Industrial Internet of Things

IIoT is the next step in the evolution of the oil and gas industry. Data will flow in real time and seamlessly from fields to boardroom, which will enable better decision making, a better optimization of process and a safer working environment. In an industry that spends trillions of dollars every year on exploration, development and maintenance of assets, even a single-digit percentage improvement through IIoT will have a huge impact.

In the current industry environment, oil and gas companies must start treating data just as they treat hydrocarbon. Data needs to be generated, communicated, stored and processed. Companies can reap considerable value by developing an integrated IIoT strategy with an aim to transform the business.

The upstream industry loses billions of dollars every year due to non-productive time (NPT). IIoT could be used to help reduce NPT events by using real-time data to predict breakdowns and schedule preventative maintenance. Huge amounts of reservoir data can be integrated with real-time field data to plan well placement and flow rates. Accidents can be prevented, and processes can be optimized.

The midstream industry has the challenging task of transporting variable volumes and grades of products from multiple locations to new end-users and markets. Connecting pipeline networks, sensors, leak detectors, alarms and emergency shutdowns to interact seamlessly and to be available for analysis and interpretation in real time would significantly reduce some of the major risks that this sector of the industry deals with.

The downstream industry is commercially the most challenging branch of the business. Refinery shutdowns, handling various grades of crude oil, and changing environmental regulations are pushing gross refining margins down to a bare minimum. With the use of IIoT, refineries can plan their shutdowns, minimize their downtime and improve safety records.

IIoT technologies are relevant for renewable energy since the tools can enable the smooth integration of two-way power flows from intermittent distributed resources like wind or solar, and behind-the-meter processes such as on-site energy storage or electric vehicle (EV) charging. In a larger sense, IIoT technologies are being established as a fundamental platform that underpins the emerging Energy Cloud, a historic transformation under way in the utility industry that will lead to a cleaner, more distributed and increasingly intelligent grid. Stakeholders should have a strategy for thriving in this environment, and be able to evaluate how best to leverage IIoT technologies to their advantage.

Using predictive maintenance through IIoT technologies will allow you to have access to predictive calculations that were previously not available.

From a technical point of view, the renewable energy sector will be improved in the following four major ways:

• Big data analytics, faster analysis of sensor outputs
• Breaking up of analytical data for the non-tech-savvy
• Decentralization of data
• Self-learning machines, Artificial Intelligence machine learning

Manufacturers can take advantage of IIoT to achieve smart, intelligent and connected production processes. The IIoT is a logical extension of automation and connectivity that has been a part of the plant environment for decades, primarily in the area known as machine-to-machine (M2M) communication.

Some of the benefits of IoT applications in manufacturing include:

Production at the edge: By making equipment intelligent enough to self-manage and collaborate with the rest of the manufacturing system, manufacturers can drive overall reliability, predictability and optimization.

Industrial Automation: IIoT connects everything within a plant and provides secured information sharing across multiple locations and business networks. Once machinery and systems are connected within the plant, manufacturers can use this information to automate workflows to maintain and optimize production systems without human intervention.

Real-time visibility: IIoT-enabled devices help to capture key performance indicators from strategic assets to deliver data and insights to the right people at the right time for informed decisions and compliance. By creating visibility tools to access the efficiency of each machine, end users will be able to not only view from any location, but reduce the time to make decisions and act.

Predictive Maintenance: With new sensor information, IIoT can help manufacturers improve overall equipment effectiveness (OEE), save money by minimizing equipment failure, allow the company to perform planned maintenance, and avoid issues before they can occur. Predictive maintenance capabilities will alert operators when a component needs attention or repair, reducing the need for ongoing inspections.

Process Optimization: With sensor data you’ll have visibility on the many smaller issues that normally go unchecked and can ultimately contribute to significant losses. Saving seconds every hour adds up to major gains in productivity. Sensors can pick up issues you aren’t even looking for, such as a small bottleneck that happens every day at the same time on your production line. By analyzing the data and investigating anomalies early, small corrections can avert a failed quality inspection or speed up the production process.

Better Energy Management: Manage the distribution of energy based on real-time data and situational awareness, as opposed to historical data patterns. Adaptive analytics can enable systems to automatically balance energy loads to reduce stress and prevent overheating.

Business Process: The smart factory extends well beyond its floor. Intelligent products can tell designers how customers are using them and thus enable improvements.

The Pipeline Industry can leverage the power of  IIoT to increase the ability to connect, measure and analyze an ever-increasing variety of behavioral statistics. The provision of collecting real-time data and storing them in on-line databases became a key source for many pipeline applications, ultimately increasing the amount of business analytics that could be performed. In the pipeline sector, this data has evolved to include parameters for optimization as well as information relative to pressure cycles, corrosion’s, pipeline conditions and equipment.

IIoT utilization for pipeline operators include:

Environmental monitoring: SCADA-based applications leverage the IIoT using sensors to monitor and improve environmental protection by measuring air or water quality, in stations and strategic locations.

Infrastructure management: Monitoring and controlling operations on pipeline infrastructures like pumping or compressor stations, pipeline pressures, terminals and tank farms are key application of the IIoT.

Enhancing operations controllers: How do you bridge the gap as a highly skilled but aging workforce moves to retire and new younger workers replace them? Provide more meaningful information to their consoles. Younger employees are more often comfortable in the electronic environments of a controller console so, it can be as straightforward as providing better analytics with the information needed to deal with real-time scenarios.

Energy management: Using applications connected to the IIoT gives pipeline operators and energy managers access to precise cost data that instantly monitors energy usage costs to make confident decisions that optimize energy efficiency, improving the bottom line and reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

IIoT has led to the emergence of smart Heating, Ventilation and Air Conditioning systems. IIoT offers the possibility of controlling the HVAC units to maintain an optimum temperature inside buildings in real time, by connecting sensors with the intelligent HVAC system via an information network. IIoT plays an essential role by providing the network with the means to maintain sensors and interconnected units at times. In addition, in state-of-the-art smart buildings, HVAC Systems allow users to see and manage usage patterns. These systems can gather information, analyse it and define patterns to anticipate particular needs at all times, providing a great degree of comfort. But, more importantly, they also bring a very important series of benefits.

Greater efficiency: The greatest benefit of smart HVAC Systems in smart buildings is optimization. Increasing a building’s efficiency means having active control of its conditions. It provides energy efficiency, by checking that the temperature, along with other conditions, is adequate at all times, regardless of outside conditions and depending on the number of users at any given time.

Lower consumption: Greater efficiency comes with lower consumption. You can reduce the costs of the energy that a building consumes by up to 35%. This is a very significant amount if we consider that 80% of the total energy consumption in buildings is consumed by HVAC. Therefore, investments in smart buildings can bring considerable savings.

More efficient audits: One of the main problems when optimizing the climate of a building is the difficulty controlling the parameters, and doing this is simply impossible with the most obsolete HVAC systems. In contrast, the systems in smart buildings allow all parameters to be monitored in real-time. This data ​​is stored for further analysis to improve the control and monitoring system. In addition, all this information is collected centrally. Plus, from these analyses we can obtain data on the energy and consumption patterns in buildings which allows both existing systems to be substantially improved and efficient new ones to be designed.

Easier maintenance: Just like with audits, smart HVAC systems allow for almost complete control over the entire system. Therefore, it is possible to keep track of the parts and systems to detect malfunctions and repair them immediately. Thus, not only are error warnings sent, but the system also collects information that could help determine the reasons for the malfunction. It also allows the system to automatically adapt to the problem by managing the remaining components.

Cleaner energy: Today, consumption must ensure that energy is managed in line with ecological responsibility. This spirit is precisely what sustains these smart control systems. It allows the optimal climatic conditions to be maintained to avoid an unnecessary waste of energy. Smart buildings offer the opportunity to manage consumption in a way that is much more in line with the most current ecological consumption guidelines.