Meet new Demands: Plant Modernization Audit

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Headings…
Meet new Demands: Plant Modernization Audit
Audit Process
Reliability & Maintenance
Energy Efficiency & Loss Control
Health, Safety, & Environmental (HS&E)
Process Operations Productivity
Digital Transformation
Jonas Berge
More from Jonas Berge

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I have been traveling to several countries visiting a large number of plants of various kinds and vintage conducting plant modernization audits.
I have had the opportunity to speak with the reliability, maintenance, integrity, energy, HS&E, and operations departments to assess the state of the automation in the plant and the need for additional sensors and analytics software to meet new demands on availability, efficiency, emissions, personnel safety, productivity, and maintenance cost.
So what should a plant modernization audit entail to put a plant on the right track to become a smart plant?
Because energy costs are unpredictable, water is more expensive, waste disposal is more expensive, and emissions are fined, and because skilled staff are hard to attract and retain, plants are keen to modernize to become “smart plants”.
Smart connected equipment is key to achieving a smart plant.
The plant modernization audit is about identifying the missing measurements and supporting software.
A plant modernization audit identifies equipment that need to be monitored.
The audit identifies those that cause significant costly downtime, maintenance, operational expense, energy waste and product loss, HS&E risks, and procedures which are not productive.
The audit has four parts corresponding to the plant departments:
Personnel from these departments participate in the plant modernization audit.
The audit is mostly a discussion with probing questions to explore what the plant challenges are and to discover where the plant can benefit from data-driven work practices.
Points of interest for energy efficiency & loss control may include how many steam traps are critical, which equipment are in dirty service, if fans have automatic speed optimization or not, how many critical relief valves, if utilities monitored for each plant unit and individual equipment.
Based on the outcome of the audit the gaps to achieve a smart plant with smart connected equipment can be identified

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