Based in Auckland, New Zealand, Wiri Oil Services is the city’s only petroleum depot and distribution centre for petroleum fuel. It is connected by pipeline to Marsden Point Oil Refinery in New Zealand. The company receives four products from the refinery through one pipeline, with jet fuel sent to Auckland airport via a second. There is also a truck loading terminal to supply other users.
Challenges
Wiri wanted to reduce the implementation time of a next-generation process control system and gain fast operator acceptance. The company also had to find a way to justify its capital investment based on reduced risk of downtime and quick implementation. The main challenge was to minimise the fuel supply outage both for the airport the forecourt supplies for Auckland city. “Although it was time to replace our ageing control system, we had to find a partner that could provide the right technology, support and most importantly reduce our implementation risk as much as possible, while still being able to retrieve all the necessary information when and how we needed it,” said Bob Heaton, engineering manager, Wiri Oil Services.
Solution
Wiri upgraded to Honeywell’s Experion R300 HMI with the help of the Legacy Input/Output Module (LIOM), an integrated solution for taking advantage of Experion while ensuring the best utilisation of existing LCS I/Os. It used its existing LCS 620 I/O, keeping the hardware in place, but expanding the capability to utilise Experion’s innovative HMI. LIOM connects to the LCS I/O and brings it into the Experion controller and then up to Experion HMI. “There was no need to rip out our old controllers and put in a new Series C controller or any other hardware,” continued Heaton. “Experion’s HMI protected our investment in our existing infrastructure by providing the doorway to Experion.”
Honeywell’s Experion addresses the entire terminal process and identifies safe ways to enhance terminal results through facility-wide automation. Honeywell helps identify hidden opportunities in a terminal and takes advantage of them to achieve optimal process automation and performance. As a result of actively managing terminal performance through Experion, Wiri was able to improve efficiencies, increase production, reduce losses and optimise its return on investment. Typically a transition to paperless and automated terminal management can help achieve greater than 20% increase in output capacity – an advantage that can make a significant difference in a competitive market.
“With Honeywell we not only found the solution we needed, but also the best pathway to get there,” continued Heaton. “No new wiring was needed; we upgraded to the latest technology available and secured ongoing support for our hardware. Now we are able to make better informed decisions.”
The key advantage of using the LIOM is to reap the benefits of Experion’s value added features such as alarm management and trending, while retaining investment in field wiring and I/O. Thus the LIOM lets customer leverage the investment in I/O by unlocking the value in Experion.
Many process manufactures face the constant challenges of maintaining consistency and maximising uptime. Continually uprooting infrastructure can introduce unwanted variables into the process, risking consistency. Likewise uprooting infrastructure can threaten the uptime of a process by introducing new risk elements. Therefore retaining as much of one’s infrastructure as possible can help maintain consistency, maximise uptime, while reducing migration costs. The LIOM facilitates this purpose.
By allowing customers of the 620 LCS, S9000 and Logic Manager to retain their existing I/O infrastructure, upgrading the controller becomes quicker and easier than replacing the entire control network. Thus the LIOM helps avoid the risk associated with uprooting an entire control network to employ a new system by allowing customers to retain the current I/O infrastructure and also gain access to the new functionality found in Experion PKS.
“Wiri needed a low-risk, high-reward solution that would not only leverage, but take advantage of the current infrastructure we had in place. Honeywell and the LIOM migration methodology brought us to the next-generation Experion HMI,” concluded Heaton.
For more information contact Debbie Rae, Honeywell Southern Africa, +27 (0)11 695 8000, hsa@honeywell.com, www.honeywell.co.za
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