The Connected Plant Conference is a forum designed for professionals in the power generation and chemical process industries who are leading digital adoption at all stages. Sessions are tailored to offer actionable information and strategies to maximize the use of data, analytics, and related technology to drive efficiency improvements, safety, and preventive and predictive maintenance programs. The conference will be held February 19–21, 2019, at the Sheraton Charlotte Hotel in Charlotte, North Carolina. A sampling of the exhibitors, and their products and services, are highlighted in this section.
ABB Supports Automation Through Connectivity
Many of ABB's millions of connected devices are linked with the company's power generation control systems, resulting in digital power plants. Sensing data and then analyzing it to create insights are two necessary steps of today's plant operations, and a third step is creating customer value. That's what ABB is striving for with its digital approach to power generation. Its control technology, such as ABB Ability Symphony Plus, allows the ABB digital power plant to go beyond the mere generation of data, applying it to real company operations, allowing power plant operators to visualize the effect on their plant and gain even more value from their assets. It creates a number of new opportunities for customers: reducing downtime, lowering energy or fuel consumption, reducing maintenance, increasing resource efficiency, raising performance, and improving productivity. ABB, Zurich, Switzerland
AVEVA Software Can Improve Asset Performance
The digital transformation is not only about driving innovation across a utility's assets and operational lifecycles, it's also about adapting how employees work to improve the profitability of production operations and achieving the lowest total cost of ownership. AVEVA's products enable customers to take advantage of the speed, agility, and efficiency of modern technologies such as cloud, Industrial IoT, artificial intelligence, and augmented and virtual reality. AVEVA offers an end-to-end portfolio of design, engineering, construction, and industrial software solutions, offering interoperability, flexibility, and software customization. The company can lower the cost, time, and risk of capital project engineering and execution with its integrated engineering and design solutions. It can increase asset performance and longevity, and ensure a safe, reliable working environment with its asset performance solutions. AVEVA empowers decision-making with flexible, interoperable, and agnostic industrial monitoring and control solutions. Its planning and operations solutions help optimize operations, eliminating inefficiencies by synchronizing production and operations with business goals. AVEVA, Cambridge, UK
Siemens Leads Digital Transformation
Siemens is on the leading edge of the digital transformation, with a number of digitization initiatives to increase productivity, efficiency, speed, and quality. The company's automation systems, industrial controls, process analytics, and industry software are just a few of the digital tools that can optimize processes. Siemens' portfolio offers the tools needed to efficiently record and intelligently leverage the huge quantity of data that processes generate, which is a basic prerequisite for creating a digital twin that can be used to map and optimize an entire plant lifecycle. A common data platform enables all the disciplines involved in a plant project to generate a shared data model. This allows most of the processes that are usually performed sequentially to be executed in parallel, saving valuable time and expenses, and at the same time increasing engineering quality. The digital twin also allows the plant to be simulated prior to the critical commissioning phase, which ensures a reliable implementation. Other benefits of the digital twin–which can also be generated for an existing plant–include the fast and efficient performance of training and modernization measures. Siemens, Munich, Germany
John Crane Provides Engineered Technology
John Crane is one of the world's leading providers of engineered technology. The company supplies and services products used in process industries for their mission-critical operations, many of which involve extremely challenging conditions. John Crane is part of Smiths Group Plc, a global leader in applying advanced technologies for many markets, including energy and engineered components. The company serves both the power generation and chemical industries, and many others, with rotating equipment solutions and engineered technologies. The company's products include: mechanical seals; seal support systems; packing; couplings; filtration systems; and predictive digital monitoring technologies. The company's services include: maintenance and repair; reliability programs; turbomachinery services; asset management solutions; and training. John Crane, Chicago, Ill.
KROHNE Supplies Process Measuring Technology
KROHNE offers a variety of products as a full-service provider for process measuring technology for the measurement of flow, mass flow, level, pressure, and temperature, as well as analytical tasks. The company recently introduced its OPTISENS TSS 2000, a total suspended solids (TSS) sensor that is a robust, cost-effective immersion sensor for process and quality control in industrial and municipal wastewater applications. OPTISENS TSS 2000 features a fast response time and can be used to optimize processes, increase yield, or monitor limits. Its target applications in the water and wastewater industry include mixed liquor suspended solids monitoring, sludge discharge of primary and secondary sedimentation (clarifier) tanks, or monitoring of biological treatment in wastewater aeration basins. KROHNE, Duisburg, Germany, and Beverly, Mass.
