ELECTRONICALLY REPRINTED FROM SEPTEMBER 2012

inside process

Industrial gas producer

standardizes control
strategy for multiple plants
Using a common integrated DCS, SCADA, and asset management platform at its
hydrogen plants will help Praxair save on engineering, commissioning, and maintenance.

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Ashish Umbarkar, s the world’s larg- tain a continuous supply of prod-
George Foor est producer of Key uct to its customers, regardless of
industrial gases, concepts circumstances. And by standard-
Praxair frequently izing the design of such plants, it
n This case study provides
builds production a look at how two compa-
is able to achieve efficient, disci-
facilities at or adjacent to major nies interacted to improve plined project execution, which
customer sites to assure unin- process plant design and was exemplified in one of its
terrupted product delivery. For performance through more recent facilities.
example, the company operates sophisticated technologies Praxair’s 200 million stan-
40 hydrogen production facilities and deeper control system dard cubic feet per day hydrogen
and seven hydrogen pipeline sys- integration. Their solutions facility in Whiting, Ind., serves
tems worldwide that deliver near- may suggest ideas for to demonstrate this strategy as it
ly one billion standard cubic feet similar situations in differ- works to develop high operating
ent applications.
of hydrogen per day to refineries, efficiency and long-term reliabil-
chemical plants, food plants, and ity. In planning and constructing
other process industries that use high volumes this large-scale hydrogen production facility to
of industrial gases. serve a nearby refinery, Praxair worked for the
Satellite plants like this help Praxair main- first time with a control system manufacturer,
 inside process

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Emerson Process Management, with a priority on best practices for greater
This approach will to develop a DCS (distributed efficiency. By the end of the FEED period,
serve as a model control system) to work with its the project was well-defined and the Emerson
SCADA (supervisory control and team had all the information it needed on the
for multiple projects data acquisition) structure. The production process to build and program the
result was a DeltaV field auto- control system.
in the future, saving mation system integrated with The DCS interface in the new plant had to
money on engineering, the SCADA structure used at match the look and feel of Praxair’s graphics
Praxair’s other plants to extend standards. When these were incorporated into
instrumentation, start- process control to small pack- the DeltaV screens, the graphics were easily
aged units. recognizable by plant operators and mainte-
up, operation, and Additionally, Praxair engaged nance personnel. Integration of the AMS Suite:

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maintenance. Emerson to commission and start Intelligent Device Manager asset management
up the new production facility. software with the control system provides easy
This collaborative approach to access to the smart field devices and the diag-
system design, construction, testing, and project nostics they generate, opening the door to cost-
implementation produced a high level of execu- saving predictive maintenance.
tion efficiency. Some of this was attributed to One design development that Praxair appre-
the use of HART-enabled field devices that con- ciated was the remote instrument enclosure
tributed to an easy start-up with a well-prepared (RIE), which made it possible to construct and
operations and maintenance force ready to run assemble all control system panels in a com-
the facility efficiently and with minimal intru- pletely wired enclosure. The RIE could be
sion. This approach will serve as a model for built and tested at the factory and then shipped
multiple projects in the future, saving money on to the construction site without disassembly or
engineering, instrumentation, start-up, opera- risk of errors occurring once on the site. Build-
tion, and maintenance. ing and testing the RIE offsite and avoiding
disassembly and reassembly saved up to six
Teamwork weeks. The RIE also reduced the amount of
The companies worked together on this proj- space needed for the control function.
ect beginning with the FEED (front-end engi- By participating in the factory acceptance
neering and development) stage and continuing testing (FAT), Praxair operations personnel

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through design, documentation, testing, and became familiar with the DCS and helped train
The DCS implementation. Each project team had man- others so that by the time the system was oper-
interface in the agers who became liaison persons as the pro- ational, the staff was well prepared.
duction and control systems were developed
new plant had simultaneously. The scope of the project was Commissioning and start-up
to match the well-defined with a complete list of deliver- Additional on-site training of maintenance
ables. Emphasis on planning and construction personnel occurred during instrument commis-
look and feel of efficiency helped drive costs down on this and sioning and start-up conducted by the Emerson
Praxair’s graphics future projects. team, so those individuals had a good under-
Praxair’s process engineering group is accus- standing of the control system for which they
standards. When tomed to documenting design concepts in order would be responsible.
these were to standardize production components and con- The use of an integrated device manage-
incorporated into struction methods so that every plant is the ment platform to communicate with the field
same. For example, every plant is wired exactly instruments resulted in notable savings in
the DeltaV the same way. The Emerson team followed this device configuration. Confirming instrument
screens, the example, specifying standard control system calibration and loop integrity during com-
components and a reproducible control strategy missioning can be a time-consuming activity.
graphics so this hydrogen plant can be duplicated any- However, using the AMS technology a sin-
were easily where in the world. gle technician can query each field instrument
The FEED effort required about six months, directly from the RIE, assure that the device is
recognizable by during which time both companies worked on-line, verify that device’s functionality, and
plant operators closely to identify every control loop and every move on to another device without anyone hav-
I/O point, enabling preliminary control strat- ing to open instrument covers or look in an I/O
and maintenance egies to be developed at an early stage. Con- cabinet. In this way, the integrity of each loop

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personnel. flicting ideas were resolved in joint sessions could be verified in minutes. In addition, the
 inside process

From this centralized HYCO control room at the Whiting facility, a single operator can manage the entire plant. The control system
hardware was assembled at the factory into a single enclosure. Photos courtesy: Praxair

calibration records for every device in the plant reasonable accuracy how long an instrument or
are maintained in the AMS database for later use control valve will continue to perform satisfactori-
by technicians for troubleshooting and predictive ly before repairs or replacement will be necessary.
maintenance. In some cases, immediate action may be required
Go Online The start-up went easily with all field devic- to keep the process running, but it is often pos-
n For more information on es functioning as intended and the control system sible to delay service work until the next regular
Praxair, visit: www.praxair.com running in automatic. As a result, the plant went maintenance shutdown. By then, all the neces-
n Emerson Process Manage- into production earlier than anticipated. sary repair parts can be staged, and the technicians
ment provided the control equipped with the right tools and knowledge to
system for Whiting: www. Predictive maintenance make the necessary repair safely, efficiently, and
emersonprocess.com Predictive maintenance not only saves money, correctly.
n System integrator North- it contributes to plant reliability. The asset man-
east Controls helped with the agement application facilitates this capability by Current and future operations
design and implementation: providing access to diagnostic data generated by All of the methodology and standards devel-
www.northeastcontrols.com smart field devices and third-party package units oped and proved on the Whiting plant project are
n Find more information on integrated into the DCS. Each device’s operating now being applied elsewhere, saving time and
distributed control systems at condition as well as various performance char- providing the design and construction efficiency
www.controleng.com. Search acteristics can be obtained easily using the AMS demanded by Praxair. ce
on “DCS” for a wide range of software. This knowledge helps avoid reactive Ashish Umbarkar is an engineer for the
suggestions maintenance when some component fails unex- advanced control system HYCO team at Praxair.
n Control Engineering main- pectedly, which cannot be permitted in a high-reli- George Foor is a control system account manag-
tains a directory of control ability plant. er for Northeast Controls, Inc., and works with
system integrators at www. By tapping into the available device data, Praxair’s technology center in Tonomowoc, N.Y.
controleng.com/integrators maintenance personnel are able to predict with He participated in the FEED stage of this project.

Posted with permission from October 2012. Control Engineering, www.controleng.com CFE Media. Copyright 2012. All rights reserved.
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