OSIsoft, a global leader in operational intelligence, announced a major enhancement to its flagship product, the PI Server, that will allow predictive data to be stored natively and exposed throughout the PI System. The PI System is now able to capture, analyze and share predicted data from 3rd party advanced analytics and machine learning tools throughout the entire organization. This capability enables people to see predictions in real-time, take action to prevent events before they happen and improve operations performance based on insights into the future.

The PI System is an open data infrastructure that enables global enterprises to gather streaming real-time sensor data from over 450 different data sources, efficiently store, contextualize, process, share, visualize and analyze data. It eliminates silos of information and becomes a unifying source of truth for data-driven decisions across industrial operations. With the release of PI Server 2015, these capabilities have been extended to include data with future time-stamps, allowing for a common view of past, present and future data.

The enhanced insights allow for improved operational intelligence through predictive intelligence. The new capabilities allow customers to easily and natively view forecasts of market and operational demands, set and track production targets, and plan for contingencies and emergencies. In addition, comparing predictions to actuals over time enables a better understanding of process behavior prior to making process modifications.

According to Janice Abel, Principal Consultant at ARC Advisory Group, “Solutions such as OSIsoft’s PI System that can help industrial companies integrate analytics and machine learning to predict future behavior can provide considerable business value. Predicting the future can result in benefits that include increases in availability, productivity, and profits.”

“Today the PI System is deployed at over 15,000 sites in 125 countries, delivering nearly 1 billion streams of historical and real-time data to industrial operations,” said Martin Otterson, Senior Vice President of Sales, Marketing and Industry at OSIsoft. “This new ability to combine real-time and future data adds a whole new dimension to operational intelligence. Now users can bring tomorrow’s data into today’s decisions.”

Rotork CMA electric control valve actuators have delivered an efficient and reliable process control solution and eliminated venting and greenhouse gas emissions in compliance with new environmental protection legislation at remotely sited shale gas installations in the USA.

Traditionally, spring diaphragm actuators powered by the produced gas have been used, but recent EPA (US Government Environmental Protection Agency) mandates now limit this process to lower fugitive emissions caused by bleed gas. A shale gas company in Louisiana was therefore looking for an affordable and efficient low power solution that could be run by solar panels to replace existing actuation equipment and control a variety of fluids at line pressures up to 413 bar (6000 psig).

Most shale wells and flow lines are unmanned and located in remote areas that are difficult and expensive to monitor. Skilled technicians must check data and perform manual shutdowns, increasing costs for the time to travel to site, identifying the problem and stopping the flow, which is not cost-effective or practical. Actuators provide an ideal solution to automate valves at the remote wells.

The key objective was to provide an efficient and reliable process control actuator which could be retrofitted on installed valves to reduce costs and downtime. Rotork’s local agent Setpoint Integrated Solutions engineered an interface to enable CML-250 actuators to be easily fitted to installed valves and improve the level of control, without venting gas and with the low power demand required for solar powered operation.

Designed for quarter-turn, multi-turn and linear valve operation, robust Rotork CMA actuators perform numerous process control valve, choke valve, metering pump and damper applications demanding precise position control and continuous modulation. Single-phase or DC electrical power is all that is required for simplified installation and control valve actuation. Explosionproof certification to international standards is available for hazardous area applications. Recent developments enable the CMA to be specified with increased functionality encompassing local controls, LCD positional display and programmable fail-to-position performance.

Emerson Process Management’s Micro Motion Coriolis and Rosemount 8800 Vortex Flowmeters have been certified to the ASME B31.1 Power Piping design standards, in addition to the existing B31.3 Process Piping design standard.

“We are committed to serving the power industry and are excited to announce compliance to B31.1 Power Piping design standards,” said Andy Dudiak, president of Micro Motion at Emerson Process Management. “Micro Motion Coriolis and Rosemount vortex meters bring accurate, reliable measurement to a wide range of applications, helping electricity generators gain better insight into their processes for improved operations.”

B31.1 Power Piping design standard certification applies to all areas of the Power Plant except for Boiler External Piping (BEP), and is a basic design requirement for products sold into the Power Industry. B31.1 Code Stamp certification applies to the BEP area of the plant.

Compliance with B31.1 Power Piping design standard is offered on several of the Micro Motion Coriolis Meters – including ELITE®, F-series and R-series meters.  Rosemount 8800 vortex products that meet B31.1 design standards and Code Stamp certification include all carbon steel flanged, reducer and dual vortex meters with flange ratings up to and including ASME Class 1500 (PN 160) on 1-inch (DN25) through 8-inch (DN200) meter body sizes and ASME Class 600 (PN100) on 10-inch (DN250) and 12-inch (DN300) meter body sizes.

Power management company Eaton has recently announced the release of the Power Xpert® gateway (PXG) 900, an electrical system communications device designed to deliver easy, remote access to power system parameters and alarms through a Web browser. Engineered to enhance energy performance in commercial, institutional and industrial facilities, the compact solution allows for access to real-time and historical energy and power data from electrical equipment. Facility and energy management personnel can use this in-depth data to simplify decisions targeting enhanced electrical reliability, efficiency and safety.

“The new PXG 900 is equipped with a more powerful, yet simplified, user interface to provide efficient, information-rich oversight of energy and power systems,” said Rick Schear, product manager at Eaton. “The new model is a single solution capable of fulfilling most electrical communications needs that can be quickly deployed in facilities of all sizes to help improve electrical system performance.”

The flexible and expandable PXG 900 can be used in a small system consisting of a single piece of equipment or scaled up for multiple pieces of equipment or systems. The gateway may be installed in electrical assemblies or systems to acquire and consolidate data from components such as trip units, meters, relays, drives, and input/output (I/O) devices. The gateway can also be quickly deployed as a data aggregation and notification solution for switchgear, switchboards, panelboards, transfer switches and motor control centers.

Clear, concise Web pages are designed to offer instant and remote access to device status, energy and power information such as current, voltage, power, energy, frequency, power factor, and harmonic distortion through a system summary status pane or individual device detail pages. The online management portal also allows users to proactively set alarm notifications that warn of underperforming equipment and conditions threatening uptime.

For in-depth data analysis, users can easily generate and export activity logs based on alarm history or historical device data in table, graph or chart format. Additionally, users can easily create, view and update a one-line electrical representation of their electrical system with animations and color-coding that indicates device status.

Further, the PXG 900 can be paired with Eaton’s Power Xpert Insight® software to view multiple gateways alongside other power systems equipment while enabling more extensive power and energy monitoring and notification features. The gateway can also be seamlessly integrated with a wide variety of building management and monitoring systems for unified facility monitoring and management.

To help minimize selection, installation and configuration time and labor, the new model is engineered with intuitive configuration menus and standardized device support. Eaton’s PXG 900 also integrates with existing Ethernet network infrastructure and supports common industrial protocols including INCOM and Modbus® RTU.

Product Webpage