Why choose SimSci Simulation Software?

Trusted Simulation Partner Since 1967 

SimSci simulation software is a superior set of professional tools for process design, simulation & operator training, and process optimization that have been improved & tailored to solve customer problems since 1967. SimSci development has continuously produced innovative solutions to deal with emerging trends for the entire process industry value chain. Combined with a focus on the refining and petrochemical businesses, there is not a supplier out there that can offer customers a wider breath of innovative simulation, operator training, and optimization software technology that enables enhanced performance and increased profitability.

The key to the success of SimSci software is the close partnership with customers, which enables collaboration and the ability to leverage the best available knowledge in the industry. These partnerships also enable licensing flexibility that makes SimSci the partner of choice for most industry leading firms. SimSci simulation software provides tremendous sustainable value to customers, yielding a quick return on investment, and continuous engagement with consultants, technical suppliers and delivery.

Read More

Are you operating as sub-optimal conditions

The global economy and regional regulations are placing greater economic pressures on refiners in the form of increased pricing pressure that affect profitability and require enhanced performance to allow the plant to remain profitable. Additionally, regulatory compliance and adherence to increasing stringent safety standards can adversely affect a refinery’s bottom line. Decreased margin from increased competition is forcing refiners to evaluate means to run more profitably. Refineries have been implementing profit generating activities for years, but the key is implementation and sustainability of a full-scale optimization program.

THE INVENSYS SOLUTION:

Invensys provides several optimization solutions. Invensys has extended its best-in-class solutions under SimSci for refinery optimization through integration of various individual products and applications designed to capture all areas of profit opportunity by providing the best optimization and regulatory compliance solutions for a refinery. These new solutions take SimSci’s leadership in refining optimization to a higher level. The various solutions allow the refinery to choose the level of optimization that is appropriate for their current situation.

Off-sites:  Tank farms make up a large portion of a refining complex. Increased automation and operational performance reduces the cost of terminal operations, while at the same time improving safety compliance and business performance. Invensys Off-sites solutions have been in use in terminal and refinery sites globally for over 25 years, serving all of the major oil companies.

Process Optimization:  ROMeo is the standard for process optimization in refining and can be used for either performance monitoring or process optimization.  During performance monitoring, ROMeo trends the performance of equipment to identify problems and pinpoint equipment operational issues. An example would be the performance monitoring of a crude pre-heat train to monitor exchanger fouling and running case-studies to view which heat exchanger would impact profitability the most when cleaned.   During process optimization, ROMeo automatically imports process data, reconciles that data, and optimizes the process within a set of operational bounds. One example would be to minimize the usage of hydrogen when upgrading heavier crude oil. In this example, ROMeo would be used to monitor hydrogen usage and minimize its consumption by altering the flow and conditions (temperature and pressure) of the various feedstocks.

Integrating ROMeo with Planning, Scheduling and Off-sites:  Refiners can now leverage blend operations and optimization practices to improve efficiency and profitability across the entire refinery. Crude blend data available from off-sites blending operations can be used as input to process optimization software. Product properties that are calculated by process optimization software can then be used in off-sites product blending operations.

Visualization:  Wonderware Intelligence provides the visualization technology that allows operators key performance indicator (KPI) visibility and monitoring through interactive dashboards in near real-time.  This provides key information in desired context across Invensys and non-Invensys sources of operations data to achieve on the spot operational decision-making.

Automation:  ArchestrA Workflow is powerful business process management software, a) helping enforce consistent policy and procedural execution from plant automation to Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), b) enabling a reduction in process and response latency c) and providing the open framework to support the necessary governance, including notifications, escalations and approvals of all stakeholders in the collaboration environment.  Mobile Solutions, from Wonderware IntelaTrac, enable workflow, data collection and general task management for plant operations, maintenance management, production tracking and compliance applications. Mobile Solutions result in improved operational discipline and reliability, increased workforce productivity, and enhanced safety and compliance.   Condition Manager, from Avantis, is tied to asset health, reliability and/or availability.  Predicting asset failures before they occur on critical refinery equipment can result in significant costs savings. Condition Manager collects data from any plant floor system which is OPC-compliant, analyzes that data, then acts upon it – letting operators know of any problematic conditions early enough to take corrective action before they escalate into serious upsets or, worse yet, unplanned shutdowns.

Advanced Process Control: While ROMeo is able to optimize operations once they have achieved steady-state, Connoisseur, the APC solution from SimSci-Esscor, offers optimization within a smaller time-frame. APC can help control a process to desired set-points to minimize fluctuation in the controllers and optimize output.

ACA.HF: The ACA.HF is the new standard in safety, simplicity, reliability, and accuracy for analysis of HF alkylation process performance. ACA.HF is a way to safely and simply obtain online measurement of %HF, %Water and %ASO in HF alkylation. This solution is an affordable alternative to FTNIR with highly reliable and repeatable accuracy. In fact, ACA.HF exceeds the precision of HF analysis with FTNIR. ACA.HF is a multivariable analyzer based on the application of proven Foxboro measurement technologies that are long-established in online analysis of process streams. The fact that measurements can be made in real-time with no safety risk allows refineries to enjoy the results without the risk of an accident or plant downtime.

Are you running at peak performance? What do you need help with? Let us know.

Read More

Yield Accounting at a refinery

Operating companies require reconciled material balance information to make operating decisions and to measure performance and profitability. This is problematic because a material balance on a refinery requires
numerous measurements along with the reconciliation of those plant measurements since small inaccuracies propagated throughout a data reporting system can lead to large year-end reportable monetary losses for the company. The Invensys integrated and bundled yield accounting solution is unique in the market and results in:

• Increased accuracy and reliability of plant data corrects inaccuracies and reduces or eliminates losses
• Consistent, reliable data for performance measures (KPIs)
• Improved instrument maintenance efficiency
• Better feedstock data for process yield simulators and tracking

About Yield Accounting: The Yield Accounting solution from Invensys addresses one of the most stressing issues of a refinery, petrochemical plant, or other processing facility: unaccounted losses. This solution improves the efficiency in a facility with data reconciliation, which finds errors in raw plant data and closes the mass balance and production accounting, which allows the plant to better account for feedstock and products. Material tracking and product yield tracking accounts for inventory and pinpoints losses. 
Technical Support: As always, feel free to reach out to your local technical support team for more information.

Read More

Are you operating as sub-optimal conditions

The global economy and regional regulations are placing greater economic pressures on refiners in the form of increased pricing pressure that affect profitability and require enhanced performance to allow the plant to remain profitable. Additionally, regulatory compliance and adherence to increasing stringent safety standards can adversely affect a refinery’s bottom line. Decreased margin from increased competition is forcing refiners to evaluate means to run more profitably. Refineries have been implementing profit generating activities for years, but the key is implementation and sustainability of a full-scale optimization program.

THE INVENSYS SOLUTION:

Invensys provides several optimization solutions. Invensys has extended its best-in-class solutions under SimSci-Esscor for refinery optimization through integration of various individual products and applications designed to capture all areas of profit opportunity by providing the best optimization and regulatory compliance solutions for a refinery. These new solutions take SimSci-Esscor’s leadership in refining optimization to a higher level. The various solutions allow the refinery to choose the level of optimization that is appropriate for their current situation.

Off-sites:  Tank farms make up a large portion of a refining complex. Increased automation and operational performance reduces the cost of terminal operations, while at the same time improving safety compliance and business performance. Invensys Off-sites solutions have been in use in terminal and refinery sites globally for over 25 years, serving all of the major oil companies.

Process Optimization:  ROMeo is the standard for process optimization in refining and can be used for either performance monitoring or process optimization.  During performance monitoring, ROMeo trends the performance of equipment to identify problems and pinpoint equipment operational issues. An example would be the performance monitoring of a crude pre-heat train to monitor exchanger fouling and running case-studies to view which heat exchanger would impact profitability the most when cleaned.   During process optimization, ROMeo automatically imports process data, reconciles that data, and optimizes the process within a set of operational bounds. One example would be to minimize the usage of hydrogen when upgrading heavier crude oil. In this example, ROMeo would be used to monitor hydrogen usage and minimize its consumption by altering the flow and conditions (temperature and pressure) of the various feedstocks.

Integrating ROMeo with Planning, Scheduling and Off-sites:  Refiners can now leverage blend operations and optimization practices to improve efficiency and profitability across the entire refinery. Crude blend data available from off-sites blending operations can be used as input to process optimization software. Product properties that are calculated by process optimization software can then be used in off-sites product blending operations.

Visualization:  Wonderware Intelligence provides the visualization technology that allows operators key performance indicator (KPI) visibility and monitoring through interactive dashboards in near real-time.  This provides key information in desired context across Invensys and non-Invensys sources of operations data to achieve on the spot operational decision-making.

Automation:  ArchestrA Workflow is powerful business process management software, a) helping enforce consistent policy and procedural execution from plant automation to Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), b) enabling a reduction in process and response latency c) and providing the open framework to support the necessary governance, including notifications, escalations and approvals of all stakeholders in the collaboration environment.  Mobile Solutions, from Wonderware IntelaTrac, enable workflow, data collection and general task management for plant operations, maintenance management, production tracking and compliance applications. Mobile Solutions result in improved operational discipline and reliability, increased workforce productivity, and enhanced safety and compliance.   Condition Manager, from Avantis, is tied to asset health, reliability and/or availability.  Predicting asset failures before they occur on critical refinery equipment can result in significant costs savings. Condition Manager collects data from any plant floor system which is OPC-compliant, analyzes that data, then acts upon it – letting operators know of any problematic conditions early enough to take corrective action before they escalate into serious upsets or, worse yet, unplanned shutdowns.

Advanced Process Control: While ROMeo is able to optimize operations once they have achieved steady-state, Connoisseur, the APC solution from SimSci-Esscor, offers optimization within a smaller time-frame. APC can help control a process to desired set-points to minimize fluctuation in the controllers and optimize output.

ACA.HF: The ACA.HF is the new standard in safety, simplicity, reliability, and accuracy for analysis of HF alkylation process performance. ACA.HF is a way to safely and simply obtain online measurement of %HF, %Water and %ASO in HF alkylation. This solution is an affordable alternative to FTNIR with highly reliable and repeatable accuracy. In fact, ACA.HF exceeds the precision of HF analysis with FTNIR. ACA.HF is a multivariable analyzer based on the application of proven Foxboro measurement technologies that are long-established in online analysis of process streams. The fact that measurements can be made in real-time with no safety risk allows refineries to enjoy the results without the risk of an accident or plant downtime.

Are you running at peak performance? What do you need help with? Let us know.

Read More

Refinery Performance Webinar recordings now available for viewing

Invensys frequently offers live webinars to help viewers gain a better understanding of our solutions.These webinar recordings are now available for you to view on-demand.

This webinar series introduces ways to optimize performance in a refinery. The following webinars address two major issues in today’s refineries.

First, is “Reducing Material Losses with Better Yield Accounting”, which addresses the need for better yield accounting. In order to prevent major monetary loss, refineries must tighten control on their raw material, inventory, and products. Unaccounted for material loss may be due to a number of factors including inaccurate or inconsistent data, coming led ownership of processed materials, environmental (HSE) pressure to report yields and losses, or Joint Venture (JV) pressure to report transactions. Our new Yield Accounting solution has corrected these issues in order to provide refiners with an accurate means of accounting for material losses.

Next is “Aging Workforce and Operator Training – Improve your bottom line with faster, more effective training techniques”.  This webinar explains how so much of the aging workforce is nearing retirement, leaving plant operation in the hands of less experienced, undertrained operators. SimSci-Esscor offers operator training that will optimize performance and improve safety in a plant. Watch this webinar to learn more about these innovative methods that will prepare your workforce in an efficient and effective manner.

In the “Using New Modeling Technology to Help Solve Heavy Oil Processing Issues” webinar, Invensys employees explain the importance of processing heavier feedstock. Today’s refineries were originally designed for lighter crudes.  Since there is an ever-increasing demand for oil and the amount of heavy oils on Earth is greater than twice the supply of lighter crudes, refineries are being forced to utilize them.  Conventional refineries find great difficulty in processing these “molasses-like” substances.  Processing the crude incorrectly leads to operational errors, like equipment failure and process downtime, which can risk operator safety.  This webinar offers insight on how to deal with heavy oils.

“Make better feedstock business decisions in real-time with Assay Knowledge Management” explains how to use this solution to make knowledgeable and profitable decisions based on your refinery’s needs. Invensys has paired up with Spiral Software, bringing you a new technology that properly determines the properties of feedstock, allowing a refiner to evaluate all available feedstocks in real time. This leads to better decisions and improves profitability.

The final webinar on demand is “How to improve refinery profitability with real-time, online, optimization”. Plant and operations managers should take an interest in finding out about the benefits of real-time online optimization. This Invensys solution can assist you in improving performance, making better business decisions, and increasing refinery profitability. If you are already interested in real-time optimization solutions but are not sure which solution is right for your refinery’s needs, this webinar can help!

In case you missed it, you can check out the recordings of the above mentioned webinars and others here: 

Read More

From DOWNSTREAMTODAY: CME Exec: Once-Marginal US Refineries on the Rebound

New supplies of light sweet crude oils from the Bakken, Eagle Ford and Midcontinent are injecting new life into U.S. refineries whose fate until recently was bleak, according to a top executive with the derivatives and futures exchange CME Group.

"I think it's really going to change the way refiners run," said Gary Morsches, New York-based managing director of global energy with CME Group. 

Read the full article here.

Just a note to all you refiners who are "debottlenecking" - SimSci-Esscor Software is pretty good at "debottlenecking" and optimizing refinery operations.

If you have any questions, please reach out to me and I will make sure you are put in touch with the right technical person to help you out!

Read More

Refinery Performance Webinar recordings now available for viewing

Invensys Operations Management frequently offers live webinars to help viewers gain a better understanding of our solutions.These webinar recordings are now available for you to view on-demand.

This webinar series introduces ways to optimize performance in a refinery. The following webinars address two major issues in today’s refineries.

First, is “Reducing Material Losses with Better Yield Accounting”, which addresses the need for better yield accounting. In order to prevent major monetary loss, refineries must tighten control on their raw material, inventory, and products. Unaccounted for material loss may be due to a number of factors including inaccurate or inconsistent data, coming led ownership of processed materials, environmental (HSE) pressure to report yields and losses, or Joint Venture (JV) pressure to report transactions. Our new Yield Accounting solution has corrected these issues in order to provide refiners with an accurate means of accounting for material losses.

Next is “Aging Workforce and Operator Training – Improve your bottom line with faster, more effective training techniques”.  This webinar explains how so much of the aging workforce is nearing retirement, leaving plant operation in the hands of less experienced, undertrained operators. SimSci-Esscor offers operator training that will optimize performance and improve safety in a plant. Watch this webinar to learn more about these innovative methods that will prepare your workforce in an efficient and effective manner.

In the “Using New Modeling Technology to Help Solve Heavy Oil Processing Issues” webinar, Invensys employees explain the importance of processing heavier feedstock. Today’s refineries were originally designed for lighter crudes.  Since there is an ever-increasing demand for oil and the amount of heavy oils on Earth is greater than twice the supply of lighter crudes, refineries are being forced to utilize them.  Conventional refineries find great difficulty in processing these “molasses-like” substances.  Processing the crude incorrectly leads to operational errors, like equipment failure and process downtime, which can risk operator safety.  This webinar offers insight on how to deal with heavy oils.

“Make better feedstock business decisions in real-time with Assay Knowledge Management” explains how to use this solution to make knowledgeable and profitable decisions based on your refinery’s needs. Invensys has paired up with Spiral Software, bringing you a new technology that properly determines the properties of feedstock, allowing a refiner to evaluate all available feedstocks in real time. This leads to better decisions and improves profitability.

The final webinar on demand is “How to improve refinery profitability with real-time, online, optimization”. Plant and operations managers should take an interest in finding out about the benefits of real-time online optimization. This Invensys solution can assist you in improving performance, making better business decisions, and increasing refinery profitability. If you are already interested in real-time optimization solutions but are not sure which solution is right for your refinery’s needs, this webinar can help!

In case you missed it, you can check out the recordings of the above mentioned webinars and others here: 

Read More

Refinery Performance Webinar recordings now available for viewing

Invensys Operations Management frequently offers live webinars to help viewers gain a better understanding of our solutions.These webinar recordings are now available for you to view on-demand.

This webinar series introduces ways to optimize performance in a refinery. The following webinars address two major issues in today’s refineries.

First, is “Reducing Material Losses with Better Yield Accounting”, which addresses the need for better yield accounting. In order to prevent major monetary loss, refineries must tighten control on their raw material, inventory, and products. Unaccounted for material loss may be due to a number of factors including inaccurate or inconsistent data, coming led ownership of processed materials, environmental (HSE) pressure to report yields and losses, or Joint Venture (JV) pressure to report transactions. Our new Yield Accounting solution has corrected these issues in order to provide refiners with an accurate means of accounting for material losses.

Next is “Aging Workforce and Operator Training – Improve your bottom line with faster, more effective training techniques”.  This webinar explains how so much of the aging workforce is nearing retirement, leaving plant operation in the hands of less experienced, undertrained operators. SimSci-Esscor offers operator training that will optimize performance and improve safety in a plant. Watch this webinar to learn more about these innovative methods that will prepare your workforce in an efficient and effective manner.

In the “Using New Modeling Technology to Help Solve Heavy Oil Processing Issues” webinar, Invensys employees explain the importance of processing heavier feedstock. Today’s refineries were originally designed for lighter crudes.  Since there is an ever-increasing demand for oil and the amount of heavy oils on Earth is greater than twice the supply of lighter crudes, refineries are being forced to utilize them.  Conventional refineries find great difficulty in processing these “molasses-like” substances.  Processing the crude incorrectly leads to operational errors, like equipment failure and process downtime, which can risk operator safety.  This webinar offers insight on how to deal with heavy oils.

“Make better feedstock business decisions in real-time with Assay Knowledge Management” explains how to use this solution to make knowledgeable and profitable decisions based on your refinery’s needs. Invensys has paired up with Spiral Software, bringing you a new technology that properly determines the properties of feedstock, allowing a refiner to evaluate all available feedstocks in real time. This leads to better decisions and improves profitability.

The final webinar on demand is “How to improve refinery profitability with real-time, online, optimization”. Plant and operations managers should take an interest in finding out about the benefits of real-time online optimization. This Invensys solution can assist you in improving performance, making better business decisions, and increasing refinery profitability. If you are already interested in real-time optimization solutions but are not sure which solution is right for your refinery’s needs, this webinar can help!

In case you missed it, you can check out the recordings of the above mentioned webinars and others here: 

Read More

Free Webinar tomorrow! How to improve refinery profitability with real-time, online, optimization

How to improve refinery profitability with real-time, online, optimization Thur, Feb 28 2 p.m. EST [19:00 GMT] Who should attend Plant managers, Operations managers Why attend Learn the typical applications and benefits of real-time online    optimization: How it improves performance How it helps you make better business decisions How it increases refinery profitability And which real-time optimization solution best fits your needs As the price of raw materials, utilities, and refined products change, sometimes by the minute, maximizing profitability means having an optimization program – at the unit and plant wide levels – that can adapt to variable economic data and operating conditions in real time. A global refinery leader says… “We estimate that optimization yields over $500 million in value per year!” The ability to view what is happening at your plant in real time will enable you to make better, more timely business decisions. And that's critical for optimizing operations and improving refinery profitability. Learn the importance of real-time optimization for your plant and see how failure to implement an optimization solution may leave your company unable to compete with other leading refineries. Another leading oil company says… ”For every $25 we invest in optimization, we achieve $1,000 in benefits!” Register now to learn more and improve your refinery's profitability! »

Read More

Free Webinar - Feb 28: How to improve refinery profitability with real-time, online, optimization

How to improve refinery profitability with real-time, online, optimization Thur, Feb 28 2 p.m. EST [19:00 GMT] Who should attendPlant managers, Operations managers Why attend Learn the typical applications and benefits of real-time online    optimization: How it improves performance How it helps you make better business decisions How it increases refinery profitability And which real-time optimization solution best fits your needs As the price of raw materials, utilities, and refined products change, sometimes by the minute, maximizing profitability means having an optimization program – at the unit and plant wide levels – that can adapt to variable economic data and operating conditions in real time. A global refinery leader says… “We estimate that optimization yields over $500 million in value per year!” The ability to view what is happening at your plant in real time will enable you to make better, more timely business decisions. And that's critical for optimizing operations and improving refinery profitability. Learn the importance of real-time optimization for your plant and see how failure to implement an optimization solution may leave your company unable to compete with other leading refineries. Another leading oil company says… ”For every $25 we invest in optimization, we achieve $1,000 in benefits!” Register now to learn more and improve your refinery's profitability! »

Read More

Free Webinar: How to improve refinery profitability with real-time, online, optimization

How to improve refinery profitability with real-time, online, optimization Thur, Feb 28 2 p.m. EST [19:00 GMT] Who should attend Plant managers, Operations managers Why attend Learn the typical applications and benefits of real-time online optimization: How it improves performance How it helps you make better business decisions How it increases refinery profitability And which real-time optimization solution best fits your needs As the price of raw materials, utilities, and refined products change, sometimes by the minute, maximizing profitability means having an optimization program – at the unit and plant wide levels – that can adapt to variable economic data and operating conditions in real time. A global refinery leader says… “We estimate that optimization yields over $500 million in value per year!” The ability to view what is happening at your plant in real time will enable you to make better, more timely business decisions. And that's critical for optimizing operations and improving refinery profitability. Learn the importance of real-time optimization for your plant and see how failure to implement an optimization solution may leave your company unable to compete with other leading refineries. Another leading oil company says… ”For every $25 we invest in optimization, we achieve $1,000 in benefits!” Register now to learn more and improve your refinery's profitability! »

Read More

ROMeo Intelligence: Successfully Synergizing Technologies

Invensys introduces new integrated technology, ROMeo Intelligence, for optimal plant performance. 

When investing in SimSci-Esscor ROMeo, customers are aiming to optimize performance at their plant. ROMeo results, however, are not always the easiest to interpret, making optimization more difficult. Not anymore.

ROMeo customers now have the option to implement a new Invensys solution, ROMeo Intelligence, a powerful combination of Wonderware Intelligence and ROMeo software. ROMeo provides the real-time information needed to improve profitability and performance, while Wonderware Intelligence presents this information in a clear and concise manner.

Key information made easy 

At the request of many ROMeo customers, ROMeo Intelligence is born. Making the information as clear as possible is imperative for optimizing performance. Wonderware Intelligence is user friendly and offers a real-time graphical display of important operations information or key performance indicators that will aid users in making timely business and operating decisions.

A highlighted benefit of Wonderware Intelligence is the ability to view data in various formats, such as personalized dashboards, SharePoint sites or custom portals. The user friendly Wonderware Intelligence Dashboard, for instance, allows for key data derived from ROMeo to be viewed and interpreted quickly via a color-coding system. Any operator, no matter the experience level, will be able to analyze the data. Furthermore, Wonderware Intelligence’s Sensitivity Analysis feature explains how changes to the system will affect operation, and will also help train a less experienced workforce, an overwhelming issue in many of today’s refineries. In essence, Wonderware Intelligence software tracks refinery performance so personnel can actually view the progress being made with ROMeo. 

ROMeo Intelligence: The Ultimate Package Deal

Read More

Invensys Operations Management Acquires Spiral Software

Invensys Operations Management, a global provider of technology systems, software solutions and consulting services to the manufacturing and infrastructure operations industries, today announced that it has acquired Spiral Software, a privately held company headquartered in Cambridge, the United Kingdom to extend their refinery-wide optimization offerings with new planning, scheduling and crude management software.

Founded in 1998, Spiral Software’s solutions help hydrocarbon processing clients make better business decisions when trading and refining crude oils. Its crude assay management software enables clients to make the best choices when sourcing and refining feedstocks, and it’s planning and scheduling softwarehelps optimize production plans based on real-time crude demand and market pricing, as well as the refinery’s own capacity and supply chain constraints.

So you may be asking, why did Invensys Operations Management acquire Spiral? Simply put, Spiral technology will enable Invensys Operations Management to deliver new refinery-wide optimization solutions that enable clients to make better business decisions when trading and refining crude oils. Their offerings will enable us to fully support the entire planning to operations value chain, helping our customers make better business decisions in real time, based on demand, market pricing and their own economic, capacity and supply chain constraints.

Spiral Software solutions extend SimSci-Esscor’s refinery optimization offerings, enabling us to cover the entire planning to refining value chain, something no other provider can do. As an integrated offering with our market-leading refinery optimization products, it fills a gap in our portfolio offerings and strengthens our competitive position. Spiral Software’s crude assay management tools allow traders to rank various crude oils and assess a feasible purchase price as an input to the monthly plan, as well as determine what other crude products the refinery can make, allowing the traders to make additional product commitments or understand their product trading flexibility. Spiral Software’s planning and scheduling solution then integrates the buying plans with the production schedule so purchasing decisions are made continuously rather than monthly. Additionally, the software’s risk-analysis feature is able to model several different planning and scheduling scenarios, helping refiners understand their exposure to changes in feedstock costs, product demand and refinery operations.

Read More

What is standing in the way at your refinery?

Need to breakthrough to better refinery performance - we can help!

What do you need help with - let me know!

Read More

Invensys Yield Accounting Solution

Operating companies require reconciled material balance information to make operating decisions and to measure performance and profitability. This is problematic because a material balance on a refinery requires numerous measurements along with the reconciliation of those plant measurements since small inaccuracies propagated throughout a data reporting system can lead to large year-end reportable monetary losses for the company. The Invensys integrated and bundled yield accounting solution is unique in the market and results in:

• Increased accuracy and reliability of plant data corrects inaccuracies and reduces or eliminates losses
• Consistent, reliable data for performance measures (KPIs)
• Improved instrument maintenance efficiency
• Better feedstock data for process yield simulators and tracking

Read More

Sub-optimal Operating Conditions

The global economy and regional regulations are placing greater economic pressures on refiners in the form of increased pricing pressure that affect profitability and require enhanced performance to allow the plant to remain profitable. Additionally, regulatory compliance and adherence to increasing stringent safety standards can adversely affect a refinery’s bottom line. Decreased margin from increased competition is forcing refiners to evaluate means to run more profitably. Refineries have been implementing profit generating activities for years, but the key is implementation and sustainability of a full-scale optimization program.

THE INVENSYS SOLUTION:

Invensys provides several optimization solutions. Invensys has extended its best-in-class solutions under SimSci-Esscor for refinery optimization through integration of various individual products and applications designed to capture all areas of profit opportunity by providing the best optimization and regulatory compliance solutions for a refinery. These new solutions take SimSci-Esscor’s leadership in refining optimization to a higher level. The various solutions allow the refinery to choose the level of optimization that is appropriate for their current situation.

Off-sites:  Tank farms make up a large portion of a refining complex. Increased automation and operational performance reduces the cost of terminal operations, while at the same time improving safety compliance and business performance. Invensys Off-sites solutions have been in use in terminal and refinery sites globally for over 25 years, serving all of the major oil companies.

Process Optimization:  ROMeo is the standard for process optimization in refining and can be used for either performance monitoring or process optimization.  During performance monitoring, ROMeo trends the performance of equipment to identify problems and pinpoint equipment operational issues. An example would be the performance monitoring of a crude pre-heat train to monitor exchanger fouling and running case-studies to view which heat exchanger would impact profitability the most when cleaned.   During process optimization, ROMeo automatically imports process data, reconciles that data, and optimizes the process within a set of operational bounds. One example would be to minimize the usage of hydrogen when upgrading heavier crude oil. In this example, ROMeo would be used to monitor hydrogen usage and minimize its consumption by altering the flow and conditions (temperature and pressure) of the various feedstocks.

Integrating ROMeo with Planning, Scheduling and Off-sites:  Refiners can now leverage blend operations and optimization practices to improve efficiency and profitability across the entire refinery. Crude blend data available from off-sites blending operations can be used as input to process optimization software. Product properties that are calculated by process optimization software can then be used in off-sites product blending operations.

Visualization:  Wonderware Intelligence provides the visualization technology that allows operators key performance indicator (KPI) visibility and monitoring through interactive dashboards in near real-time.  This provides key information in desired context across Invensys and non-Invensys sources of operations data to achieve on the spot operational decision-making.

Automation:  ArchestrA Workflow is powerful business process management software, a) helping enforce consistent policy and procedural execution from plant automation to Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), b) enabling a reduction in process and response latency c) and providing the open framework to support the necessary governance, including notifications, escalations and approvals of all stakeholders in the collaboration environment.  Mobile Solutions, from Wonderware IntelaTrac, enable workflow, data collection and general task management for plant operations, maintenance management, production tracking and compliance applications. Mobile Solutions result in improved operational discipline and reliability, increased workforce productivity, and enhanced safety and compliance.   Condition Manager, from Avantis, is tied to asset health, reliability and/or availability.  Predicting asset failures before they occur on critical refinery equipment can result in significant costs savings. Condition Manager collects data from any plant floor system which is OPC-compliant, analyzes that data, then acts upon it – letting operators know of any problematic conditions early enough to take corrective action before they escalate into serious upsets or, worse yet, unplanned shutdowns.

Advanced Process Control: While ROMeo is able to optimize operations once they have achieved steady-state, Connoisseur, the APC solution from SimSci-Esscor, offers optimization within a smaller time-frame. APC can help control a process to desired set-points to minimize fluctuation in the controllers and optimize output.

ACA.HF: The ACA.HF is the new standard in safety, simplicity, reliability, and accuracy for analysis of HF alkylation process performance. ACA.HF is a way to safely and simply obtain online measurement of %HF, %Water and %ASO in HF alkylation. This solution is an affordable alternative to FTNIR with highly reliable and repeatable accuracy. In fact, ACA.HF exceeds the precision of HF analysis with FTNIR. ACA.HF is a multivariable analyzer based on the application of proven Foxboro measurement technologies that are long-established in online analysis of process streams. The fact that measurements can be made in real-time with no safety risk allows refineries to enjoy the results without the risk of an accident or plant downtime.

Are you running at peak performance? What do you need help with? Let us know.

Read More

How are you dealing with inexperienced operators?

Refineries run the risk of not operating plants safely and profitably due to the aging workforce and young, inexperienced operators. As refineries increasingly rely on inexperienced operators, their safety risk increases.  Therefore, it is imperative that refineries take an active role in enabling operators to improve their skills, capabilities and performance through training and a variety of other tools that will help mold their behavior to quickly and correctly respond to plant disturbances and thereby ensure that every situation is adequately dealt with.

THE INVENSYS SOLUTION:

Invensys provides a comprehensive set of solutions to enable operators to run the plant safely and profitably.

Under SimSci-Esscor, Operator Training Simulators (OTS) allow operators to train on a computer in an identical environment to the control room. The DYNSIM model that controls the plant response behaves in the same manner as the actual plant, which provides trainees with an accurate means to train and develop experience so that when they do work with the real plant they can react appropriately.  A complimentary training solution, EYESIM, takes an OTS to the next level, by providing a virtual environment based on the actual plant that allows the field operators and maintenance personnel to train in a virtual reality environment to further gain valuable experience in a lifelike environment.

Did you get a chance to check out the free webinar this past Tuesday?
fI not, there will be another one in December - It was really interesting.

What are you doing to make sure your operators are trained appropriately? Please let me know.

Read More

Heavy Feedstock

Existing refineries were designed to use lighter crudes.  Increasingly heavy feedstock forces refiners to deal with operational issues that reduce performance and profitability, increase safety risks, and require new equipment to be designed or a change in operating conditions to effectively process these heavy crudes in a safe and profitable manner.  In order to process heavy crudes effectively, refiners need to know exactly how to characterize the crude, which is where SimSci-Esscor’s propriety technology for heavy oils becomes important.

THE INVENSYS SOLUTION:

SimSci-Esscor provides innovative and technologically superior Heavy Oils modeling methods that more accurately model heavier feedstock so that refiners can adapt their processes accordingly – whether by designing new equipment or processes, or altering current operating conditions.  Ranging from liquid viscosity prediction and liquid thermal conductivity to contaminant solubility prediction, these proprietary methods exceed the accuracy of any other methods currently on the market. This proprietary heavy oils technology is built into SIM4ME Thermo which allows the heavy oils methods to be used in all of our products – making it easy to use the technology in various parts of the plant lifecycle.

Read More

SimSci-Esscor Overview

Refineries are finding it increasingly difficult to compete in today’s global economy, whether it is due to increasingly heavy feedstock, inexperienced operators, or sub-optimal operating conditions. SimSci-Esscor understands these difficulties, and offers solutions to address each problem. Customers may then determine which offered solutions best fit their situation.

Invensys Operations Management provides a unique and innovative set of software, services and solutions aimed at addressing emerging industry needs and operational issues, and are designed to drive optimal performance within a refinery.  The solutions for refinery-wide modeling are comprehensive and complete, backed by an expert global delivery services organization

If you are one of the few refining companies not using SimSci-Esscor products, now is the time to optimize your company’s refinery performance.

Read More