Situation
For some industrial processes, side products or waste streams need to be released from the plant to prevent pressure buildup. These gases cannot be emitted in their original forms into the atmosphere because they can be toxic and harmful to the environment. Therefore, flares are installed to burn the gases to convert them into water and carbon dioxide. However, sometimes problems will occur in the process that will cause unwanted spikes in the flare.
Solution
Process experts used TrendMiner to solve this issue. It has the functionality to perform descriptive analytics to find out if this was the first spike or if it had happened in the past. Additionally, TrendMiner’s Recommendation Engine recommended all the potential tags that were related to the issue and helped the plant’s team find the potential correlations which they might not have found otherwise.
Approach
- The process experts loaded the relevant tags to look at the data surrounding the flare spike. These results were then overlayed in preparation for using TrendMiner’s similarity search function.
- The team used TrendMiner’s Similarity Search functionality to check for past events which helped in identifying the root cause of the problem.
- Next, they used the Recommendation Engine to find potential correlated tags to expose the root cause. The problem was subsequently corrected, and measures were set in place to prevent it from happening again.
Results
- Through easy data comparison, the process experts found instances of similar past behavior.
- Using TrendMiner’s Recommendation Engine, the process experts found the root cause of the problem which was a malfunctioning valve. Maintence was informed to resolve the issue.
- A monitor was set to warn the operation team of a potential issue which would give them time to take corective measure.
- By resolving the unwanted flare spike, the environmental burden and the associated chemical waste were decreased.
Blog Posts
Achieve Better Operational Storytelling with a Connected Factory8 April 2024 - 15:44- New Event Analytics Capabilities, Custom Calculations, and Better Operational Agility – Welcome to TrendMiner 2024.R11 April 2024 - 17:43
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