"I have a passion for instrument asset management," began Charles Piper, an Invensys Fellow and development program manager for Invensys Operations Management. "Asset management, and particularly instrument asset management, touches everyone in the plant and also touches all the systems in the plant," Piper said in a presentation to attendees of the company's OpsManage'11 conference this week in Nashville, Tenn.
ArchestrA System Platform 2012 and the Foxboro Control Software, Piper said, make it straightforward to maximize profit from maintenance. He noted that asset management has many drivers, including the economic and social costs incurred if an accident occurs due to lack of maintenance.
Piper noted that predictive asset management can maximize and extend asset useful life, maximize production rates and product quality, while improving asset efficiency, uptime and reliability. It can extend and improve the effectiveness of maintenance and operations staff and the efficiency of activity and work scheduling.
"You can minimize downtime, reduce accidents and the resultant employee injuries," Piper said. "Environmental damage can be reduced, which minimizes carbon footprint and emissions. Equipment damage can be avoided, while energy, water, fuel and even inventory costs can be minimized."
Piper described the suite of Invensys Operations Management lifecycle management tools for instrument asset management and the predictive strategies that can extend instrument life. "Using asset predictive management tools," he said, "you can operate your plant better and more efficiently."
The key component to the Invensys suite of predictive asset management tools is the ArchestrA System Platform, the glue that integrates all of the Invensys visualization and management components, such as ArchestrA Workflow and Wonderware InTouch. In addition, there are the key benefits of Invensys mobility tools (IntelaTrac) and ERP integration tools from Avantis. There also are API (application process interfaces) and EAM (enterprise asset management) connectors.
"It is all about managing profitability," Piper said. "Using the components of the InFusion Enterprise Control System, Avantis, Wonderware InTouch, ArchestrA System Platform and ArchestrA Workflow, the time necessary to do instrument asset management is significantly reduced. From diagnostic information from the smart instrument itself to the scheduling of work orders, the process can be made seamless and automatic."