscor, Triconex and Wonderware are trademarks of Invensys plc, its subsidiaries or affiliates. All other brands and product names may be trademarks of their respective owners.
INV-350 MES_Cola-WW-A4.indd 1 9/11/12 1:02 PM
When market tastes change.You’ll be ready.
Monday Tuesday Wednesday
Thursday Friday Saturday
Flexibly manage change, while maintaining product quality, consistency and safety with Wonderware MES software. For more information, visit wonderware.com/FlexibleMES and get a free whitepaper called “Be ready for changing tastes, a new approach to plant software”.
© Copyright 2012. All rights reserved. Invensys, the Invensys logo, Avantis, Eurotherm, Foxboro, IMServ, InFusion, Skelta, SimSci-Esscor, Triconex and Wonderware are trademarks of Invensys plc, its subsidiaries or affiliates. All other brands and product names may be trademarks of their respective owners.
INV-350 MES_Cola-WW-A4.indd 1 9/11/12 1:02 PM
0800 INVENSYS | [email protected] | iom.invensys.co.za
Flexibly manage change, while maintaining product quality, consistency and safety withWonderware MES software. For more information, visit wonderware.com/FlexibleMES and get a free whitepaper called “Be ready for changing tastes, a new approach to plant software”.