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 Zedi Access a cloud-based platform and Alarm Management 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tech that will help support your operations profitability and sustainability at the same time without it being out of date in just a few months only to have to start all over again?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.

Here are some questions to ask before you decide:

1. Can the vendor’s system easily fit with the hardware you may already have?
2. Can the new system seamlessly integrate your historical data with the new input they’ll gather?
3. Are Project Managers available to handle all the details?
4. Will the vendor provide the reports you need, by format, frequency, user authorization and department needs?
5. Do they provide ongoing support?

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 Emerson Zedi decides to integrate new features into our Cloud SCADA platform, we carefully analyze how features will benefit our customers in improving their operations.

Recently we had a customer looking for a cloud-based platform that could accurately monitor their tanks' inventory levels and their customers, 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.

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.

United States pipeline operators are no doubt aware of the recent 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.

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:

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.