(233a) Wireless Retrofits in Process Industries for Enhanced Plant Asset Management, Condition Monitoring and Maintenance

Unexpected down time in a process plants can result in huge profit and productivity losses. Conversely, replacing well-functioning equipment based on potential failure schedules equally costs plants unnecessary expenditures. With a diminishing workforce, less skilled technical resources, and increases in plant assets and loops per technician, process plants need to automate to overcome the vacuum left by an aging workforce. Wirelessly receiving accurate and consistent real-time data that monitors various plant parameters ensures that valuable data are still reaching plant asset management systems efficiently and consistently.

Many think that adopting wireless means replacing existing instrumentation with new devices, new networks, and new software, however a simpler, less costly, and low risk approach to enhancing asset performance and maintenance is to retrofit existing wired instrumentation with wireless adapters. The emerging standards, such as Wireless HART and ISA100, will enable a wide proliferation of wireless sensors and controls that will cost-effectively measure a breadth of points that are currently not being monitored at this time.

This presentation will provide an overview of the wireless standards landscape and outline how plant asset management systems, including condition based maintenance, can use information

from retrofitted wireless instruments to reduce plant-wide maintenance costs, overcome labor quality and shortage issues, improve safety, and prevent plant down time. Suggested best practices will be described for evaluating and deploying wireless systems in the plant.