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.

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.

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.