(249a) Preventing Plant Problems Before They Occur

The process industries are facing many challenges and are awash with data that is often wasted. The costs for raw materials, utilities and energy are rising rapidly with no end in sight. There is also global warming, shortage of technical skills, loss of knowledge from an aging workforce and other big challenges to face. To overcome these challenges, manufacturing sites must focus and invest in technologies to do more with the existing resources ? data, people, and systems. Failure to do so may impair the organization's ability to survive. The need to get more value from their existing data is now a high priority. The value of this data is well recognized because, as one BASF engineer says ?the process (data) always tells on itself?. FALCONEER Technologies smart plant solution takes this data and adds ?wisdom? or intelligence to the raw information by using engineering models (dynamic mass and energy balances) to capture the plant's process knowledge and uniquely combine with the real-time process data. This helps operators, engineers, and managers to focus on the information that's most critical to preventing problems and optimizing operations and costs, making plants smarter, safer and more profitable. A real case study from the power industry on both the benefits and barriers to this technology will be discussed. However, this case study is also relevant to many chemical, petrochemical, and other industries that own/operate their own steam plants or co-generation plants.