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Writer's pictureCurtis Reimer

A Quick Win to Improve Sustainability in Industrial and Manufacturing Facilities


When we hear the word sustainability, we may think of green energy-efficient buildings with net-zero energy usage, or renewable energy installations, or perhaps forestry preservation. But a lot of the mainstream sustainability ideas that attract media attention are not always practical for existing industrial and manufacturing facilities. Is there a quick win?


Sustainability is “development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs” (United Nations General Assembly, 1987, p. 43). We often use three criteria: social, environmental, and economic impact as the primary lenses through which to assess sustainable development, which strives to improve the quality of people’s lives within the constraints of environmental and financial resources.


Sustainability enhancements in industrial and manufacturing facilities can be challenging due to the complexity of the processes. In many cases, a lot of work and careful assessment must be performed to ensure that the triple bottom line is achieved without impacting production.


However, there is one initiative in industrial and manufacturing facilities that almost always provides a sustainable benefit. Have you guessed it?


The low-hanging fruit is automation optimization. Every current industrial and manufacturing facility has at least some processes controlled by automation. In many cases, the control system is incredibly intricate, with thousands of instruments and actuators all working together to produce the final product: our food, material, products, and equipment we use to make our lives better.

Given the complexity of modern automation systems, it is almost certain that they are not entirely optimized. Far too often, construction commissioning processes are limited to proof of operation and meeting basic targets, not maximizing the process efficiency. Process inefficiencies controlled by our automation system are directly leaking environmental and financial sustainability and may have social impact side-effects.


Current industry trends, including Industry 4.0 and Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT), will change our world by connecting more intelligent devices and allowing them to communicate and improve decision making. While in some ways we are not there yet, in many industrial and manufacturing facilities, we have vast islands of connected devices as part of the process or manufacturing control system. You can achieve significant benefits by leveraging the underutilized capabilities of your existing automation systems.


Automation Optimization Impact


Environmental Impact


By improving automation system response, we can plug the environmental leaks in our process, including wasted:

  • Energy - often carbon sourced;

  • Raw materials – With extraction and transportation having a significant environmental impact; and

  • Finished products – Which squander both the raw materials and energy that went into their production.

Reducing energy and raw material consumption can have an immediate and measurable impact on the environment. Prominent environmental sustainability measures, such as carbon emissions, can be calculated and demonstrated based upon the before and after consumption of inputs and process efficiency.


Besides, optimization projects typically require limited or no new equipment or materials, and thus the sustainability impact of the project, project equipment, or construction activities often requires minimal consideration.


Social Impact


Automation optimization typically has a limited direct social impact. It generally is well accepted by staff once complete, although appropriate change management needs to be carried out. It does not displace jobs or drastically change employee working conditions.

Some labour proponents will argue that automation results in job loss. However, in this article, we are talking about the improvement of existing automation systems, not new automated lines or robots. For example, a plant could increase production by 5% with the same equipment and energy consumption, and no job impact. As a side note, I am also a believer that new automation of manual processes typically provides a net positive social impact, even if it shifts the labour profile slightly; but that is another article for another day.


There may be some positive indirect social impact from automation optimization, and we will discuss one scenario later in this article.

Financial Impact


Yes, we are talking about money, and that has traditionally been a primary impetus for optimization initiatives. There is no problem with financial motivation, provided the other sustainability criteria are met. Some optimization initiatives can have incredible paybacks, as indicated in this quote from an International Society of Automation publication.


Tuning and optimization provide a huge return on investment. It is quite typical for this work to have a pay-out time of less than one month. Typical ROI equivalent interest rates are in the thousands of percent per year.

Achieving Huge ROI Through Controller Tuning and Optimization

George Buckbee, P.E., published by ISA in 2001


Unless your facility has been heavily optimized, there are still likely significant financial gains available with an optimization initiative, which can improve your sustainable bottom line.



How Do We Get Started?


Step 1 – Understand the Goal


OK, you’re reading this article, and the goal is to improve sustainability through automation optimization. Great!


However, you can improve success by focussing more clearly on the problem, objectives, and requirements of the initiative. Define what success looks like, and make sure the stakeholders, including the employees, understand the sustainability benefits of the project. In addition, identify the scope limitations of the project, which will help prevent the project from going off the rails.


Step 2 - Collect Data


One of the first steps to improving sustainability through automation optimization is to collect data. Typically you cannot improve what you cannot measure. Ensure you have input data, such as energy consumption, as well as production data. In a best-case scenario, all this data is sitting in a central plant historian, ready to be extracted, filtered, and analyzed, although in many cases, it resides in numerous electronic and paper-based repositories around the organization. The data collection can also include process observation as well as collecting the automation logic and code.

Step 3 – Examine the Data


The review of the process data, energy consumption, and operational observation, and automation code will likely result in the identification of opportunities for improvement. In some cases, detailed analysis and verification of hypothesis, may be required. For example, a mill that is not operating at its design efficiency may require a more detailed review of the root cause. Alternatively, a finding may arise that requires little further assessment. For example, realizing that motors are running when they do not need to be running does not require intensive study.


The review and analysis of the data is often the hardest step and may require outside expertise. External experts have two significant advantages compared to internal masters and gurus: they are not biased by acclimatization to the current environment and can draw upon their exposure to other facilities and industries. Also, consider whether professional engineering review is required for the potential change.


Don’t forget to review items that may have an indirect relationship to the benefit you wish to achieve. For example, many optimization initiatives may bypass a review of the alarming system. Still, an operator who cannot readily absorb the explosion of alarms upon an event will not respond in a timely manner. A poor response time will impact production and could result in significant environmental and financial impact. And while we said that optimization initiatives often have a minimal social impact, optimization of alarm systems can also significantly decrease operator stress, and I’d like to consider that a sustainability benefit!


Step 4 - Make the Change


Finally, the fun part… Creating the benefits! But before you start modifying the PLC/DCS program, consider the change itself like a project, or a mini-project. Remember, you are working in an operating facility, and all change introduces risk. In addition, understand that the change itself will often temporarily increase the workload of production and maintenance personnel.

Use all your planning and project management principles, appropriately adapted and applied to the change. In many cases, process optimization can be implemented primarily via programming changes, although sometimes some minor control system hardware enhancements, such as additional sensors, are required. Thus, while the implementation effort can seem quite straightforward, do not get tempted to bypass the project management planning work. I am not advocating excessive overhead, but by taking the time to plan, coordinate, and manage the change, you will minimize the risk and maximize the benefit.


Also, test and commission the change. At this point, we are primarily focussing on the optimization change being effectively implemented to meet its specific requirements. For example, the commissioning process needs to test and confirm the mill operates stably during start-up, shutdown, and plug type events with the new control loop tuning parameter. At this point, you will also probably be able to get some initial view and confirmation of the sustainability benefits you were targeting. You may see an initial 10% energy reduction along with the associated environmental and financial windfalls.

Step 5 – Ensure the Benefit Remains


OK, possibly the most straightforward step, and to the organization’s peril, the one most frequently skipped. Implement processes to ensure that the changes are incorporated and maintained. Without continued control, our systems move towards chaos and disorder, just like the second law of thermodynamics teaches us. We want to ensure that that the sustainability benefits achieved, are also sustained.


Implement processes to continue to monitor the process and ensure that the optimization remains. While this can be a manual process, I love to automate this as well to avoid additional workload. For example, it is not hard to create a notification event in most process control systems if the daily efficiency of the mill drops below X%. That way, if something changes, the right people can be notified and respond.


At this stage, confirm that all associated changes are made and fully incorporated. Ideally, these should occur as part of Step 4, but I discuss them here as they are so often missed and should be double-checked at this stage. Include tasks such as ensuring the revised PLC programs are filed away into appropriate fault-recovery repositories, training, updating O&M manuals, ensuring response plans are current.



Summing it Up


Viewing automation optimization from a sustainability perspective provides a new basis for providing benefits, both internal and external to your organization. Optimization initiatives usually have a high return on investment and might be precisely the right topic to bring up at your next management meeting. You can improve your organization’s sustainability with minimal cost and risk.


 

Photo credits:

1. Title photo base by Pixabay from Pexels.

2. Control room photo by Pixabay from Pexels.

3. Analysis photo by Lukas from Pexels.

4. Computer Photo by Christina Morillo from Pexels.

5. Factory photo by Pixabay from Pexels.



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