In today’s business climate companies in the process industries are under ever increasing pressure to be profitable. How do they optimize their production while maintaining safety? They must know their operating limits and set alarms accordingly. This presentation will discuss how process history data can be “crunched” to define actual operating envelopes for key process parameters and to characterize how interactions impact process unit controllability. The envelopes can be used to set best (normal) operating limits to maximize throughput and quality. In conjunction with alarm rationalization, new target alarm limits can be set and performance evaluated retrospectively. Process optimization opportunities can be identified such as identification of saturated valves (>90%). Attending to optimization opportunities improves operating and alarm system performance. For companies that must comply with OSHA’s Process Safety Management regulation, the actual operating envelopes can be compared to safe operating limits to look for “near-misses” and exceeded values (which are a leading indicator of process safety performance).
Speakers: Bob McCafferty,
Senior Analyst and Associate, Cayuga Partners and
Walt Beadling, Managing Partner of Cayuga Partners LLC
McCafferty is a computer scientist and control engineer specializing in the interrogation and analysis of high dimensionality databases, process modeling and optimization methods. In addition to data mining, statistical analysis, and process modeling expertise, McCafferty is skilled in the use of parallel coordinate geometry for data analysis, and with innovative geometric modeling and sequential optimization techniques. He holds B.S. and M.S. degrees in Mechanical Engineering and a Master of Computer Science (MSC) degree from the University of Virginia.
Beadling is a technology industry veteran with experience in the manufacturing industries and application expertise in ERP/MRP, Manufacturing Execution (MES) and Supply Chain Management (SCM) systems. In 2002 Walt co-founded Cayuga Partners LLC. The firm provides consulting services, education and advanced technology to help clients plan, manage and optimize manufacturing and supply chain operations. Cayuga Partners’ offerings include simulation-based learning courses, advanced supply chain planning models, and tools to analyze and manage complex manufacturing processes.
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