Canadian wireless telecommunications providers are phasing out their 3G (HSPA) service which impacts all 3G-only device connectivity, including Smart-Aleks. As 3G networks are turned down, Smart-Aleks will permanently lose connectivity without a technology upgrade of the cellular modem hardware and Smart-Alek firmware.

POTENTIAL SAFETY RISK

Smart-Aleks are CSA certified to Class I, Division 1, Groups C and D, and Class I, Zone 0, AEx ia [ia] IIB T3. To maintain this CSA Mark, a CSA design assessment must be completed whenever a key Smart-Alek component is changed, including the cellular modem. Failing to complete the required CSA assessment voids the CSA Mark, resulting in potential safety and/or liability issues.

There is no doubt that you already have some very talented people working in your organization. They've been working hard to help increase production and profits in your operation, and now it's time to help them. Added stress from fewer skilled workers in the workforce can escalate to burn out, safety risks, and lost production that can all quickly add up to lost time, lost profits and serious risk factors to people everywhere.

Upskill your people (help people increase their skills) and optimize their own performance with a few easy to implement ideas that can take your operations to the next level of performance in a very short amount of time - all while increasing your people's abilities, confidence and produce positive short and long term outcomes.

Most of us have experienced significant changes throughout our careers, and life. Some of those changes have certainly gone smoother and had significantly better outcomes than others - the single constant about life in our world today is change itself. Which makes it crucial to understand all the pieces that are part of any change to have well aligned to make any change a great experience that provides positive outcomes and enable you, and your organization to thrive.

Every market heat these days is hot with pressure. We hear the same thing from every direction - Successful production needs technology that can provide speed and stronger efficiencies that deliver on-going return - this is a must have, and no longer just a 'nicety'. These same demands are only growing every day for most industries to remain producing positive outcomes and hitting their always increasing targets and goals.

It's no wonder; with a lack of skilled labor, higher costs of everything, and constant pressures from every angle that are taking on a new level of intensity - it's more important now than ever before that you get it right from the start; and quickly. That said; we also hear it can be a daunting task and super confusing to figure out what technology and operational changes will actually provide results today, and tomorrow with growing return for sustainability and continued production gains. It can quickly escalate into the most advanced game of chess you've ever played.

You may have oil and gas production sites scattered from the mountains to the prairies, to the oceans and offshore in the beautiful, but super remote seas around the globe. Collecting and consolidating that remotely located data is one thing—pushing it back out to your varied end-users in an actionable and analyzed format may be a whole, more complicated other story.

We've all heard someone, at some point tell us 'it's easier to keep a current customer happy than it is to find a new customer.' There is giant truth to this statement. You certainly want your customers to be with you for years and years - you've built relationships with them, know their kids names, gone above and beyond to get their challenges solved, have had many laughs with them, and helped them in every possible way you are able.

But, then one day; Johnny Slick walks through the door with a new start-up company that is offering a much lower price, tons of empty and unproven promises, and loads of fluffy-meaningless words of what the new Johnny Slick product offers that yours may not; and just as fast as a movie theater clearing out when someone screams 'fire' -  your long-standing customer is gone.

Customer loyalty is everything to your ultimate OEM business sustainability and success. Their loyalty can literally make or break your entire business. But how to attract and retain your end customers isn't always as easy, or something you feel like you have control over because in the market today competition is tough, options are plenty, and people simply expect more from your business than ever before.

Imagine you were a spy... Not the creepy kind of spy, but you know the James Bond type of spy; the super-slick, ultra-cool, well-spoken, always well-dressed and never gets caught kind of spy. I can imagine if offshore oil and gas production had a spy it would look and act like Emerson's DeltaV™ SaaS SCADA. Minus of course all the fast cars, fancy dates and danger. But we can get you all the detailed information of what exactly is happening far away - without disrupting what's actually going on; so it's spy-like, without all the showbiz-glitz, creepiness, or glam price-tags.

Well that was fast!

2023 certainly flew by and while we've all been busy helping our customers and end users become more productive, profitable and sustainable our IIoT platform developers have been making important updates to make it run better, faster and easier to use all while making DeltaV SaaS SCADA even more secure with a total of 26 updates in 2023.

And if that wasn't enough we're proud that we now have over 3.1 million sensor points worldwide, 140 million daily readings and over 11,000 downloads of our mobile app so all of our end Users can securely keep going and enter, monitor and manage their production from anywhere at anytime.

Another year of impactful cloud-native IIoT platform updates - Here are our favorites we wanted to share with you.

Maybe your company is still hesitating on adding automation for remote monitoring and diagnostics for your onshore or offshore oil and gas production. 

I get it, change can be a giant challenge and going from paper reports and driving to wellsite locations may seem like lightyears from how you do things today. But making simple, step by step tech changes can quickly pay off in multiples. In truth, the more assets you have, and the more distant they are, the faster a cloud-native SCADA system will pay off and create wild returns.

If your production machines could talk, what would they tell you? Would they be annoying and over-dramatic with their problems, or would they be pretty chill, and just tell us what we need to know. I don't think anyone needs or wants drama from their production machines (or anyone else for that matter). I think a simple "compressor unit 3 in location10, needs bearing size X replaced within the next two days" would be good. No chit-chat about your vacation plans or how your BBQ turned out last weekend; none of that; just straight to the point and clearly tell us what they need and when they need it by would be great.

You and your amazing employees have worked hard to build your OEM business, and it shows in your long-term success and happy end customers. Now that you have created processes that are tried and true to your business model and fully support your company sustainability, you may be thinking it's a good time to think about how you can take it all to the next level through building out stronger efficiencies and better work-flows that will simplify day-to-day operations and also present your people with the right data they need to make better, faster decisions while being much more focused on what really matters (your end customers).

You and your dedicated staff have all worked very hard to get your production levels to exactly where you want them to be and that's not an easy task, and certainly not an easy one to keep rolling without loads of serious challenges. Sure, every company has obstacles and set-backs here and there; but when it comes to production; one tiny hiccup can result in several factors of safety, profitability and even your organizations long-standing sustainability.

It's no secret that production downtime can be significant and negatively impact your operations very quickly.

These challenges happen with the blink of an eye - and cause long-standing downtime, lost profits and serious safety impacts. Here are five keys to prevent production downtime to help you remain up and running while keeping your people safer, profit margins up and maintaining your operations for a life-time of strong returns for generations.

When you were a child you were probably encouraged to share things like your toys, games, or your birthday cake - but imagine if you weren't taught to share at all; you would just eat the entire birthday cake yourself - Yikes!

That same child version of you was also hopefully taught what 'not' to share - important things like your parent's bank account pin, or your mom's email password.

When you think about how your operational data should (or should not) be shared with other applications to make your overall tech stack work to its fullest potential for your company; and just how easy it is (or isn't) to share the right data to the correct applications you quickly realize how important data sharing is and the potential impact it can have on your business outcomes.

We've all been there - called a support number for a product or service and got to the point where you know for a fact your blood pressure is at a boiling point because not only did the person not answer your question with anything but what was on their 'script' in front of them, but made YOU jump through all their hoops before giving you that scripted, and completely useless response. To say this is 'infuriating' is a giant understatement, and makes you lose faith in all humanity because it seems no one can think for themselves or get the slightest bit creative on what might help you in your time of need.

Thankfully, some people, and companies actually get what the word 'support' means and take the right steps to enable their people to understand what their products can 'do'. Those same, very carefully chosen people that are placed in support roles hold a strong desire to help their customers and are willing to be relentless in how they discover ways to help solve problems. Those rare people are the ones that aren't afraid to put ideas into action and are even exceptionally polite about it through the process. Imagine that - Faith in humanity saved in a single, easy, helpful, dare I even say enjoyable phone call.

Many people enjoy knowing every little detail about something, even if it doesn't really correlate directly to them. All the power to them! Personally, I like people to get right to the point; tell me what I need to know - Don't dance around what you're trying to say, or give me so much info it makes my head spin.

Please, please, please just be clear and concise.

I'm pretty sure companies and their staff also want their data straightforward and easy to understand. Not such a large amount of data that drowns them with every tiny detail that isn't relevant, or actionable. Sometimes too much data can become pretty much useless because it would take you hours to filter through it all to find the data you actually do need.

When someone mentions something like 'cloud-native IIoT' do your teeth start to clench in stress and you immediately begin to search for your antacids to ward off the quickly approaching heartburn that comes with the topic? I hear you, understand your anxiety and totally feel your pain because I've been there many times before.

That's until I started thinking of IIoT (Industrial Internet of Things) differently; what it really 'means' to us, the humans of the world. How it can actually help makes our lives better in several ways; like increasing the safety of many very dangerous situations, how it can even prevent terrible problems before they even happen and how it can make companies be more profitable so more people keep their jobs and prices don't over-inflate for the end buyers.

Our cloud-native software as a service (SaaS) and IIoT platform enables operators to improve processes, enhance investments and maximize returns on their assets as they lean into an autonomous operation. A recent example of this includes how our experts have developed one solution to assist your operations in optimizing rod pumps using AI (artificial intelligence): Emerson's DeltaV™ SaaS SCADA with Autonomous Rod Pump.

I think it's safe to safe that many of us have experienced different times in our lives that we knew we didn't have all the information; times when we simply knew there was more to the story, or something missing that we should know in order to make an informed decision. Some people call it intuition, others say it's a 'hunch' - call it whatever you like, but either way having that feeling is certainly frustrating at best; potentially even life-threatening at worst.

When it comes to your operations, I hope you don't get that feeling very often - But if you do then we can help.

Municipal gas distribution systems require a delicate balance—keep the natural gas flowing in just the right amounts. If there’s too little, or none, people don’t get something the really need. The heater won’t run, they can't cook, the clothes dryer won't work; you know the consequences.

But too much is also a problem, one which can have massively dangerous consequences—especially if it’s natural gas! But there are thousands of people turning natural gas on and off across, in larger cities, dozens of square miles. Knowing how to manage pressures and flow rates is critical to people. Or when there is an over-pressure situation, being aware of it, and having the ability to quickly detect it and fix it before it gets out of hand can be life-saving.

The stories of budget struggles for municipal water systems seem to grow every week. Overwhelming residential growth on one side, countered by budget-constrained neglect of systems on the other side plague many small to medium sized towns. One way to maximize the budgets these communities do have is through efficient remote monitoring and alarming systems that are IIoT based and cloud-native, but what does that really mean to the operation?

The cost of distractions in life is high. What can often seem like a minor distraction can have a giant impact on life; a distracted drive to work could cause a crash, distracted while reading email could cause you to miss an important request from the boss, or being distracted while spending time with family could result in a loved one that doesn’t feel heard anymore, or think you care.

When it comes to your operations distractions can cause just as much havoc and loss. Distractions cause the risk of safety of people; and the environments around you, and the health of the bottom line. Those distractions could be losing your organization hundreds of thousands of dollars. Without your eye on the prize you could be risking the sustainability of your organization; here today - gone tomorrow happens all too often these days.

While most oil and gas production is somewhat remote from the office, offshore sites are much more distant. Instead of driving a hundred miles or so in a company truck, your management and production staff are helicoptering across gulfs, seas and oceans to stay at least a couple of days before flying back—at great expense, and safety risk.

There are indeed times when that has to happen. But those times can stay few and far between with reliable, fast, cloud-native production data provided by Emerson's DeltaV SaaS SCADA that's complete with a mobile app.

"There is no life without water."  - Albert Szent-Gyorgyi, Nobel Prize-winning biochemist

Municipal water utilities have one of the most important and unappreciated tasks in civilization. They bring water to citizens located far from rivers or streams; located instead in apartment buildings, houses and businesses along city streets and highways.

There is indeed, “no life without water.” But to be useful, that water has to be stored, distributed when needed, and contained. For most organizations today, whether commercial or municipal, there is no industrial life without data. But that data must be available, understandable and actionable. It’s amazing to learn that more than 50% of businesses (and this could include municipalities as well) have more data than they have the data analytics capacity to handle or analyze effectively.

When you’re watching a great movie it absorbs you into the story, the action and the characters. It's probably not a great movie if you find yourself thinking about other things like; “How did they get that camera angle?” Or “These are really strange sound effects" or even worse "Did I put the laundry in the dryer?" 

There’s a strong correlation between the movie production mechanics and your operations. On your computer or smart device, you want just to see the data from local and remote locations—production, measurements, down time, machine health, maintenance schedules, utility costs, alarms, or whatever, as long as it's data you can action upon to help you increase your production, safety, profits or sustainability. You don’t want to fumble around with reporting, why you’re not getting data from the sensors in the compressor, or what happened to last month’s figures. If your current system causes you to do that, you’re ready for a change.

Keeping your operations continuously running smoothly is no small task; but especially if it involves remotely located assets that are hundreds, even thousands of miles from where you work on a daily basis. You don't have the same amount of talented skilled people to be sending them all over the countryside for no good reason anymore. You need to know exactly what's going on, and where before you can even think about scheduling one of your valuable resources to hit the road, jump on a flight or work all that overtime to get to the asset in need.

When the real estate market is booming, home buyers will fight for virtually any house that hits the market. It's nice for sellers while it's happening, but eventually, the buyers who chose the best location will hold the properties with the greatest value. Of course there is much more to factor into your decision before committing yourself to a purchase that large; you probably have poured over the area data to see what the crime rate is, how the schools are, what the resale market holds, how far it is to conveniences, how close the neighbors are (or are not), etc...

Predicting long-term market value of anything isn't easy, but there are some tell-tale things to look for before you sign the dotted line that can help give you insight into the long-range value. The most important is of course all that data you can find today, on just about anything!

Trust can be a giant deal-breaker for any relationship. It doesn't matter if it's who should watch your dog when you go on vacation, who you should marry, who babysits your kids, or who you should trust your company data with; it matters big time to you because it impacts you as a person. Broken trust can quickly turn any relationship into something completely unrecognizable in a heartbeat.

A giant part of building trust with anyone is 'seeing' who they really are after you've known them a long time. A very wise person once told me "When someone shows you who they are, believe them."

We totally understand that addressing who you should entrust your data, SaaS and SCADA system to can be a very difficult decision, and one that should not be taken lightly.

One of the most exciting uses for cloud software, IIoT and automaton technology has been in the mining industry. In recent years the health and safety numbers for mining have greatly improved—and so have costs and efficiencies—by handing machines the dirtiest and most energy-intensive jobs. Mining companies and human health factors have both benefitted greatly.

The challenge, however, is that the machines also have health requirements. With few humans around to watch and listen, how does a mining company keep those big machines getting ores—and profits- to the surface?

You've probably heard awesome stories of how truly great things can happen to people out of the blue; love when you least expect it, strangers paying for your coffee... The list goes on and on forever about how small, unexpected people and the actions they sometimes take can bring us light, love and unmeasurable positive impact to our lives.

Machines however, are not out to sweep us off our feet, cheer us up, or have any desire to pass along some sunny moments into our lives. No, they're famous for breaking down when we need them the most. Sometimes, it almost feels like maybe they even conspire together and to all have different (and very time consuming) breakdowns all within days, even hours of each other to cause total havoc on our work, and lives. The surprises machines can deliver don't exactly give anyone the warm fuzzies.

You may be frustrated with your company’s slow crawl instead of fast track into the digital age, and you've even tried a few pilot projects in a kind of siloed effort that never really provided you with any return. Maybe you tried some field automation but then didn't have a perfected way to get that data to everyone who could greatly benefit from it; so, it got you nowhere on your digital journey, and it didn't set you up to get budget approval for future projects you had in mind.

A McKinsey report says siloing; meaning doing a little automation here and a little there is a top frustration with forward-thinking executives. They’re looking to boost productivity in light of reduced workforces but need some help to get a unified effort.

You've probably encountered the pain of trying to set up something that you thought was going to be easy and only take a few minutes. It stated it was 'easy' to set up, and of course you're pretty bright so how hard could it really be? And then you open the box... You see more wires, parts, and pieces stuffed in there than SpaceX probably uses to build rockets.

Your heart sinks a bit, your blood pressure instantly rises, and you can feel your eyes trying to make sense of the clutter and not knowing what to focus on. Your brain tells you to quickly close that box, and run screaming from the room!

Our expert IIoT platform developers have had another productive year of making our SaaS suite, security and the platform it all lives on it's very best with impactful updates, patches, security changes and development. Here are a few of our favorite updates from 2022 - we hope you agree!

Compressed air is a key component of today’s factory production. Because massive, power-demanding compressors are required to keep this key resource flowing it is important for factories to carefully manage how they use it—and to prevent leaks that could waste significant amounts of power.

Take for example a plant that combines the stretch blow molding (SBM) process for making plastic bottles with bottling in a single location. This provides great efficiencies while demanding a lot of pneumatics, both for blowing/bottling and for operating valves and machinery.

Over the past few years there has been an increase for packaging manufacturing all over the globe; many of us now order food to be delivered that comes in a special container to keep it warm (or cold). We order all sorts of things from Amazon, Lazada, Alibaba, or Otto; but it all comes in a special package to help it arrive safely in one piece, and the list goes on and on and continues to grow in popularity everyday.

But where does all that packaging come from to get us our goods in great condition without them looking like they were dragged through the mud?

This is where Packaging manufacturers come into the light; they create all the awesome packaging to be sure we get our orders in perfect condition; no matter what it is, or how far it traveled to get to us. These are the companies that make other companies shine since there is few other disappointments as receiving damaged goods as the end user/buyer.

You may be someone who already is aware that your data is best available to your employees on the cloud to continue delivering stronger results. Everyone gets level-appropriate access during the day or at midnight, in the office or in Katmandu.

But with it that available, ‘How secure is it?’ you may want to know.

Instead of just saying, “Trust us,” we’ll share some of the extensive steps we take to make sure your data is very safe, both from intruders and from forces of nature. After all, we hold that data in trust for our customers and we don't take security lightly.

 

System-wide efficiency; instant response to incidents; boost public safety.

These are the top benefits to using DeltaV™ SaaS for municipal gas distribution systems. In medium to large cities these systems can involve thousands of miles of pipelines, dozens of pump stations and hundreds of valves and controls.

Monitoring pumps and pressures manually is almost impossible, the worst-case scenario being the 2018 Massachusetts line over-pressure incident that injured 22 people and drove hundreds from their homes. There the pressure sensors had been disconnected during a pipeline upgrade and control was lost.

I'm betting it's safe to say you've had enough of the endless stream of singular reports piling on your desk. With a single report from one end of the operation paper clipped to another report from the middle, you’re constantly sorting everything manually, or hand-entering it into several separate databases. Maybe some of your reports are from yesterday and others are from last week. Maybe the databases are scattered on computers or servers in several locations.

How can you make good (or any) business decisions or locate issues when everything is scattered, missing, in the wrong pile, stapled to the wrong report or accidentally tossed out?

Without a unified report you may not be able to see how a small issue in one area can lead to a big need down the line—until it’s too late. You need a single source for sensor data up and down the line, as it happens?

Unfortunately, data breach notifications are in the news cycle almost every day now and are fiercely impacting every industry. When it’s someone else’s company; you may have a moment of empathy for all they're about to go through as people, a company and financially—but it quickly becomes a major crisis when a security breach impacts your company, or you personally.

Purpose developed and built new features and tools bring a pile of benefits to customers utilizing Emerson's DeltaV™ SaaS SCADA. We offer faster, more immediate ways of getting you your actionable data while helping you reduce unnecessary costs. Our experts work to solve your problems by developing tools that give your company more control over your operational assets.

Recognizing the importance of time, we've introduced new tools to help your operations become much more accessible than ever.

Operational data can be very messy and often times lives in many different places: internal systems, spreadsheets, email messages, handwritten notes, even mental notes, and more. You need a way to manage all this information so it's available to you and your authorized users at any time for any reason.

By pooling all your operations data together into a cloud-based platform and utilizing cloud applications, you can simplify and cut down on the number of systems you need to support your operations. We've all heard the saying 'sometimes more is less' right? It totally proves true when it comes to your operational data; simplify where it's all combined and stored to get the most from it all.

You don't have to be a data analyst, automation expert, brain surgeon or even a rocket scientist to gain hassle-free access to your data analytics to increase your production, profits and sustainability. We've got the experts you need already in place and ready to roll up their sleeves and get to work for you today.

Our SaaS (Software as a Service) delivers the right analytics to all the right, authorized users to enable better business decisions across your organization. When you partner with Emerson we make sure you have a hassle-free experience, because we realize you have far more important tasks at hand than trying to juggle special projects along with your daily core focused activities.

Cyber security is a significant sustainability challenge for every industry today.

Security attacks come in many forms and almost every week we read about another company that has had data become compromised, either from ransomware in a corporation or banking data captured from a retailer. How do you defend against those kinds of attacks while giving your people easy, but secure access to the site or asset data they need in order to efficiently make the best business decisions?

Maybe you’re looking toward digital transformation but you’re reluctant to move past the old SCADA system on a server in the utility room. You have that one for data monitoring, a separate one for accounting, and another for remote well control.

You get different reports from every place, and your department heads waste hours and even days trying to sift through it all to add things up and try to make sense of the piles of numbers from every aspect of your organization.

Towns and cities everywhere are increasingly challenged with issues of replacing water pipes, pumps and other infrastructure—sometimes after a huge failure. If a pump station unexpectedly stops, hundreds or even thousands of citizens may be without water for an extended period of time. Or if the quality of the incoming water changes, improper treatment may be injected, creating a number of possible dangers for citizens. Water management challenges are vast and only continue to amplify.

More and more utilities are finding the benefit of managing these pump and treatment stations with scalable, cloud-based systems like Emerson’s DeltaV™ SaaS SCADA platform. Instead of the old, costly system of relying on drive-bys to check on pumps and facilities, our scalable, cloud platform can give managers peace of mind while reducing those costs all while keeping everyone's water safer.

Going digital doesn't have to be riddled with complexity or long drawn out time-frames. In fact, it can really be easy, painless and fast and yet still make a huge positive impact on your business.

To stay competitive your company must focus on implementing new digital technologies into your operations to deliver more value to your customers and enable staff to do their job better and with less available internal resources.

To build a digital ecosystem for all stakeholders inside and outside your company means executing digital change activities. Emerson’s DeltaV™ SaaS SCADA is a perfect partner on that journey. We serve various industries and can guide your Digital Transformation journey to your desired destination, and even autonomous operations.

Decisions, decisions... It's mind blowing when you think about how much time most of us spend on researching different decisions today; household purchasing decisions, cooking decisions, childcare decisions, car buying decisions, vacation destination decisions, even simple things like the best way to clean something decisions. Any decisions life throws our way today we grab our phone or run to the computer to look and see what the options are, best practice, best deal and then move forward.

 

Now, think of your employees who spend hours sorting, cleaning, detailing and organizing operational data from multiple databases, locations and spreadsheets to simplify data enough to make a least one informed business decision.

 

I just gave myself heartburn thinking about that.

 

How companies operate and use their data will significantly impact how successfully (or not) they run their operations. With Emerson's DeltaV™ SaaS SCADA, we simplify the connection between sensors to get you the data you need to make better business decisions to achieve better-performing assets, streamlined compliance, and optimized resources.

The Great Resignation is far too real for most energy production companies to keep up with; in the past couple of years many workers are leaving old jobs to find opportunities that are better aligned to their professional and personal values and goals that usually also come with bigger paychecks, more benefits and even larger promises of bright days ahead.

Some people have left the oil and gas production industry all together to take a new path that isn't as volatile or have joined organizations that don't trigger extended family meltdowns at holiday dinners because select narratives don't support oil and gas production.

These are the same types of pressures on people as they start their career that usually pushes them away from the energy sector all together into something 'safer' or what they have been told is more socially acceptable also add to the workforce shortage.

More aspects of oil and gas operations are joining the autonomous operations revolution with AI. Now the iconic rod pump is enabling significant improvements with its operations regarding efficiency, safety and production with autonomous actions in DeltaV SaaS SCADA.

The sun is actually rising on a new rod pump era with Emerson's DeltaV SaaS SCADA with Autonomous Rod Pump that is now changing the way producers and operations work each day for the better.

What was once endless trips to the well site with only two typical outcomes, both of which are a problem: It’s working fine, so no trip was needed; or it’s been down for two days and someone should’ve been out there to make repairs and restore production—or clean up a spill—hours, or days ago.

Digital transformation projects usually require many complex steps. Each of these steps requires a well thought out, budgeted, and highly detailed plan. Who provides that plan will be your companies key to successfully reaching that desired destination for your operations on your time-frame and your budget requirements.

The world moves pretty fast these days with all the constant change from every direction. To stay ahead of all the crazy it's important to consider all your options and then move quickly to implement your strategy into action.

It wasn't all that long ago many companies were faced with difficult decisions, and few of those difficult decisions are harder than layoffs. It's never an easy decision. But in a downturn, it’s a necessary evil to save the company as a whole—with great hope you can welcome those same talented people back when the inevitable upturn happens.

The hard truth is that before that upturn actually happens many of those talented people will have retired, switched career paths, started their own business or even traded their safety glasses in for sunglasses in a tropical paradise.

Companies can now measure almost every single aspect of business activity due to various analytic tools and management software. Often, they have advanced datasets to explore their performance because there are so many metrics to measure.

While navigating various datasets, anything outside the norm would be considered an anomaly. Different anomalies can have an enormous impact on business decisions, operational results, and management’s ability to respond rapidly and accurately.

More and more companies are looking to implement a cloud platform strategy and they are either starting at zero or extending what they already have in place. In both cases, they're looking for answers to many questions when we begin most conversations, including:

How fast can I install cloud software?

Do I have to use a set system, or can I choose what I need?

Can you integrate with my existing SCADA systems or must we start over with your SCADA system?

These are among the top questions for companies looking to become more efficient and boost profits while reducing their bottom line. Many cloud platforms have a wide variety of options and abilities to customize a system to a Customer's needs.

Maintaining a cloud-based project requires an in-depth understanding of what you are trying to do and how best to execute it, but when this level of detail is unavailable, breaking down the cloud-based project into phases can help you focus on tasks.

 

The most crucial phase in any cloud-based project is at the start, where you decide what your operations' goals are and outline what needs to be done to achieve these goals. This will provide more clarity that applies to other phases throughout the cloud implementation process.

 

We offer cloud-based software solutions to new and existing industrial customers. Emerson's DeltaV SaaS SCADA enables you to monitor, control, and optimize your assets remotely from anywhere.

 

If your company isn't centralizing its data you may be missing out on increasing productivity in your business.

 

Centralizing data means putting all your operational data into one single place. By consolidating data, your authorized company employees will have quick and easy access from anywhere. All that will be required is a secure internet connection.

 

Emerson's DeltaV SaaS (Software as a Service) and SCADA (Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition) helps your operations compile data from any digital monitoring hardware via gateways that support various protocols into a single centralized cloud location in a centralized data management system. From a single source, we can deliver real-time data to your computer or mobile device that allows authorized end-users to actively see the information you decide is relevant to each person or role within your organization.

There are some things you need to be notified of somewhat quickly, but not instantly. But some things you need to know instantly. Like where your keys are when you’re late for work. But if you work for a municipal gas company, an over-pressure situation takes priority over pretty much everything else for safety. And instantly, is just barely fast enough.

It’s why so many companies are digitally transforming their line monitoring—and Emerson's DeltaV™ SaaS is leading the way.

Sensors placed at critical points throughout your system, you—and all authorized personnel who need to respond—will be notified quickly when an over-pressure situation happens. That way you can make adjustments, in person or remotely.

Alarms can be used to monitor data for anything out of the ordinary, like catching smalls deviations and alerting an operator to a possible situation before it escalates. Setting up alarms on your assets enables you to prevent physical and economic loss through faster operator intervention and response times.

How many alarms can an operator effectively handle per day? ISA 18.2 states that, ideally, one alarm per 10 minutes can be taken care of without sacrifice to the operator’s other duties. Two alarms per 10 minutes are identified as manageable.

As more and more E&Ps look to digitally transform their operations for efficiency and profitability, it may be surprising to learn that the digital oilfield can also help the environment, employee satisfaction and retention rates. In other words, going digital can help you make significant gains in attaining your goals.

Having abundant data from monitoring systems is great, and it’s even greater when that data is clear, useful and readily available to authorized users anywhere they may be, and at anytime. It makes your people feel—and be—more productive, able to concentrate on finding and producing oil and gas instead of calling around to see who has the latest production report on their laptop, digging through stacks of paper to find a missing truck haul ticket or wasting time and money to drive to a remotely located site just to 'check on things'.

For gas regulators, the need to replace IT systems can be for various reasons. Their system no longer serves their business operations, wants to launch new initiatives, or unexpected events make them re-evaluate the need for a reliable backup system.

According to local power companies, more than 4.4 million customers were without power in the winter of 2021 deep freeze in Houston, Texas. Cold weather shut natural gas production and pipelines, which refineries use in power generation. Widespread power outages and instability of external power supply forced shutdowns across the state.

You may assume a cloud-native based SaaS SCADA platform is just another operational system like all the others. After you utilize data visualization tools and cloud applications embedded in Emerson's DeltaV™ SaaS SCADA you realize you can turn your data into knowledge for faster and better business decisions.

That is what advanced analytics is all about! It's getting that next level of analytics from your remotely located assets and using that data to help you quickly turn knowledge into wisdom; or actual decision making data, and in some cases, actually driving the decisions to be made autonomously based on the historical data and what the machine can learn from how things were previously corrected so many times before; so you, and your people can focus your day on your core business.

Efficiency and profitability are the top reasons for so many operators to take advantage of Emerson’s DeltaV SaaS SCADA with Autonomous Rod Pump. Using AI to attain autonomous operations to solve pump issues, boost oil and gas production and reduce operational and work-over costs give you tens of thousands of reasons ($) to join the rush. It’s a key part of any well-planned digital strategy.

But just as important on the investor side can be its safety benefits—and those gains take a little more digging to find, but once you see them and the positive impact it makes on your safety, production, profits and sustainability you'll wish you had them years ago.

So you’ve installed sensors, edge devices and numerous other hardware devices all through your operations and your facilities; both near the office and far, far away from anything and anyone.

Great start! But, you may be asking yourself; now what?

Let us show you what you've really got - It's a bit like buying a new sporty convertible car and then taking it out for a drive for the first time. The new car smell is still fresh and you aren't totally sure how it handles, how to put the top down, what it can do for acceleration or (more importantly) how fast it can stop; but you really, really want to find out!

You’re ready to see what it can really do, and it’s the same for digital technology. With those remote hardware devices installed, now it can give you a lot of actionable data that can reduce downtime, boost profits and enable your employees to be more efficient. Let's show you want this engine's really got in it!

It's no secret that skilled internal resources are becoming more and more difficult to find, and keep. The first step on the road to creating more value from your current internal resources is to automate as much as possible so those skilled people can focus on more important tasks.

Starting the journey to autonomous operations or even the first step of starting to automate at all, is usually installing a SCADA system with a deep sensor reach, giving you extensive data on all the important points. That’s followed by creating a communications interface that sends the data to your office in real time.

Emerson’s DeltaV™ SaaS SCADA Solutions has delivered another year full of impactful updates and here are your favorites from 2021 [Infographic]

Sometimes there are fears that sustainability has to be counterproductive to the bottom line. You read about some organizations promising to blanket the globe with millions of carbon-capturing trees and realize that those trees are also absorbing a lot of capital. Investors may like the leaves in programs like that, but when those programs are fertilized with barrels of red ink, it’s suddenly not so appealing.

Fortunately, there are ways to achieve both—and Emerson's DeltaV™ SaaS SCADA can be a black-ink-producing, carbon-reducing and safety-enabling option for companies trying to achieve both. The road to digital transformation for increased sustainability that present fiscal responsibility, and growth to hit targets may be much smoother than you think.

While the benefits of digitally transforming your operations are well known—improved assets, reduced overhead, better data flow and greater safety—deciding whether or not, and how to get started can be daunting, to say the least. To jump from totally manual operations to a digital transformation journey could indeed be over the top, especially for a small to medium-sized company that often have people wearing many hats and already a plate that is overflowing with responsibilities, and extreme stress.

Your digital transformation journey is just that; it's your journey! You can take that trip any way, on any timeframe and budget that makes sense to your operations. It can be made in baby steps, or giant leaps and bounds. You can take it a bit at a time and at your own pace, or if you're ready to put the pedal to the metal we can handle that too. But we know every operation is at a different step on their journey, and what might feel right sized to one operation may feel like wearing your pants on backwards to others.

Most people have become app-dependent in both their personal and professional lives. Mobile apps now allow people to do pretty much do anything from where they are, such as book a hotel last minute, transfer money, shop online or order food.

For operations, we built the Emerson's DeltaV™ SaaS SCADA Mobile app, so field and office personnel will have access to operational data from anywhere, at any time. The app allows you to view current performance data easily, analyze and trend graphs, input operational data, change settings, issue commands, create customized mobile forms, filter and sort through your sites and data, and update control systems from the convenience of your phone.

The next wave of technological advancements is emerging. New technologies are expected to reduce the number of workers required to perform specific tasks while increasing demand for other skills.

 

A digital workforce is a workforce with personnel focused on high-value tasks and empowered with actionable data from digital technologies and services that lead to improved decision-making in daily operations. Similarly, a digital worker is considered an individual that applies actionable data from digital technologies and services to make improved decisions, automate manual functions, increase productivity, or convert information into revenue. 

 

More talent will be retiring in the next couple of years, making it more crucial than ever for you to strategize your workforce by upskilling your people to continue running operations effectively.

There's a new sense of confidence that companies can remain operational with improved efficiencies by employing digital tools, reducing costs, and acquiring the best assets. For a long time, companies kept operations going during challenging times by decreasing operating costs, deferring maintenance expenses, divesting properties with higher costs, cutting production, and laying off personnel. Instead of relying on these traditional methods, focus on creating digital operations by deploying and utilizing the right IIoT (industrial Internet of Things) strategy for your organization.

 

Taking advantage of IIoT technologies and strategizing your digital journey to improve work processes, add security, increase production, free your workforce, and begin the path to operational excellence that delivers stronger, more sustainable returns that can easily be layered on to your current SCADA system to bring it to the next level of insights, mobility and actionable analytics.

Government regulations mandate Oil and Gas companies to sample gas and liquids composition regularly. Production and operation staff must manage scheduling samples, verifying lab results, and submitting to regulatory bodies.

From coordinating sample collection to analyzing the results, you need a tool that performs core functionality well and helps you optimize your workflow to save time and money.

Emerson's DeltaV SaaS SCADA with Composition Management, is a web-based application to help oil and gas companies organize their sampling program in a single repository, allowing them to streamline scheduling, approvals, notifications, and update end devices in the field.

Have you ever tried to give someone advice about something that was way outside of your expertise? I have made that error many, many times. When I make the error of an unsolicited suggestion on something (usually to my friends on subjects like fashion, hair styles or anything related), I'm occasionally told to "stay in my lane."

It quickly sets things into perspective for me, and I retreat, with a smile, knowing they're totally right; I'm way, way, way out of my lane offering advice about a topic I clearly do not fully understand or have taken the time to learn enough about. They're totally right, I should stay in my own lane.

When it comes to data security, you're busy, and we completely understand that making sure your operational data is secure may not be always top of mind to you, or your highest priority at all times. After all, the last thing most people have time for is to worry about the security of operational data, because well, they're already very busy making sure a million other operational decisions are made really well, promises kept, employees remain productive, all the while with goals and targets continuously being achieved, or even better; exceeded.

Natural Gas is one of few fuel sources that's delivered directly to us, the consumers. Natural gas regulators are responsible for maintaining and operating gas pipelines and facilities up to the residential gas meter. Because it's an explosive and dangerous fluid, they must prioritize safety and take the necessary precautions to protect systems and prevent accidents. 

Recently, we've witnessed, even with all the safety procedures in place, events out of our control can still occur. 

We help Local Natural Gas Distribution companies (utilities regulated by states) find solutions to aid them in meeting safety and state regulations, such as an over-pressure condition occurring on the distribution system that can affect all customers served by the system.

When your work requires a plentiful flow of liquids stored in tanks, you need to monitor those levels to keep them from getting empty. Here’s how we helped a customer do that across their whole territory.

In Pennsylvania we have a great Customer who provides lubricants such as oils for gear assemblies and other industrial applications. Often, deliveries were initiated by a customer calling in to report an empty tank and requesting an immediate delivery, which could be on a weekend. While happy to oblige, our client needed a more predictable and efficient procedure for planning delivery routes.

Already using Emerson’s Rosemount^TM system to monitor their own tank levels, they needed to create alarms there—and they were looking to monitor and alarm client tanks as well. We were excited about the opportunity to add Emerson's DeltaV SaaS SCADA with Tank Protect and Alarm Expert services to the mix.

To ecstatic employees everywhere, more and more companies are moving from dreaded, time wasting daily site trips, stacks of paper records and mind-numbing manual processes to technology to provide answers that are supported by factual data, automating tasks that are driven by analytics, data trends and in some cases even autonomous actions.

Downturns, and all the crazy in our world today have made it clear that the “change or die” mantra is far too real.

You probably already knew this—but you may be hesitant to act. That's totally understandable since there are several questions about transition, affordability, training, the return on investment and so many others. Then there's the sustainability questions that come into play. Tech changes really fast these days and everyone is searching for the next best thing. While tech continues to quickly develop some people decide they should wait it out until the next hottest and newest change is available.

You may ask yourself; where exactly do you get the best possible return on investment when it comes to industrial tech that will help support your operations profitability and sustainability at the same time without it being out of date in just a few months only to have to start all over again?

You’ve probably already decided that digitally transforming your operations is necessary as you face a shrinking workforce and tighter budget dollars. The productivity advantages of a full cloud software strategy implementation are many and well documented.

Like cars, snowflakes and superheroes, no two cloud computing service providers are exactly alike, nor are their customers. So, when picking a cloud software provider, it’s important to know if they can adapt or customize their system to exactly what you need (or don't need), or if you’re supposed to bend your procedures to someone’s limited, out-of-the-box configuration.

“Baby, It’s Cold Outside” doesn’t begin to describe winters in Wyoming, Alberta and many other parts of the world. Winter lows average well below zero, whatever scale you’re using. It’s why detailed training, safety, planning and teamwork are literally life-and-death issues as we help keep water, wastewater, gas distribution, and of course oil and gas production flowing - in even the coldest, and hottest areas of the globe.

Ask anyone that works outside in temps around 110 degrees in the complete dust and heat of summer in the Texas, or well below zero in Canada - no one leaves the yard without extensive training, preparation, and a carefully checked list, but there are still many, many safety risks to consider before venturing out.

Operational reporting is imperative for any business, regardless of size or industry. Reports provide a means to track and analyze your operations' performance and overall health while identifying areas for improvement and insights for future growth.

Consistent reporting and monitoring of operations inform senior management and other stakeholders about what is happening within their organization.

A key factor in any business’s ability to persevere during challenging times is to stay relevant and adapt to their evolving environment. There’s a consensus across all industries today that accurate data collection and application of this data is necessary to improve business operations.

Even though there may be opposing headwinds across various markets, businesses that focus on what they can control will be better positioned to manage and subsequently benefit when the winds change. The consequences for all industrial business sectors (primary or secondary) could be irreversible if they do not recognize and embrace the age of digital transformation.

When we decide to integrate new features into our cloud-native DeltaV SaaS SCADA, we carefully analyze how features will benefit you in improving your operations.

Recently we had a customer looking for a cloud-based platform that could accurately monitor their tank inventory levels and their own customers inventory levels, which they are responsible for keeping full.

Building on their strategy to transform their business digitally meant understanding their business needs today to prepare for tomorrow. Our customer required accessible tank data to reduce site visits, increase safety, uptime, and profitability.

Leverage the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT), new technologies like our cloud-based platform with software as a service, automation, and our experts to expand, plan or prepare for your operations to be more productive, more profitable and more sustainable through digital intelligence that will enhance your workforce are successfully enabled to augment workflows and processes to create new efficiencies and competencies that bring several positive cultural and behavioral changes to your organization.

We continuously engage with our customers to drive seamless updates that provide the highest return, a secure 'evergreen' platform and widespread adoption in the integration of equipment and systems that leverage IIoT to enhance operational performance and drive profitable results. Emerson's DeltaV SaaS SCADA accomplishes this by helping and guiding customers through the process known as "Digital Transformation."

In the past few years, as oil and gas prices began to drop and investment capital dried up, ‘business-as-usual’ models began to die a painful death for those companies that did not have a targeted digital transformation goal, or (at least) a strong eye on the prize with an actionable plan already in place.

The digital transformation journey can look very different for each company depending on what (if anything) you already have in place; but there are some pretty easy; highly effective and easy wins you can score right out of the gate.

Measurement schematics is a useful software as a service (SaaS) tool to improve the communication between your field operations, production, and accounting team. Schematics help track the flow of production and troubleshooting measurement issues.

From my experience, most schematics drawings are saved in area files on a company’s network drives with limited accessibility to other people that need access to them. With no server to purchase or software to install or maintain, our team can quickly integrate DeltaV SaaS SCADA Measurement Schematics application that's scalable for remote SCADA monitoring and control of field devices. 

Pipeline leaks can get very expensive, very quickly. Early identification of potential leaks ensures faster response and overall system integrity. Our cloud native IIoT platform reduces the high cost of false alarms and regulatory fines while quickly reacting to leaks and other abnormal system operations that can rapidly consume profits and endanger safety.

Engineered to provide the confidence your company needs to meet regulatory compliance and environmental requirements.

The water management industry is an asset concentrated, rate-restricted industry requiring informed decision-making to effectively balance increased safety with capital investment and operational expenses. Capital resources for the water industries can make it difficult to meet on-going challenges like aging infrastructure, declining revenues, retiring experienced workers, and regulations.

One way water companies can face these challenges is to find effective ways to utilize their current assets to increase return on investment and increase safety. Digitally transforming operations will rely on better use of existing data coupled with new sensors, information integration, and data analytics.

Monitoring and controlling the traditional pump jacks you see bowing and rising along oilfield roads has some limitations. But today, through digital transformation, we’re using data to improve management of all wells, including the rod-pumped variety

A flowing well with a low gas-to-oil ratio needs little hands-on management, but you still need to track production and watch for pump failures or rod parts. Remote monitoring removes the need for a pumper to visually inspect the site daily—and it removes the chances that the well could break down right after he drives away, leaving it unproductive for a day or so.

In an effort to help you better understand the importance of measurement schematics to your operations for Alberta's Energy Regulations (AER) we gathered a list of questions were most frequently asked about, while demonstrating how Emerson's cloud-based DeltaV SaaS SCADA Measurement Schematics application can help meet these requirements.

General questions producers inquire about regarding AER regulation are many, but here are the answers to the most often asked, and of course we're always here to help you with any additional questions or help you may need.

United States pipeline operators are no doubt aware of the regulations that expand the requirements for installing leak detection systems.

Briefly, the US Department of Transportation’s Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) rule change covers a lot of areas, including the extension of the required “use of leak detection systems beyond HCAs to all regulated hazardous liquid pipelines, except for offshore gathering and regulated rural gathering pipelines. The use of such systems will help mitigate the effects of hazardous liquid pipeline failures that occur outside of HCAs,” according to the PHSMA website.

In every industry, there's always room for improvement. More industries are looking to find the right data to make better business decisions and keep people and assets safer through automation and to find solutions that can change all areas of their operations for the better.

Water and wastewater treatment plants depend upon remote facilities' reliable and safe operation to continuously move waste throughout the service area to the main stations. By implementing a solution like Emerson's DeltaV™ SaaS SCADA, many parts of managing and controlling remote sites not only become more streamlined, safer and cost effective but also more sustainable for the communities they serve.

Equipment failures are expected but can be avoided with a comprehensive preventive maintenance program. Preventive maintenance is simply planned maintenance that prolongs the lifespan of company assets.

An effective maintenance program needs to have three elements; it must be efficient, performed regularly, and reduce or minimize equipment failures. Consistent reminders and reliable systems help make preventative maintenance program manageable and effective.

The human information processing system (better known as our "attention span") will choose and arrange sensory input to focus on the appropriate thoughts or behaviors while avoiding unnecessary distractions. Our attention can only handle so much. 

When energy companies deal with alarm fatigue, workers are subject to various alarms (alerts) and consequently become desensitized to them; This leads to longer response times and missed alarm warnings. Alarm control and management are vital to avoiding alarm fatigue.

Zedi is Now DeltaV SaaS SCADA

Every platform development is driven by you! Our Software team has brought another year full of impactful updates and here are your favorites from 2020:

 

With technology supported by our experts, we offer comprehensive solutions to our customers' challenges. We have developed rod pump monitoring and control for an advanced solution using artificial intelligence with machine learning capabilities for Autonomous Rod Pump management.

 

What is an Autonomous Rod Pump? 

 

DeltaV SaaS SCADA with Autonomous Rod Pump is an Artificial Intelligence application (analytics engine) that identifies anomalies on rod pump applications. Autonomous refers to a state of equipment where it can perform the programmed operations under defined conditions without human input or guidance. When we talk about this type of equipment, we use the adjective, autonomous. 

 

If the year 2020 has taught us anything, it’s that technology is no longer the wave of the future; it's right now. It’s all around us, and the oil and gas industry is in the middle of it.

Most oil and gas producers have known that implementation of automation, with remote monitoring and control, and accurate, analyzed data would be more efficient leading to reduced downtime and boosting profitability. But 2020 showed us that having employees work remotely was not only possible, it was necessary.

The growing importance of technology for the immediacy of control and actionable data is changing the workforce. It’s prioritizing those who can deliver usable data for faster, better oil and gas production decisions.

Easily eliminate the tedious administrative challenges your business faces in meeting regulatory compliance requirements.

Emerson's DeltaV SaaS SCADA Asset Protect is a web-based Asset Management, Preventative Maintenance (PM), Health, Safety, and Environmental application. Our application acts as a secure single source repository for various documents such as inspection and calibration reports, safety procedures, drawings, invoices, standard operating procedures, and more.

Gas distribution organizations can quickly and easily increase safety and efficiency by hosting their data in Emerson's DeltaV SaaS cloud-native IIoT platform. Our intuitive, scalable cloud-based platform supports any digital monitoring hardware for real-time data with an aggregated view of operations. Our platform provides a flexible, secure solution for data acquisition, remote monitoring, remote control, and alarm management.

 

We simplify the connection between sensors to get you the data you need to make better business decisions. All communication is encrypted and secured with evergreen software and releases. When using our software, you’ll have many ways of sending and sharing data with other applications.

Water management companies can make major safety and control gains with Emerson's DeltaV SaaS SCADA that quickly and accurately compiles data from any digital monitoring hardware via gateways that support a variety of protocols.

We provide end-users with a web interface as well as the ability to push data to third-party platforms, allowing remote control and optimization via cloud-based data access.

Leveraging the flexibility of a cloud-native IIoT SaaS SCADA platform enables you to capture unlimited amounts of data from any digital monitoring hardware and transmit it quickly to the appropriate personnel so they can access and analyze the data in real-time to make faster, more informed decisions.

Benjamin Franklin once said, “If you fail to plan, you are planning to fail.” 

As most things in life, planning can make a world of difference when it comes to systems failing. But when it comes to human safety involved in those fails that only highlights the importance of planning ahead to be ready for anything.

 

One of my favorite sayings is 'hope for the best, but plan for the worst.' This is extremely important for natural gas distribution because planning ahead could save lives, lots of human lives. Which is why it's critical when considering a secondary system in case your primary system stops functioning.

 

The water management industry continues to be plagued by multiple challenges, including aging infrastructure combined with an aging workforce that puts our water supply systems at even greater risk due to the loss of critical expertise and other hurdles like natural disasters including wildfires, floods, and drought that can significantly impact the safety of our water systems.

 

Water management operations will need to unleash the value of data by using analytics and other technologies to drive better decision-making, optimize and prioritize system investments, and drive cost efficiencies that create safer operations.

For many E&P companies considering field automation, it may seem that installing a SCADA system gives them all the information, alarms and control they need to reach the real goals, which include boosting production and reducing costs. And SCADA does help, but not nearly as much as installing automation through the Cloud.

In this ever-increasing digital world, people and companies rely more and more on the Cloud for data storage and integration. IIoT brings that missing piece where field data and process data can join the rest of your information on the Cloud.

Remember pouring over page after page of perfectly normal well data, line by line, just looking for the occasional telltale anomaly that might indicate a problem requiring attention? Or copying and pasting lines of production data into a spreadsheet to track trends?

Oh, you remember that too well because—it was just this morning? So, you don’t have a way to distill all that data into a graph or chart so you can instantly spot spikes, valleys and trends?

Measurement schematics are often required by local, state or country Governments to ensure measurement, accounting, and reporting compliance and are visual tools showing the current physical layout of facilities. Schematics should be regularly reviewed and used by groups such as operations, engineering, and accounting to ensure a common understanding.

 

Mergers and acquisitions are a part of life in the oil patch in any economic environment. 

Sometimes those transactions are fast and furious making our heads spin because of the amount of opportunity they can quickly deliver.

The steps taken after the sales transaction has occurred are what really determines the value of the long term return. Sure it was hard work putting the 'deal' together and making sure everything was in alignment before you even signed the dotted line. But, as with so many things in life, that was just the beginning of way more work, way more time, and way more attention needed to every detail to be sure the true value is realized and your previous efforts (and money) were well spent.

Thankfully, technology is evolving in giant leaps and bounds today. It's a great time to be alive and witness the new advancements every day. But with all the change it can also leave some producers and operations wondering when the right time is to replace the old with the new really is; given that some tech is only 'new' for a week or two, and then will be quickly outdated by something bigger, better, faster, smarter and will have more shelf life.

 

When producers invest in new technologies for their business, they can expect more profits, more production, and more sustainability but deciding when to purchase tech, and which tech to invest into that won't be outdated in a year (or these days a week), makes it more of a challenge to get right. And then of course, it comes down to what to upgrade, and as with everything in life; it comes down to 'how to leverage all that new tech'. Will the 'how' be so complicated it will eat away your team's time or quickly add value that contributes to fast gains?

DeltaV SaaS SCADA Field Capture is the gathering and analysis of manually entered or electronically uploaded data from field equipment. Oil and gas facilities have hundreds of metering points. Multiple departments within an organization require the data from these metering points.

Some of the field data is necessary to meet government reporting requirements. Data must be collected on time and accurately to reassure the recipients of the data’s validity.

If you're in production operations, you don't think of 'alarms' the way most people do. Most people think of 'alarms' as annoying devices that wake them up in the morning. Which sure, has a great purpose in itself. But alarms in production operations can save miles, and more importantly lives when handled with care and by a trustworthy tech partner like DeltaV™ SaaS SCADA.

Is your company still sending a pumper out to visually inspect every well? If so, I’m sure you’ve counted the miles and hours, not to mention the costs for fuel, tires and oil changes.

We've been using machine learning (ML) for years. It's been a big factor in our development to help oil and gas producers on their digital transformation journey to autonomous operations using the exact solutions that will bring them more production, profits, and sustainability.

The daunting task of keeping track of your expenses can be time-consuming and overwhelming if not managed correctly and efficiently. With the right software and automation in place along with mobile apps and other productivity tools, managing expenses has gotten easier.

For oil and gas, managing lease operating expenses (LOE) has gotten easier with automation and software solutions. Now, there are fewer reasons not to have the costs eat away at your companies’ ability to operate wells and keep costs within budget without having to shut-in operations.

There can be some misconceptions about how data is handled when outsourcing your Cloud Software. Given the advances in new technology and many circumstances affecting several industries, automating your operations, and outsourcing your SCADA to a cloud based platform can have many advantages. 

The key is to have the right partner so you are certain your data will be handled with care. Emerson's DeltaV™ SaaS SCADA takes handling your data very seriously and provides advanced security for all our platform and software applications.

Some of us (myself included) tend to lose random things around the house like the TV remote, keys, or phone that stress us out as we tend to frantically search for these lost items. Fortunately, we live in an era when automation exists, and you can get key finders, click a button to make your TV remote make a sound, or set other devices to find missing items saving us time and stress from searching for them.

For the remotely located production sites, tracking the location of assets can also be a challenge. Using Emerson's DeltaV™ SaaS SCADA Asset Protect, a fixed asset management software you are able to track all kinds of equipment. For an example, when a compressor isn't being used, sometimes it gets moved to be utilized at a different site. In my experience, the only person who would have known about this relocation would be the area foreman.

Way, way back when dinosaurs roamed the earth, I had a very annoying flip phone that was really only able to make and receive calls and (upon the rare occasion) get and send a few random text messages from other techie types. The main reason I found this phone so annoying is I wanted it to be able to do so much more; and it seemed like it shouldn't be all that difficult to make it happen.

But, that's all there was on the market at the time.

I continuously wondered why on earth someone didn't make them to fetch my email, or have a decent camera in them. Then it finally became a reality and just like that we all became more mobile than we had ever dreamed of being! It was AWESOME being set free from waiting for an email, and unchained from my desk where I would often be found waiting for information to be sent.

Have you read about the advance of self-driving cars? With an array of sensors “seeing” obstacles, speed limit signs and other vehicles, tracking the speed, noting highway conditions such as rain or sleet, and using maps and tracking to plan the route, self-driving vehicles are approaching us in their own fast lane.

You may not be surprised to find that we have the same dreams for a self-operating oil field.

Now there will still be the need for repairs of worn-out equipment, damaged well-bores, and to perform PMs such as oil changes. There’s the need to do that for vehicles as well. The autonomous oil change is not here yet, but even that might be in line for cars someday.

How often have you worked on a written assignment only to have an unexpected computer failure, and you lose all your information because it did not save? Once this happens, you either look for other ways to recover your work or get stuck starting from the beginning.  

 

When the unexpected happens, you want to pick up where you left off, especially when it comes to business operations. For this reason, it is essential to implement a Business Continuity Plan (BCP) and have the appropriate technology to support services in the event of unforeseen circumstances.

 

Most people working today tend to work not only when we're at work, but also when we're at the movies, car wash or grocery store; we respond to emails and texts all hours of the day and night. Work-life balance is there, but it's also much more of a work-life blend today than ever before.

This blend is why you need your files and data to all be easily visible from top to bottom without relying on portable devices or clunky, undependable drives that should have been replaced years ago or, worst of all; boxes of paper files (I'm cringing at the thought of that one)!

Now that you’ve automated your production, you're getting your well site information in real time, not waiting for the pumper to bring in tickets at the end of the day—or the week—and able to react to changes in real time.

Welcome to the new, efficient, you.

As great as that is, there’s more that Emerson's DeltaV SaaS SCADA can do for you. If you’ve fully automated everything, your system is collecting thousands of data points every hour.

Keeping your oil and gas production automation systems current is a delicate balance. You have to keep up with ever-changing hardware, interfaces with other software and with improvements on the one hand. On the other hand, you don’t want to spend hours with updates that save up all the changes for one giant yearly revision—that may come with unintended and untested crashes.

That’s the benefit of evergreen cloud software like Emerson's DeltaV SaaS SCADA. It grows in tiny increments just like an evergreen plant. From one day or month to the next, you don’t notice its growth—a new leaf here, a bit thicker trunk there—but it keeps growing and adapting to changes in seasons without skipping a beat.

In 2011, IBM’s Watson took on two of Jeopardy’s top winners in a contest of knowledge and speed. After three exciting days, Watson had more than tripled the winnings of either human. Let's apply that to oil and gas production data insights enabling you to triple your 'winnings' - by gaining more production, more profits and more sustainability.

In the digital oilfield that lives on data and is powered by computers light years past Watson, end users are starting to get answers to questions they never dreamed of asking before.

Instead of competing with computers, many oil and gas producers are teaming with AI (artificial intelligence) so that everyone wins. And keeps winning.

Oil and gas producers have been realizing the benefits of technology with SCADA, IIoT and sensors in the field for a long time now, and while these pieces have certainly been worth their weight in black gold to the bottom line (and safety) there is a new evolution coming soon to the oil field near you.

The goal line for oil and gas producers around the world is to take the digital transformation journey to ultimately gain all the many benefits of an autonomous oil and gas operation.

But should you take that journey?

This is not a journey for everyone. There is much to consider before you decide.

Do you remember that old joke "Pete and Repeat went on a boat ride. Pete fell off, so who was left?" The answer was of course is "Repeat" and therefore the kid telling the joke would once again repeat the first line, and on and on... I'm often haunted by that horrible joke almost as if the joke is truly on me when I tackle mind-numbing tasks like laundry; wash, dry, fold, put away and then do it again, and again, and again...

I think about Pete and Repeat on that boat. I can't help but wonder where was the Captain of that boat? Why didn't the Captain step in and direct them both to hunker down, and grab a hold to stop falling off?

The benefits of making oil and gas production autonomous are many. Production increases based on the ability to detect and remedy problems in seconds rather than hours is topmost, followed by safety, efficiencies when physical repairs are needed and more precision in PM schedules are among the others.

We've made some great progress in the past five years with applications like DeltaV SaaS SCADA with Autonomous Rod Pump. Although, some would point out that the Oil Patch, due to its boom-and-bust nature, lags behind other industries in this area with necessity being the mother of invention.

There is a bit of magic in every childhood story we read. Whether it be the Chronicles of Narnia with its enchanted kingdom or Aladdin’s genie in the lamp, we learn very early that supernatural powers often come in pretty handy.

Maybe you could use some telepathic powers to know what is happening in a remote production location. You’ve probably wished to have psychic abilities to know when a wellsite will stop producing before it happens, or if your team is safe working on site.

Most certainly you’d enjoy the gift of telekinesis to restart an artificial lift.

Maybe you’ve declared your intention to digitally transform your production. That’s great. It’s a growing trend and it will really boost efficiency. But the jury is still out on whether to do it in-house or to let us do it for you.

I have a question that may clarify that decision for you:

What are you good at?

You’re good at evaluating leases, considering how to economically produce a field and to get that oil and gas to market. If you were to jump into the field of developing a cloud based platform, what would that look like in terms of hiring, training and implementing?

It’s surprising how many operators are still using one software system or company to monitor tanks, another to automate pumps and yet another for back-office reporting software. There was a time in history when this was necessary since there was a lot of narrow specialization, but so much has changed (for the better) with SaaS and systems that streamlining today just makes more sense.

“DeltaV SaaS SCADA is light years ahead of the competition!” This statement has become a common theme at meetings with our customers. Producers urgently require the deployment of a proven digital strategy; however, implementation has historically lagged for weeks, months or even years when working with other vendors.

These producers typically receive conflicting information on exactly what is involved in the deployment, what is needed from them, the timing of it all, and what their technology partner is truly capable of bringing to the table to help with it all. We changed all of that.

Do-it-yourself field automation sounds great until you realize all the mind-bending decisions involved. I think of this when I go to a favorite restaurant; a fast-casual place where you line up in front of a massive menu board loaded with salads, sandwiches, soups, potatoes, sides of all sorts, and pretty much any other causal type of food you could possibly want or crave, but I have to say their menu is pretty huge.

It’s obvious whenever the person in front of me is a first-timer. Eyes wide, hands shaking, and lips moving without a sound. I can't help but wonder if they're okay or getting ready to have a meltdown from menu overload. Only because I felt that way on my first couple of visits.

After you absorb all that content it's easy to see the big picture and navigating their giant menu is meant to be more of an opportunity to get pretty much anything you may want, not the overwhelming first-timer experience I often witness.

If you ask around for a single term that describes getting the right production data, most engineers in oil and gas would hesitate to say “simple” or “straightforward.” Here at DeltaV SaaS SCADA, data is our thing; we live it and breathe it – heck, some of us even dream about it - you can’t control when innovation may strike! Our customers continue to benefit from solutions that are streamlined and straightforward thanks to our software development and engineering people.

After all, the value of production data could not be simpler: optimizing production leads to increased profitability. That said, here are my top 5 tips to help increase your oil and gas production:

I’ve been an obsessed angler for years. I don’t need a special reason, or day to go fishing either – I go any chance I get. Sunny 108-degree Texas days, chilly Christmas mornings, or drizzly-grey cool days, it doesn't matter to me.

It isn’t about the temperature, or location – it’s simply about the experience.

There is something about the peacefulness of being on the lake, or a river that captures my senses, and instantly relaxes me, while at the same time ignites my creative side with a new sense unlimited possibilities. It isn’t the excitement of actually catching a fish at all (since it’s not my favorite meal) – but it’s the experience that captivates my mind, warms my soul, and energizes my spirit.

The basic formula for increasing oil well production is pretty clear to me: the more the pump runs, the more oil it pumps. The real issue is how to reduce downtime, so that it runs more, and pumps more.

What wasn't clear to me is why on earth about 100,000 pumpjacks in the US alone are not monitored, other than by someone driving all the way out to the well site every couple of days. With that method, a pump may have been down, or even worse leaking for a day or so before it’s noticed by anyone. That’s several hours of production time that can never be recovered.

Things used to be so much simpler. Every home had one phone line. Every store took cash or checks, and almost every well had a rod pump over its whole life span. Then again, everything used to be way more work to 'do' anything at all; pump oil, or just grocery shop.

Complexity though, can be really great for your bottom line, and doesn't have to feel complex.

With cell phones, we can call for help from just about anywhere. Debit cards are way faster than check writing. And using a series of unconventional lifting methods on unconventional wells is unlocking much stronger potential for oil and gas production—and profitability that we could only dream of a few short years ago.

From 1859, when Colonel Edwin Drake successfully drilled America’s first oil well in Pennsylvania and over the next several decades, the oil and gas business was primarily driven by manual labor. 

This meant high vehicle mileage, and lost production time because pumpers and engineers were constantly needed on location, which resulted in operational inefficiencies and many safety issues. Until the introduction of automation technology into the oil and gas industry.

As automation technology has progressed, from cable tools to rotary drills; from car phones to palm-sized smart phones; from desktop computers for accounting to ubiquitous sensors sending big data through the cloud to smart devices; oilfield efficiency has continued to cut costs, save time, boost production and improve safety.

For years now we’ve been able to monitor tank levels, compressors, pump operations and flow meters. Most of that is pretty cut-and-dried. The tank is at whatever level it’s at; the pump is either running or it’s not. An alarm tells us what we need to know the minute we need to know it.

But detecting a pipeline leak involves combining a number of data points and deciding which ones, or which combination of points, means there really is a leak. I’m stressing “really” because the industry first believed any anomaly needed to be alarmed because at that point an anomaly equaled leak, and we defiantly know the faster that leak could be stopped, and repaired; the more profits from your production ended up staying in your pocket.

It's difficult to believe, but many pumpers are still collecting their data in a tally book, a reading sheet, or wrestling with a laptop in their truck on a remote—and hot (or freezing cold)—well site. Often times those pages get lost, aren't readable, and even have transposed numbers. Ahh yes, and the coffee stains, or illegible handwriting. Then chalk up the time it takes to decipher those numbers and input into your computer system.

Now all that data can be easily entered and stored on a device your pumpers already have, and cling to like it was their oxygen supply; their smart phone.

When you receive your gas compositions and fluid analysis reports from a lab, what do you do with it? You upload it into the meter, enter it into your field data capture or production accounting system and file it away. Do you know how this new analysis compares to the previous ones? Can you see the meter’s historical analyses all at once? You can now with DeltaV SaaS SCADA Composition Management.

You’ve been really busy lately; planning to design install and manage your own SCADA system. You've done all your homework, researched, endlessly read on the how to’s, precautions and potential disasters to avoid. You’re ready to invest your hard-earned money and commit even more of your precious time into the next steps.

HMI (Human Machine Interface) – is really just the software application that presents information to an operator, or a user about the state of a process, then accepts and implements the operators’ control instructions.

This is usually displayed in a graphic format. But, it's that graphic format, and how well (or poorly) it's designed that can make all the difference. We, the humans as the users are generally visual learners. Which is just one of the reasons why our users love our HMI so much; hi-res, crystal clear graphics right in front of them that are easy to understand and give users the ability to make better business decisions.

Seeing is truly believing. Through Emerson's DeltaV™ SaaS SCADA you can “see” so many issues right from your computer or phone:

Is my unit running? What’s the line pressure? Who's actually on-site? Is the tank filling up?

Techs and pumpers are already logging much less drive time, the equipment is logging lots more “up” time and the accountants are pushing that bottom line lower and lower. And yet—it still would be nice to actually see what’s happening out there.

In Roman times, humans were the messengers. Runners traveled sometimes for a week or more to bring home news of the battle. During this interval the situation on the front could change dramatically, rendering accurate decision-making almost impossible.

Romans didn’t have smart devices and remote monitoring. But thankfully, you do.

Why aren’t you using this to your advantage for remote compressor locations?

Awhile back a friend decided to replace a leaky faucet himself and save some money. He thought the faucet was screwed on, so he grabbed a wrench and started twisting away.

After a couple of turns the faucet broke off, spewing water everywhere. It was sweated instead of screwed on, so he had to turn off all the water to the house and then call a plumber to fix his mistake. It would’ve been faster and simpler to have farmed out the work in the first place.

When you’re standing in a line and you see almost everyone in sight interacting with their mobile phones by viewing, listening, swiping or typing—do you ever wonder how people used to pass the time while they were waiting?

The Pew Research Center says 95 percent of Americans own a mobile phone and 77 percent own a smartphone. These numbers are also similar for Canadians and for those across North America under 30 years old, the percentages are even higher.

If you like to grow plants, you know that there are three main things they require for growth: water, sunshine and good soil. If you supply all these, your plants will grow healthy and strong, putting out new leaves and colorful blossoms in their season.

It’s very satisfying to watch strong growth in something you’ve nurtured.

I feel exactly that way about our DeltaV SaaS SCADA growth. We’ve expanded organically by identifying and supplying the top three things our customers need for better production. Much like water, sunshine and good soil without any one of these the chances of growth drops quickly.

In the Eagle Ford plays of deep south Texas, we have plenty to worry about: heat, dust, the occasional rattlesnake, and H2S for starters. Life certainly keeps us on our toes!

What our customers like about having their remote monitoring data readily available through Zedi Access™ is that it shortens their list of things to worry about. Considerably.

What if your pipelines or wells could call you up and tell you they were sick before they went down?

If you’ve ever gone to the doctor to get some medicine at the first sign of a fever—to try to shorten the illness—you understand what I mean.

What kind of risk taker were you as a kid? Were you the one who built a rickety ramp out of plywood, braced it up with some loose bricks you found in the yard and wheeled your bike bravely up to the top?

“Dear Producer,” the email should read. “I want to tell you about a problem I have on well number 10. It’s—well, it’s just not producing like it should. I think there may be a liquid loading problem. In truth, this has been building up for a while, and I was afraid something like this would happen. What should we do?”

I don’t know if you ever read advice columns, where people write in and ask for help with relationship issues. Sometimes it’s interesting to see what the columnist has to offer as a solution.

I love a good conference; one where the speakers not only have good information, but where they also dream a little bit about how the new information will improve the future. It always energizes my imagination about how we can better use technology to partner with our customers and help them achieve their goals.

I had an interesting conversation with my friend's young son the other day—about how phones used to be. Remember? Wired to the wall. We were all trapped by that wire; the phones and anyone using them. The huge advance with the invention of the cordless phone that would let you roam all the way to the perimeter of your home or office, and sometimes lose the handset under a couch cushion!

My friend's son was wide-eyed. He’s never known that limitation. “How did you listen to music or watch videos?” he asked. I smiled, because tech has certainly come a long way, and helps us in so many ways we don't even think about.

How does that relate to DeltaV SaaS SCADA Mobile? To heck with geographical limitations for data and remote operations control! The perimeters of the earth are the only limitations!

Albert Einstein, as you may recall, was pretty good at understanding complex stuff like, say, the makeup of the universe, quantum physics and the like. It’s interesting that he’s the one who said that if you didn’t understand something well enough to explain it to your grandmother, you didn’t really understand it.

Well, I like to think of myself as knowing a thing or two about tech like IIoT (Industrial Internet of Things), SaaS (Software as a Service), and even SCADA (Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition) and I‘m even able to successfully explain it all to a Grandma without issue. So, if you're interested in learning three easy steps to help your operations digitally step up to the plate read on...

In the area of oilfield data, we know we’ve been sitting on a gold mine.

Well, sitting is not the right word, because we have been working on how to process all that information.

Have you seen the dashboards on today’s cars? The information they give you is amazing—you can almost get where you’re going by watching the dashboard alone. The idea, of course, is to consolidate information you need in order to stay safe; what’s behind you, beside you and in front of you and when they get too close.

DeltaV SaaS SCADA with Asset Protect software is a lot like that. It tells you the location of equipment like compressors, pumpjacks and other onsite equipment, along with pipeline inventory, preventative maintenance programs and more, so that’s what’s around you. It also lets you track moves of that equipment, so your information stays current and available to your people when they need it.

If automation for you conjures up images of complexity along the lines of The Matrix or other elaborate theory, I have some good news. It doesn’t have to be that complicated.

As an example, I love looking at all the ways the actual data from creating automation can improve the bottom line and generally make life simpler. Or the way something simple like automating tank levels with alarms can actually save lives - the possibilities are endlessly beneficial, but not nearly as complex as you may think (or have to worry about anyway).

It’s pretty amazing to watch the pace of mergers and acquisitions these days. Oil and gas producers are working hard to maximize investments in an economy that’s better than it was, but still not where everyone would like it to be.

Even so, it’s one thing to sign a contract to acquire a new field, and it’s another thing to handle the new field’s SCADA systems, data and controls. The question is, do you accept the system that’s there and train your people on yet another software package? Or do you spend possibly tens of thousands of dollars and weeks of time replacing their system with your own—and if you do that, what happens to the legacy data they’d already collected?

I don’t know about you, but I love the smell of freshly-baked bread. Or chocolate cake. Or cookies. There’s just nothing like tasting hot-from-the-oven baked goods! Keeping fresh bread coming takes effort and attention to detail. Not everyone wants to do it themselves, and not everyone knows how.

 

It’s the same with well monitoring software. As needs change and as programmers find faster and better ways to collect and manage data, software must also be kept fresh. That’s what we do with DeltaV SaaS SCADA, Asset Protect (asset management and PM scheduling) and DeltaV SaaS SCADA Mobile (our app).

What if we could help you know about production issues instantly, anywhere in the world? 
What if all relevant personnel got that information in an easy-to-read dashboard at the same time? 
What if that same information system helped valves and pumps self-monitor so they required less oversight?

You’re probably familiar with remote monitoring and control through hardware and software that collect and analyze data then issue reports. Collectively this is known as the Industrial Internet of Things, or IIoT.  It allows people and machines to maximize efficiency, boosting production and reduce the people hours involved so you can focus on more important things.

Times have been tough. We have all seen volatility and uncertainty in our industries through the years. Companies have been making changes to their structure and processes to be more efficient and less wasteful.

Like most people, you probably have asked yourself how you can streamline your processes without sacrificing speed or quality. We’ve created several ways to help you do that. One that we'll dig into today is how to manage your lab sampling program with speed and ease to give you more time to focus on your core business.

There has been much discussion through the years in many sectors of the economy around what the “Internet of Things” (IoT) can do to transform the way we work and live.  In brief, the IoT is about networking “things” like devices and even life-forms so that information may be collected from these things over time and form the basis for in-depth analysis and better decisions.

Producers in Alberta are subject to  measurement schematics regulations as part of Directive 017. Do you have questions about what you need to do to remain compliant? In this blog post, we hope to give answers to some of those questions to help you get there.

What facilities do I need to create measurement schematics for?

Producers must have a well detailed measurement schematic for all active facilities, with no grandfathering for active facilities. Any reactivated facility must have an up-to-date schematic within three months of reactivation or after the implementation period, whichever is later.

SCADA and other remote monitoring systems introduced a step change to the industry in the area of operational efficiency by providing a positive impact on run-time, production and reduced operating costs. However, with low commodity prices and lower producing wells, there is still a challenge for business cases to justify putting monitoring on all assets.

As oil and gas producers look to find efficiencies in their production operations, the first and best solution to discuss is adding automation to their well site operations. Traditionally, some may be hesitant to implement a SCADA (Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition) system, due to the initial capital costs involved and complexity. However, when one is looking at reducing total operational costs and increasing recoverable reserves, the positives from investing in SCADA become clear, especially when one considers the increased affordability brought by modern technology. 

Remote locations with industrial assets that don't have anyone locally monitoring performance need alarms (for starters). Alarms can be used to monitor data for anything out of the ordinary, catching smaller deviations, and alerting an operator to a possible situation before it escalates. When it comes to effective remote operations management, there are few better tools available than alarming capabilities.