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After speeches from Jim Nyquist, David Farr, Michael Dell and Rick Perry, Peter Zornio got down to brass tacks talking about iOps…integrated operations in 4D locations: Dull Dirty Dangerous and Distant. Places like the Arctic, Papua New Guinea, and so on.
The processes themselves, Zornio noted, are becoming more complicated and difficult: fracking, FLNG, Syngas (gas to liquids), Solar, steam injection, and so forth.
Then there are worker shortages, especially when you’re trying to get people to go to the 4D locations to work, or deal with very inexperienced workers in those places.
Silos exist functionally that focus on their own objectives, but there are decisions that must be made that require de-siloing. Usually this means disjointed communication and decision making, between operations, 3rd parties, engineering and corporate that are geographically dispersed. You’d like to have all these silos cooperate in decision making, but it is very hard.
So we see companies moving all those functions into what we call an iOps Center. Using collaborations tools you can tap expertise from even retirees.
The benefits: relocate, collaborate, align. This handles 4D, dissolves boundaries and gives a faster response to critical issues.
Relocation gives you reduced operating costs, concentrated expertise and improved access to talent. Collaboration gives you dissolved boundaries, faster and better decisions, physically or virtually.
Alignment gives you increased awareness of shared metrics, shared goals, and faster response to decisions and strategic planning.
Zornio gave a Formula 1 racing example, to show achieving operational excellence.Those race cars are amazingly instrumented, with roughly 300 sensors on them producing data on the car. The don’t feed the data to the driver, they feed it to their iOps center. Monitoring, collaborating, deciding in real time.
Building blocks for iOps: reliable secure high bandwidth connections. Wireless sensors and mobile worker infrastructure. Collaboration tools. Building block: Pervasive sensing. Real time data on the process and more- equipment health, safety, energy, security, environmental– remote eyes and ears.
SCADA and Automation Safety– highly flexible, scalable automation and safety systems, local and remote control coordination.
Now suites of applications: process, production and supply chain and ERP/Business systems: top to bottom integration. Actual real time metrics and accountability.
Reliability: high level of equipment diagnostics provide early warning and condition insight– Asset strategy and planning applications minimize spend, maximize
reliability.
And HSSE– constant awareness of the safety and environmental “operating envelope”
Then there is Big Data analytics, providing new insights and correlations along with early event detection.
All this starts with management who have a vision, share the vision and implement the vision. The people have to create the vision, buy into it, and own the processes–
Emerson introduces services consulting working with customers around iOps. Uses Human Centered Design to help design iOps centers for clients.
Partnering with Fisher Innovation Center in Marshalltown IA to practice remote operations.
Partnering with UT Separations Research Program Pilot Facilities at JJ Pickle Research Campus in North Austin.
Pull in Emerson remote subject matter experts.
Real problems at the Separations Research Program remotely diagnosed and solved quickly.
We are learning by doing here at our iOps center here in Round Rock.
Customer examples:
Santos in Adelaide Australia.
“A Major European Oil Company” on getting people off an oil platform and onshore to work.
It isn’t the supermajors that need this. It is the smaller oil and chemical companies that can use the Emerson consulting services.
Technical Services And Strategic Consulting For Technology Companies
