Customer DCS Selection Process – Customer Considerations Extract

Customer DCS Selection Process – Customer Considerations Extract
– Are you listening to, and addressing Customer Considerations?

Return on Assets (ROA) + The Race for Operational Excellence + Effectiveness, Agility, and Visualization + Automate and Empower + Automation Asset Management + Data Certainty and Traceability

Return on Assets (ROA)

• Customers believes process automation offers the potential to deliver significant higher return on assets (ROA) during the life cycle of a process plant. However, most users purchase process automation systems to stay technologically current and reduce total cost of ownership (TCO), rather than to achieve continuous improvement and associated economic gains. Unfortunately the project-oriented nature of acquiring automation tends to mask appreciation for the true contribution process automation systems can make to ROA. This is because the project ends before the contribution is realized and overall project ROA does not recognize benefits achieved from process automation. The absence of a return on investment (ROI) feedback mechanism and a common basis for measuring performance between business and process/manufacturing systems further complicates the issue.

The Race for Operational Excellence

• Operational excellence is the first supporting layer to ROA. Operational excellence delivers measurable performance improvements by focusing on doing more with less as well as working more effectively and reducing cost. OPx results from more people making more correct decisions. The OPx continuous improvement methodology reinforces the concept that OPx is an ongoing process.

Effectiveness, Agility, and Visualization

• Effectiveness, agility, and performance visualization are keys to operational excellence. Effectiveness and agility support the principle of flawless operation. Research shows that, on average, most process plants operate at less than Four Sigma performance levels.

Automate and Empower

• By automating everything that should be automated, you ensure that manual tasks will always be executed based on best practices. Automation also frees up time for worker empowerment, providing these knowledge workers with the opportunity to perform more value-adding functions.

Automation Asset Management

• Normally, each DCS/PAS is deployed in a proprietary system and configuration management environment. A more collaborative DCS/PAS provides an open platform and a mixed supplier environment. In this environment, each application retains its own system and configuration management, but a unified automation asset management facility for configuration management and system health addresses the issue of multiple system and configuration facilities. Configuration management includes an audit trail, priority access, and failsafe configurations for all applications and devices in the system. Ultimately, this function will become part of the operating system as an advanced application executive.

Data Certainty and Traceability

• Data and information represents the core of a collaborative DCS/PAS. However, at any point in time, up to 10 percent of the field device-based signals in any system can be inaccurate for one reason or another. Therefore, it is important for this data to have associated quality tags. Dependent variable data should also have quality tags. The regulated industries require that product constituents can be traced through their processes, thus collaborative DCS/PAS also accommodates traceability functions.

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