Self-service industrial analytics – Five reasons to choose TrendMiner in 2022
Self-service industrial analytics delivers value in a lot of different areas. Here are the top reasons customers gave for selecting our software this year, and why you may want to reconsider your analytics strategy.
TrendMiner industrial analytics software is extremely versatile and can be used for batch, grade, or continuous production. Unlike big data modeling projects, which address a single issue, self-service solutions are used by engineers day-to-day. These help them to uncover thousands of small to mid-size opportunities for optimization, all of which contribute to increasing overall profitability.
But when it comes to delivering value, it’s the big impact of analytics that convince companies to adopt new technologies. Here are the top reasons customers gave for choosing TrendMiner, and why leading companies are rolling our software out to more and more sites…
1 – Solve previously unsolvable issues
Sitech is an organization that provides services and solutions to chemical organizations, including maintenance, technological improvements, and Advanced Process Control. To solve the toughest cases, they use TrendMiner industrial analytics to contextualize asset performance with process data.
For example:
After washing out a chemical, peaks caused overly high temperatures to the downstream process – but the cause of this behavior could not be found. Using TrendMiner industrial analytics, Sitech was able to easily identify a new influencing process variable that had been previously hidden. This variable was identified as the root cause of the chemical peak. Solving this issue increased stable operation, decreased steam consumption and increased production, directly contributing to profitability.
“Getting the leads to solve a use case through influence factors in the traditional way was a tough task. With TrendMiner’s powerful influence factors capabilities we solved a chemical wash-out problem in only 2 hours, saving over €1.8 million per year.”
2 – Enhance reliability, quality, and profitability
Ashland is a $5 billion specialty chemical provider. To support the transition of their Belgian plant to manufacture pharmaceutical-grade ingredients in a GMP production environment, Ashland used TrendMiner to assure reliability, quality and GMP compliance.
For example:
The temperature of a distillation tower kept rising and causing a trip. With TrendMiner, Ashland was able to diagnose that the root cause of the temperature spike was a measurement failure that triggered manual control. This caused the temperature of the tower to rise until it tripped.
Ashland isolated this specific event as a pattern within TrendMiner and used it to find similar occurrences in the past. These historical events were compiled to create a graphical fingerprint that could be used for monitoring. With monitoring in place, Ashland engineers now receive early notifications of deviations in process behavior and have time to prevent a trip occurring before it happens, increasing the plant’s on-target production.
“We wouldn’t be where we are today in over-achieving our goals without TrendMiner. The on-target production of our GMP products increased from 70% to >95%!”
3 – Reduce energy consumption
Covestro is a leading chemical company that produces polyurethanes, polycarbonates, and specialty chemicals. To improve control and gain insights into energy consumption at their Antwerp plant, Covestro uses TrendMiner industrial analytics in combination with process data captured in OSIsoft PI.
For example:
In order to verify positive progress in energy efficiency improvement projects, Covestro previously used Excel to monitor energy consumption year on year, but managing big process data in spreadsheets made this a cumbersome exercise. With TrendMiner, Covestro was able to visualize energy usage per year in layers and compare time periods within the analytics software.
By combining process data captured in OSIsoft PI with the pattern recognition of TrendMiner, Covestro is now able to quickly and easily monitor and track their energy consumption.
“I believe that process data is one of the most important assets we have… Process data tells stories – all you need to do is capture them.”
4 – Inform decision-making
Arlanxeo is a world-leading chemical company that manufactures synthetic high-performance rubber. In order to gain process insights and inform decision-making, Arlanxeo uses TrendMiner industrial analytics to leverage digitalization at the operational level.
For example:
Arlanxeo needed to investigate the impact of using a new raw material from a different supplier on reactor run time and quality indicators. It had been previously considered unlikely that using the new material would be feasible within the production process.
With TrendMiner, Arlanxeo was able to identify the parameters that would need adjusting in order to use the alternate material. Deeper insight into the process enabled Arlanxeo to make an informed decision about the material they were analyzing. It also gave them more freedom in selecting future suppliers, and responding to changes in raw material prices.
“If you lose time, this will cost you production volume and additional time to handle the problem. Whenever we can solve a problem in less time, this is a huge benefit.”
5 – Improve overall equipment effectiveness
Total is one of the world’s ten largest integrated producers. Total Refining & Chemicals (R&C) operations transform crude oil and natural gas into finished products or intermediates, which are then used to manufacture chemicals. Total R&C uses TrendMiner industrial analytics to improve the effectiveness of its equipment and contribute to data-driven digital transformation.
For example:
In order to optimize plant production, Total needs to define normal operating windows. With TrendMiner, Total can use historical data to define operating windows and fingerprint the pattern. This pattern can then be used for real-time monitoring, easy comparison of batch production for different grades, and to trigger pre-maintenance notifications.
The potential to increase productivity and plant availability based on easy data exploration and analytics is so great that Total decided in 2017 to roll TrendMiner out globally across their R&C segment.
“It is a tremendous time saving thanks to trend search and filtering capabilities. TrendMiner is built by chemical engineers who have been in the field and know exactly which kind of analyses must be dealt with on a daily basis.”
Learn more about Total and TrendMiner | TrendMiner and Total press release
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