Why are the requirements of an owner-operator unique?
By Joe Morray
Owners of process manufacturing plants are eager to make the next step into the digital age, and they are turning to Intergraph and other technology suppliers for help. These suppliers are learning how to help the owners by working with a new industry organization called the Owner-Operator Forum. It was founded by powerhouse companies Air Products, BASF, Dow Chemical, DuPont, and Merck, who realized they had similar needs and challenges for technical information systems to support the on-going operations of a plant. Acknowledging this need for similar solutions, Dow Corning, Millennium Chemicals, and Union Carbide, have joined along with top engineering firms Jacobs Engineering, Bechtel, Kvaerner, and Lockwood Greene and more than a dozen software suppliers.
What’s driving owners is a collective need to advance the industry and individual companies to be competitive, cut maintenance and operating costs, and increase shareholder value. To date, much of the software for plant applications has centered on meeting the needs of engineering and not the on-going operations. To speed up the development of new tools, Forum members are defining new relationships with engineering companies and developing a set of requirements that guide software and equipment suppliers.
What makes the owner-operator unique? Without question, owners confront a level of complexity and integration far beyond that required to design and construct a plant. Through working as program manager for the Owner-Operator Forum, Trinity has identified three types of integrations that an owner must address to be successful in managing information about a plant throughout the lifecycle.
First is integration of information -- the data about a plant spans commercial, technical, purchasing, maintenance, and simulation, to name just a few. Today, this information lives and is reused in many different information systems, despite the fact that the information refers to the same components, systems, and units in the plant. The ability to look at all data about any particular plant component through a single system is still considered a bit of a dream, but it is what an owner needs.
How can integration of information happen? Technologically, one answer is standard data models that enable different systems to write information to a common facilities database. Owners see the facility database as an important and valuable asset. To make the facility database real, system vendors are being challenged to uncouple data from the applications so owners can integrate this information across all IT applications. For process facilities owners, the standard data model is critical, and they are driving the incorporation of global standards efforts into commercial products.
The second is integration of time. For a typical plant, the span of operations may be 30 years or more, and the information moves, and is frequently modified by, operations, maintenance, and retrofit projects. The same information is used by different personnel and for different activities, as this information “lives” with the physical asset.
This need for on-going use presents three particular requirements. First, it must be easy to find and retrieve. The value of data is directly proportional to the number of times it gets used. Secondly, the data must be accessed and displayed in a form that is responsive to the particular job and user. An engineer may have completely different requirements than a plant manager, and the system must accommodate these differences if it is to be embraced by end users. Thirdly, information needs to flow from one major phase of a plant life to another. Many companies find that the turnover of project information to operations at the end of a project is very costly. Worse, the turnover process can add weeks, and sometimes months, to the cycle time for commencing manufacturing. Information systems and work processes need to allow this information to “flow” on a continual basis -- not in fits and starts. There should be no sudden handoffs – just an evolving data set that serves each phase of the plant.
The third requirement is integration of organizations. A typical plant may have hundreds of companies working with the plant on related activities. The owner in the year 2000 needs to use the company’s information systems to unify the work of all organizations, achieving better communication, control, and build the integrity of the facility and corporate Information Asset. Satisfying these goals means that multiple companies must be able to use the system to perform their functions, whether simple or complex.
Joe Morray is President of Trinity Technologies Corporation, a process industries consulting firm which helps owner-operators and EPCs succeed in the use of information systems. Joe and Trinity serve as program managers for the Owner-Operator Forum.
