EPTroubleShooter™ EPTroubleShooter™ Details and Description Details and Description July 2011 Troubleshoot Problems Quickly Leverage Process Experience Protect Plant Equipment Decrease Process Downtime Improve Product Consistency Support Operators & Engineers Other EP Monitoring Tools: DistillationMizer™ EnergyWarden™ SOCDashboard™ P.O. Box 1383 Friendswood, Texas, 77549-1383 281-585-8724 www.epmonitoring.com
27
Embed
EPTroubleShooter Details and Description July 2011 Troubleshoot Problems Quickly Leverage Process Experience Protect Plant Equipment Decrease Process Downtime.
This document is posted to help you gain knowledge. Please leave a comment to let me know what you think about it! Share it to your friends and learn new things together.
Transcript
EPTroubleShooter™EPTroubleShooter™
Details and DescriptionDetails and Description
July 2011 Troubleshoot Problems Quickly Leverage Process Experience Protect Plant Equipment Decrease Process Downtime Improve Product Consistency Support Operators & Engineers
Other EP Monitoring Tools: DistillationMizer™EnergyWarden™ SOCDashboard™ P.O. Box 1383
Before We Get Started: This is our troubleshooter set up for a typical centrifugal pump. The user has selected 4 Symptoms and the technology is indicating 3 items to
check first (MPC); 4 to check 2nd and 15 to check 3rd.
The Problem:In the midst of a crisis situation• Technical support may not be instantly available• Troubleshooting guides, not utilized on a daily basis,
must be read through step-by-step• Due to time pressure, fatigue and/or lack of experience,
consistent, high-quality decisions are not always made
• Gather the collective wisdom and knowledge of experienced experts
• Program this knowledge and intelligence into an “automated troubleshooter”
• Do you have circumstances that arise which require intervention within a very short time frame to avoid downstream problems, or a process outage or incident?
• Employing automated troubleshooting will aid your employees in assuring they are not wasting time checking out low-probability potential causes.
24/7 Technical Presence:• The expert system simulates having a technical resource
present in the control room at all times to come to the aid of operators for the problems programmed
Calm Under Fire:• When operations are unstable, its always nice to have
someone who is calm under fire, can think clearly and rationally under stress, and can make prompt decisions – the EPTroubleShooter™ never gets stressed out
• The system can handle complex processes with up to 12 symptoms and 24 potential causes
• Can be adapted to your unique process with your own best practices by simply changing the numbers in the decision-making matrix. Don’t like advice? Change matrix
• EP Monitoring also offers out-of-the-box, generic applications for some common equipment (currently single stage centrifugal pumps and steam turbines)
• More generic applications to come (distillation towers, desalters, centrifugal/reciprocating compressors, etc.)
1. "Signature" Test (test for distinct patterns or "fingerprints") – This test searches for distinctive patterns and is positive if both of the following are true:
• At least 66%1 of Symptoms that would be affected by a Cause are observed. • None of the Symptoms are evident that would not be affected by that Cause.
2. “Process Knowledge” Test (similar to signature test but is a weighted determination) – Causes designated most likely to affect a given Symptom based on process knowledge (experience) are awarded more weight (a higher number assigned by the developer of the matrix) than other items. This test is positive if both of the following are true:
• At least 66%1 of Symptoms (by weight) to be affected by Cause are observed.• None of the Symptoms are evident that would not be affected by that Cause.
1When determining percentages for the "Process Knowledge" and "Signature" tests, adjustments are made to the denominator to account for situations in which the user has marked a symptom as "Unknown" or if any of the symptoms are mutually-exclusive.
Blank Troubleshooter(this example set up for gastrointestinal diseases) Note: The decision-making matrix is not normally visible.
Example of Test, “None of the Symptoms are evident that would not be affected by a Cause” - Metallic taste rules out appendicitis as MPC (put on “check 1st” list)
• Symptoms of Appendicitis: Abdominal pain around naval, then lower right side, extreme pain when pressure applied to lower right abdomen (very strong symptom), nausea, vomiting, loss of appetite and fever
• Symptoms of Gastroenteritis (stomach flue): Generalized abdominal pain, nausea, vomiting, loss of appetite, diarrhea and fever
• Symptoms of Gallstones: Pain in abdomen and right shoulder blade after eating greasy food
• Symptoms of Gastric ulcers: Abdominal pain, upper center, may move to back, nausea, dark black stool (unless taking iron or Peptol Bismol)
• Symptoms of Food Poisoning: Generalized abdominal pain, nausea, vomiting, loss of appetite, diarrhea and metallic taste in mouth (strong symptom)
Set up for Single Stage Centrifugal Pump - There are 5 items on the Most Probable Cause (MPC) list due to the
Set up for a Steam Turbine - There are 3 items on the Most Probable Cause (MPC) list, all concerning this one turbine due to lack of evidence to narrow down search
Your system can be customized to show items on the things to check 2nd and 3rd lists but never on the MPC list if there would not be enough evidence to support it. Customizing is also available to only add items to MPC list if more
than one Symptom is checked or only if a specific Symptom is checked.
Please Note: The previous slide presentation has been an oversimplification of a rather complex system (see snapshot of the TOC of the “Instructions” sheet below
for some of the other features available in the process):
• Developer has 28 years plant operations experience with proven track record in troubleshooting
• 108,160 logic tests performed with each selection
• Employing automated troubleshooting will aid your employees in assuring they are not wasting time checking out low-probability potential causes
• Your best “process smarts” are captured for all to use (least experienced employee now has the same information at his disposal as the most experienced)
• Out-of-the-box troubleshooters are available or you can customize your own for your unique process