Bob Bender explains Emerson's Automation and Performance Evaluation
Emerson's evaluation "takes a wholistic look at plant performance, rather than just the controls," Bender said. "Sometimes what appears to be the problem isn't the problem after all." Emerson's assessment methodology starts with understanding the client's business objectives and then performing a plant assessment and benchmarking study. If the client wants to go forward, Emerson then does a strategy plan formulation, develops metrics, processes, resources and technology; works with operations and maintenance to implement and validate the changes, and installs a continuous improvement loop back to metrics, processes, etc. I asked Bender, Dasch and Snowden if this meant that in order to get the benefit of continuous improvement, you have to hire Emerson to babysit the process...it is well known that improvement projects have no steady state. They ramp up, and when the vendor leaves, they ramp back down again. "Absolutely not," said Tom Snowden. "In fact, we do our best to teach the operations staff how to keep the program, and the continuous improvement loop, going," Dasche said. "So, it isn't like The Man Who Came to Dinner, eh?" I asked. "No!!" Bender replied. Bender showed a slide that talked about the evaluations, and when I noticed that this slide wasn't in the handout, I asked Joyce Dasche for it. She said that she was worried that her competition would use it to Emerson's disadvantage. I can't see how. Organizational development and project management theory has been around since Peter Drucker (may he rest in peace) was a young sociologist, and before. All Emerson is doing, really, is to implement what we have all said we ought to get around to doing someday. Joyce agreed, and gave me the slide. Herewith: The Evaluation Focuses on Key Areas of Plant PerformanceUnit Performance-
Controllable parameters
Unit availability
Unit maneuverability
Heat Rate
Emissions
Startups
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Operator culture
Graphical user interface
Automated operator guidance
Alarm management
Plantwide systems integration
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Historian
Performance calculation
Information accessibility
Systems Integration
Decision support tools
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control equipment
control design
Automatic sequencing
Safety shutdown
Tag out
Third party device interface
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Combustion and emissions optimization
Intelligent Sootblowing
Advanced steam temperature
Adaptive self-tuning
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Instrumentation
Drives
Valves
Asset Management
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Spare parts inventory
Preventive maintenance
Software backups
System security
documentation control
Software levels and migration plan
troubleshooting tools
CMMS integration
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