Emerson Exchange 365

Activity

The Age Old Question-Trucks or Conveyors?

Jim Cahill

Emerson’s Douglas Morris, on the metals & mining and alternative energy industry teams, explores trade offs of trucks and conveyors in mining operations. This past week Vale SA from Brazil made an interesting announcement when they said they were investing...
- 8 Apr 2013
Update and History of Field Device Integration (FDI) Effort

Jim Cahill

Standards are an essential part of technology advancement. They provide a way for users to choose from multiple suppliers, and suppliers to create solutions with multiple suppliers’ technologies. In areas where competing standards emerge, it’s great when...
- 15 Mar 2013
Integrating Asset Management Fields to IO Bubbles

Jim Cahill

Emerson’s Anand Iyer continues his series on Cloud I/O with a look from an asset management perspective. We have already perceived some interaction with AMS systems.The availability of communication paths and higher bandwidth in select paths will enable...
- 14 Mar 2013
Remote Expertise for Essential Asset Management

Jim Cahill

In the February 2013 edition of Chemical Industry Digest, University of Texas Separations Research Program (SRP)‘s Robert Montgomery and Emerson’s Pete Sharpe and Nikki Bishop authored, Manage Essential Assets with Automated Monitoring. In prior posts...
- 7 Mar 2013
Remote, Automated Plant Asset Monitoring

Jim Cahill

Wireless technologies have established their value in process automation. In a MaintWorld magazine article, Remote, Automated Monitoring Keeps a Watchful Eye on Essential Assets 24/7 (pp. 14-16), Emerson’s Nikki Bishop and Aaron Crews describe how these...
- 9 Jan 2013
Cooling Tower Wireless Condition Monitoring Webinar

Jim Cahill

In a recent Automation World column, The Future is Attainable with Today’s Automation, Emerson Process Management’s former president, John Berra, noted: The number one issue in process plants is the disruptive cost of an unplanned shutdown. And the number...
- 7 Dec 2012
Essential Asset Monitoring – Pump Demonstration

Jim Cahill

Emerson’s Tim Olsen demonstrates wireless vibration monitoring for essential assets--a pump and associated motor--in this 5:18 YouTube video, Essential Asset Monitoring – Pump Demonstration Read the full text.
- 29 Nov 2012
Remote Monitoring of Essential Equipment

Jim Cahill

We’ve highlighted the importance of monitoring essential plant assets in several earlier posts. In an upcoming ChemInnovations 2012 presentation, Remote Monitoring of Essential Equipment—An Expert is Always On-Line, Emerson’s Pete Sharpe provides examples...
- 30 Oct 2012
How We Work-Human Centered Design for the Project

Jim Cahill

Emerson’s Tom Wallace completes his series of posts on the impacts of a human-centered design (HCD) approach. In today’s guest post, he explores its impact on automation projects. Field devices cost is a small part of overall project cost, however they...
- 24 Oct 2012
Device Revisions Management Best Practices-Is DD the Problem or the Solution?

Jim Cahill

Emerson’s Jonas Berge posed this question, which he addressed in his Emerson Exchange presentation with the same name. His abstract: Keeping the system up to date with new types and versions of 4-20 mA/HART, WirelessHART, FOUNDATION fieldbus, and PROFIBUS...
- 18 Oct 2012
ISA Automation Week-Monitoring Essential Assets

Jim Cahill

ISA Automation Week is happening this week in Orlando, Florida. If you’re there, you may want to see Emerson’s Nikki Bishop‘s presentation, Essential Asset Monitoring: The Gateway to Improved Process Reliability. She’ll be presenting on Wednesday at 3...
- 24 Sep 2012
American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers Q and A and Technology Forum

Jim Cahill

The American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers (formerly NPRA) are holding a Q&A and Technology Forum October 1-3, in Salt Lake City, Utah. Emerson’s Tim Olsen, whom you may recall from earlier refinery-related posts, shared with me that several Emerson...
- 20 Sep 2012
Human Centered Design for the Operating Plant-Part 2

Jim Cahill

In our continuing series on why and how technologies developed with a human centered design (HCD) approach, Emerson’s Tom Wallace looks more closely at guided configuration and setup as well as leveraging productivity across different device types and...
- 6 Sep 2012
How We Work-Human Centered Design for the Operating Plant

Jim Cahill

Emerson’s Tom Wallace continues his series on the impact of human centered design on the technologies used by automation professionals. In previous blog posts, I shared some of the science behind Human Centered Design (HCD). In this and the next couple...
- 22 Aug 2012
Cooling Tower Condition Monitoring Webinar

Jim Cahill

I heard from Emerson’s Nick Taylor about a webinar on cooling tower condition monitoring taking place tomorrow, August 16 at 9am GMT and repeated at 13:30GMT / 9:30 EDT. Here’s a brief description: Detecting changes in equipment condition like gearbox...
- 15 Aug 2012
Reducing Time-Consuming Calibration Activities

Jim Cahill

I caught up with Emerson’s Chris Amstutz, whom you may recall from earlier Life Sciences-related posts. Chris leads a team of Life Sciences industry consultants. He shared how calibration is a time-consuming and documentation intensive activity in highly...
- 7 Aug 2012
Business Case for Essential Asset Monitoring

Jim Cahill

“According to Solomon Associates, a world-class performer is a company whose maintenance costs are below 1.4 percent plant replacement value, with mechanical availability greater than 96.7 percent.” Are your maintenance costs below this 1.4% threshold...
- 27 Jun 2012
Online Wireless Field Network Planning Tool

Jim Cahill

If you have wireless field devices in your plant, you may be already familiar with the planning tool, AMS Wireless SNAP-ON application. It helps you plan your IEC 62591 WirelessHART network and compare the plan to best design practices. And once the network...
- 26 Jun 2012
Vibration Monitoring Improves Wind Turbine Availability

Jim Cahill

Rotating machinery including wind turbines are subject to wear and tear over time. Emerson’s Douglas Morris, a member of the alternative energy team, shares how vibration-monitoring equipment can help avoid unplanned downtime and costly maintenance. The...
- 25 May 2012
Simplifying Human Interfaces via Dashboards

Jim Cahill

I had a sneak peak at an upcoming article on human interface design by Emerson’s Tom Wallace. You may recall Tom from some of our earlier smart device and digital communications protocol posts. In the article, Tom notes the unrelenting drive to simplify...
- 9 May 2012
Emerson’s Asset Management Program Shines at Braskem

Cory Spanier

Braskem, a leading Brazilian petrochemical company, wanted to move away from costly reactive and preventive maintenance and employ a program of predictive maintenance. Braskem leveraged predictive diagnostic information from their smart assets throughout the plant to lower costs and boost productivity. Braskem implemented Emerson’s AMS Suite and CSI Technologies to help them manage and analyze their predictive diagnostics…
- 17 Feb 2012
Spotting Bearing Failure in Time before Complete Fan Failure

Jim Cahill

In a prior post, The Peaks Provide the Early Warning in Machinery Protection, I highlighted how using high-speed, PeakVue digital sampling of machinery vibration could help spot mechanical defects long before traditional vibration monitors could. I received...
- 16 Feb 2012
The Mining and Metals Industry is in Overdrive but is Equipment Keeping Up?

Jim Cahill

In today’s guest post, Emerson’s Amy Davidson, a member of the Asset Optimization team, describes how metals and mining producers can improve reliability by continuously monitoring the health of their production equipment. As a product manager, it’s my...
- 23 Jan 2012
Driving Reliability through Asset Management Improvements

Jim Cahill

If you’re planning to attend the 16th Annual ARC World Industry Forum in Orlando, Florida on February 6-9, make sure to see Augie DiGiovanni presentation, Improve Asset Management to Drive Reliability. Augie is the vice president for Emerson’s Asset Optimization...
- 16 Jan 2012
Configuring Foundation Fieldbus Devices via USB PC Connection

Jim Cahill

A person in the DeltaV LinkedIn group, in a thread, AMS Device Manager and Foundation Fieldbus converters, asks: I am looking for cost-effective solution for our customer. He needs calibrate FF devices in laboratory ( read data from device ) and he already...
- 12 Dec 2011