ABB Ability Offers Granular Insight Into Oil, Gas & Chemical Processes

Phil Black - PII Editor 06/09/2017

132 3 minutes read

ABB Ability Offers Granular Insight Into Oil, Gas & Chemical Processes

Listen to this article

Using its digital backbone, ABB Ability, the company is launching an enterprise-wide deep dive into a facilities data, presenting a common view of analytics available to CEO-level executives through to maintenance teams on production sites.
For the first time, companies in the oil, gas and chemicals sector can deep dive into their data, regardless of which vendor’s control system is used, with business intelligence and data analytics across areas presented within a single window.

This allows more joined-up, and thus more effective, decision-making through improved, shared insights into company data, than previously possible.

And, using this common window, each user – whether maintenance manager or headquarters executive – is able to configure the view and have performance indicators and measures presented using the latest visual analysis tools.

“With ABB Ability Enterprise Analytics, insights are combined into a single dashboard that, for the first time, transforms data into easily actionable information for executives, plant, process and maintenance managers across the entire oil, gas and chemicals (OGC) sector,” explains ABB’s Håvard Devold.

“The financial upside of this to operators is significant as up to 30 percent savings in capital and operating expenditures are achievable.”

OGC industries have reams of data in many systems, most of which is essential to optimise performance. The ability to search, find, view and analyse this information and present it in different contexts and timeframes is the key to turning ‘dumb data’ into actionable insight for improved decision-making in a digital world.

Presenting such diverse information to the right job function in the right manner, is due to ABB’s intellectual knowledge of numerous oil, gas and chemical processes together with its comprehensive portfolio that extends not only across automation, electrical and instrumentation but also telecommunications.

Until now, no supplier has been able to offer analytical insights across multiple systems into a single dashboard view for all users. Previously, companies have only been able to monitor the condition of a specific device, process or plant area or tackle individual alarms as they occurred. While helpful, standalone or isolated solutions increase the risk of error, deliver sub-optimal solutions and result in higher operating costs.

Furthermore, ABB is able to present and integrate data from any third party system, while ensuring that the intellectual property of that data remains in the ownership of the customer.

“We believe that customers own their data, and they should know what ABB will be doing with it. Customers also need to provide consent before we share any of their data. We respect the intellectual property of our customers. We don’t ask customers of ABB Ability solutions to cede their IP rights to us when they use our digital solutions,” explains Devold.

“Our domain expertise and extensive portfolio of products and systems puts us in a position that no other supplier can offer the oil, gas and chemicals sector. Our experience across all operational dimensions has enabled us to create a ‘single pane of glass’ that gives quick and easy visibility at a device, process, plant and enterprise level, depending on who needs the specific information.”

Devold continues: “According the American mathematician, John Tukey, ‘the greatest value of a picture is when it forces us to notice what we never expected to see’. That neatly encapsulates the power of our ABB Ability Enterprise Analytics . You can better consume business intelligence and data analytics and discover insights you never previously expected to see. This delivers outcomes that enhance customer relationships, increase competitiveness and support enterprise growth.”

Supporting the single dashboard view are ABB’s Collaborative Operations Centres, which digitally connect the company’s customers with ABB’s experts worldwide. These centres let ABB see all customer sites, along with a case management system that identifies critical assets in need of urgent attention.

Meanwhile, at a customer’s own operations center, they have the same digitally connected information that covers every level from: level 4 – enterprise overview targeting executives, level 3 – plant managers, level 2 – process managers and level 1 – device-level asset issue review.

By tapping into ABB’s domain knowledge and experts through the Collaborative Operations Centres, customers can identify the root cause of problems extremely efficiently.

Not only that, at headquarters, executives can easily access plant performance at the enterprise level to assess safety, efficiency and production issues.

Driving demand for this dashboard are six challenges ABB has identified from decades of customer feedback:

Safety and alarm management
Power management and electrification
Plant performance solutions and services
Asset management and condition monitoring
Smart wells flow assurance and production optimisation
Digital projects execution

This analytics capability now gives oil, gas and chemical companies the kind of joined-up view of operations that will transform their results by making it easier for the right information to be acted upon by the right people at the right time – all in a single view.