Austin, Sept. 10, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- FieldComm Group™ (www.fieldcommgroup.org) announces that Mangalore Refinery and Petrochemical Limited (MRPL), located in Mangalore, India, has been named the FieldComm Group 2018 Plant of the Year. This annual award is presented by FieldComm Group to recognize the people, companies and plant sites around the globe that are using the advanced capabilities of FOUNDATION™ Fieldbus, HART® and WirelessHART® technology in real-time applications for improved operations, maintenance and asset productivity. This is the first time ever that a process facility located in India has been awarded this prestigious award – illustrating India’s, and specifically MRPL’s, growing strength in the world market.
The culture of “doing things better” has been an integral part of MRPL and close coordination between the many disciplines (C&I, Projects, Process Operations etc) has enabled them to be industry leaders in utilizing the information provided by smart devices which has led them to be selected as the 2018 Plant of the Year.
"FOUNDATION Fieldbus technology provided a 50% savings with I/Os, cabling, maintenance utilization and installation costs when compared to conventional installations – saving $6,600,000 in project costs alone. In terms of maintenance, FF and HART provided on our instruments, valves and positioners provide an average savings of 55 man days per month,” said Mr. B Sudarshan, Chief General Manager of Instrumentation & Electrical at MRPL.
In addition to hard cost savings in infrastructure and maintenance time, MRPL continues to receive savings in averted shutdowns and interruptions. In one instance where an unexpected shutdown would have occurred due to valve fault, valve positioner diagnostics identified an issue that allowed MRPL to avoid shutting down Hydrogen generation – saving $60,000 in startup and shutdown costs associated with fuel and energy loss.
Mr. B Sudarshan continued, “Open standards have enabled us derive value in many different scenarios throughout the entire plant. For example, HART is enabled in our Safety Systems that allow for Partial Stroke Testing – avoiding the necessity to completely shut down. Control in the Field provided by FOUNDATION Fieldbus allows MRPL to operate even in the event of critical hardware failure – giving our team peace of mind. In 2016, thanks to Control in the Field, we were able to keep our refinery processing running during a DCS upgrade that otherwise would have required a shutdown resulting in a production loss of $800,000.”
Speaking on the importance of open standards and device integration, Ted Masters, President & CEO FieldComm Group states, “End users will continue to use multiple communication protocols in their facilities to optimally address process automation use cases. The most adept users will also take advantage of smart data and the tremendous cost savings enabled through its’ use. MRPL is a great example of using smart data and we are grateful that they applied for and won this year’s FieldComm Group Plant of the Year Award.”
MRPL Additional Facts & Figures
- Over 35,000 devices
- More than 9,000 FOUNDATION Fieldbus devices, including 1,300+ valve positioners
- More than 5,000 HART devices connected to the DCS via HART multiplexers, and used predominantly on safety systems (SIS)
- WirelessHART is used on several varied applications with average battery life of approximately 3 years
- Utilizing FOUNDATION Fieldbus for Motor Operated Valves, MRPL achieved an 80% reduction in I/O, cabling and footprint requirements, accounting for $415,000 in savings
- Device templating has greatly reduced commissioning time and reliability
- MRPL has also indicated they are starting a 4th phase project for the refinery that will utilize HART and FOUNDATION Fieldbus exclusively and is targeted for completion in 2025
Previous Plant of the Year award recipients include Shell FLNG (Australia), Nucor Steel (USA), Dow Chemical (USA), Monsanto (USA), Shell (Canada), MOL (Hungary), Mitsubishi Chemical (Japan), PVSDA (Venezuela), Statoil (Norway), Sasol Solvents (South Africa), BP (USA), Clariant (Germany) and DuPont (USA). To read their success stories, learn more about the award, or apply for the award in the future, please visit www.fieldcommgroup.org/technologies/plant-year.
About FieldComm Group
The FieldComm Group is a global standards-based organization consisting of leading process end users, manufacturers, universities and research organizations that work together to direct the development, incorporation and implementation of new and overlapping technologies and serves as the source for FDI technology. FieldComm Group’s mission is to develop, manage, and promote global standards for integrating digital devices to on-site, mobile, and cloud based systems; provide services for standards conformance and implementation of process automation devices and systems that enable and improve reliability and multi-vendor interoperability; lead the development of a unified information model of process automation field devices while building upon industry investment in the HART®, FOUNDATION™ Fieldbus and FDI™ standards. Membership is open to anyone interested in the use of the technologies. For more information, please visit fieldcommgroup.org
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