Refined touch

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Basu says scheduling and planning must be reconciled.

The schedule is communicated to operations groups as a series of instructions by process and operating area. Operating instructions should contain all relevant targets and limits for the scheduled operations. These should be validated against the boundary database, and should automatically update the targets in the control room at the point that they are implemented.

In a modern refinery or petrochemical facility most procedures are finally executed through some form of digital distributed control system. At this level, the business is control focused and needs to take decisions that have a very high impact on the immediate term. Control systems are the interface between the softer side of business consisting of policies, plans and decisions and the hardware and equipment that finally transform these decisions to profits.

It is critical that operators and engineers can effectively manage the complex relationship between business requirements and process/equipment performance. Complexity has increased significantly over recent years as specifications, regulations have become more stringent, and business performance is managed more directly.

It is important to measure how effectively procedures have been executed and to ensure product quality is consistent, process integrity has not been compromised, energy consumption and emissions have been minimised, and ultimately to learn how to continuously improve execution. There is also a need to monitor how accurately operating instructions have been executed.

Yield accounting is a critical business function. Huge quantities of process and other data must be processed to ensure that business systems receive accurate records of actual events and transactions at the process level. Yield accounting involves data gathering, data validation, processing and calculations, data reconciliation (use redundant or ‘excess’ measurements to identify and assign errors), calculation of mass and material balances, identification of missing materials/movements, and overall explanation of errors. The feedback from yield accounting function supports both the operational groups and the business organisations in providing key reconciled and validated data for further processing.

To conclude, a single consistent performance management system is a key way to track deviations throughout different enterprise levels, while maintaining the linkage between levels.

As depicted in the featured diagram, deviations in business results versus plans may be ‘tracked’ through a key performance indicator (KPI) tree to the level(s) and function(s) where the main causes lie.

This enables organisations to rapidly identify, focus on, and remedy problems that have a high level of business impact; while providing each level with it’s own performance metrics in units that it can directly control, influence and improve.

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