(46b) Benefits of a Digital Operations Platform

This abstract is about the industry benefits of a digital operations platform. I will speak to the commercial and operational benefits of applying and end-to-end approach reaching from digital twin project data to digital operations and connecting to digital upkeep and day-to-day maintenance.

A platform such as this extends across:

-> first principles based digital process twin model

-> emulation of process control technology for validating control philosophy

-> digital automation twin engineering connected to the previous

-> virtual commissioning of the process and control strategies

-> operator training connected to 3D digital twin, digital process twin and digital automation twin

-> real-time optimization of chemical process and reactions based on the previous

-> machine learning and artificial intelligence for health monitoring of control assets and process equipment

Digital Operations is a single platform with seamless plug-and-play technology modules that delivers business capabilities relevant for chemical industry, without any gaps between different teams, stakeholders or hand-over situations.

Overview:

Digital operations are part of a digital thread that reaches from research and development to project design to operations and finally to electronic marketplaces.

Digital transformation in the chemical industry is complete once the digital thread that is relevant has been completed and covers the entire value chain that applies to the lifecycle of a chemical plant or fleet of plants.

Digital operations consist of receiving the deliverables of a digital design, and using that information for training, construction, commissioning, operation, and optimization of capital assets. Digital design deliverables are typically managed starting from requirements in an enterprise-level digital collaboration platform and authored in 1D, 2D and 3D tools that are accessed from the construction site before handed over to operations. Digital plant maintenance and management of change complete digital operations and digital designs. All three areas mentioned here must be connected to enterprise-level resource planning and in the end to commercial entities i.e. customers.

Benefits:

The value of digitalization and the degree in which it is adopted in plant operations, will significantly benefit all phases of the plant lifecycle, focusing on:

• Maximum levels of personnel and process safety
• Total cost of ownership, operation, maintenance, energy
• Highest yields and throughput
• Improve equipment uptime
• Skilled workforce deployment by leveraging operator training systems
• Reduce complexity and the number of manual tasks
• Single access point to all process, project, and maintenance information
• Accelerate optimization by means of model-and-data-based simulation
• Reduce project duration, complexity, and effort by eliminating custom integration
• Rapid deployment supported by virtual commissioning functionality

Main beneficiaries related to digital operations can be assumed to be the plant manager, plant engineers, plant process operators, reliability engineers, HSE, production scheduling, plant maintenance technicians, plant turnaround coordinators, 3^rd party vendor staff, on-call staff, cybersecurity manager, corporate process automation group and any commercial stake-holders.

Relevance:

The end-to-end digital operations platform described in this abstract is compatible with such programs as Manufacturing USA and Industrie 4.0 that describe digital transformation and digital enterprises in the context of industrial activities.