You may assume a cloud-based SCADA platform is just another operational system like all the others. After you utilize data visualization tools and cloud applications embedded in Emerson's Zedi Cloud Platform 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.

Pipeline leaks can get very expensive, very quickly. Early identification of potential leaks ensures faster response and overall system integrity. Our Cloud based platform system 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.

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.

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. 

The pressure for field personnel to multi-task is high yet focusing on more than one task at a time is very difficult. Alarm fatigue increases the chances of an actual leak going undetected, resulting in significant damages to the environment lease property, revenue, and presenting a hazardous situation until the leak is caught, repaired, remediated.

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.

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.

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

As an example for me personally, I love looking at all the ways well-site 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 - all the possibilities are very exciting!