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Lothar Lang

Consulting Engineer - CSEE

Lyondell Chemical Company

Critical Condition Managementon a Corporate Scale

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Lyondell Is a Major Global Chemical Company

A global leader in the manufacture of chemicals and polymers, building blocks for countless products that people around the world use every day

Lyondell’s products are vital to the goods that people depend upon to enhance their quality of life

Lyondell includes three wholly owned businesses –Equistar, Millennium and the Houston refinery

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Fast Facts

One of the world’s 10 largest chemical companies

Operations on five continents

Nearly 11,000 employees

Combined pro forma 2006 revenues of $22.2 billion*

Leading capacity positions in all major products

A Fortune 500 company

Ranked among the industry best in on-the-job safety

Continuous improvement in environmental performance, product quality and reliability measures

* Including 100% of refinery

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Lyondell at a Glance

880North America$5.8 billion*Refining of heavy, high-sulfur crude oil

Refining

Global$1.4 billionTiO2Inorganic Chemicals

Global$6.7 billionPropylene Oxide

Styrene Monomer

MTBE

Propylene Oxide & Related Products

(PO&RP)

10,000

North America$10.8 billionEthylene

Propylene

Polyethylene

Acetyls

Ethylene, Co-Products & Derivatives

(EC&D)

EmployeesGeography2006 Revenues

Business Focus

Segment

*Refining data represents 100 percent of post- and 58.75% of pre-acquisition Houston Refining sales and operating income

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Operations & Control Systems Best Practice Team Motivation

Human factors & process control systems have a large impact on• Response to or prevention of critical conditions that impact reliability,

safety, environmental performance, and quality• Operational Excellence

Reduce risk of wrong operator input or action

Reduction of unit upsets

• Unit operating costs…

Appropriate level of automationWork practices and training systems to enhance operator’s abilitiesAddress operator workloadProvide better information to operators, specifically under stress conditions (unit upset…)Address operator turnover through retirementBesides equipment performance, our reliability efforts also need to concentrate on human factors and process control capabilities

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Emergency and abnormal situations represent a unique challenge in the operation of all complex systems. On one hand, operators have to maintain a very high degree of proficiency in the relevant procedures, while on the other hand, they rarely have an opportunity to practice them. Aircraft have become very reliable. It is not uncommon today to meet retiring airline captains who have never had a serious emergency in their careers…

But How Do We Get There?

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What We Found…

HandheldDevices Critical

ConditionManagement Scenario

DrillsOperatorTrainingSimulators

ChecklistsAutomationStrategy

CreateIndustryBenchmarks

A comprehensive approach for reducing human factors contributing to abnormal situations, with many parallels to our operations

Focus Areas

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Critical Condition Management

HCI (operator interface)

Alarm management

Control loop performance management

Operator advisory system

Software standard company-wide

KPI company-wide

Sharing of Best Practices

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The Modern-day Problem

Control rooms badly designed

Alarm Management causing operators to react to problems, then becoming overwhelmed during a disturbance

HCI causing similar problems to those on the panel: information overload - they may get confused, make mistakes, or panic

Operators, often less experienced than their predecessors, are being required to manage larger numbers of valves/loops, with more associated data, thus increasing the potential for information overload

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Empower frontline (operator and support function)

Heighten situational awareness

Focus on key activities and key actors (prioritize)

Automate use of information

Share the information

Engage the teams in continuous improvement process

Drive intelligently by best practice and KPI

Success in Critical Condition Management

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How Not to Design a HCI…

OrientingEvaluating

Acting

Assessing

•Information overload

•Vague or misleading information

•Inappropriate level of detail

•Vigilance decrement

•Insufficient knowledge

•Lack of experience or practice

•Conflicting priorities

•Inaccurate labeling or information presentation

•Excessive mental task

•Inadequate communications

•Deficient procedures

•Failure to follow procedures

•Inappropriate actions

•Inability to act

•Inadequate feedback

•Poor layout or information presentation

•Policy & practice discrepancies

•Inadequate feedback

•Poor integration of information systems

20%30%

20%

30%

Influences on Operator Intervention Success

Operator graphics(HCI)

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We Can Do it Better…

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New OVERVIEW Example

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Lyondell’s Approach to Operator Graphic Design

Document best practice

Focus attention on critical information

Assess situation at a glance

Use company-wide

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What Sort of Benefits Have Been Seen by Improving the HCI?

Thorough tests were conducted using real operators and (simulated) known process upsets (NOVA), but with different sets of displays; one being ASM-compliant, the other being “good” operational displays, but not ASM-compliant.

When using ASM-compliant displays:

Tasks were completed 35% - 48% faster.

Failures were successfully dealt with 26% more often.

Presence of failure was recognized before the first alarm 38% more often.

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Alarm Management – Typical Phases

Benchmark & assessmentBaseline, KPI

Alarm philosophyAlarm definition and governing rules

Alarm rationalizationSystematic review and documentation of alarm settings

Implementation & Execution Control system configuration

Continuous improvementPerformance monitoring & optimizationReduce alarm frequency systematically by elimination of bad actorsDynamic alarm handling to address alarm flooding

MaintenanceSustainability and MOC

Phase Itool: logmate

Phase IItool: UReason

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KPI for Alarm Management

EEMUA (Engineering Equipment and Materials Users Association) guideline ≡ company goal

Per Operator

10Peak alarm rate per 10 minutes

9Average # of standing alarm

(longer than 24 hours)

6Average # of alarms per hour

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Average # of Alarms per Operator at a SiteOctober Average: 2.3

Data captured by logmate application

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Peak Alarm Rate per Operator at a Site,for December

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Benchmarking Data for 4th Quarter ‘06

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Path Forward - Alarm Management

Establish KPI and baselines at all sites

Drive with continuous improvement program

Periodically review KPI, bad actors and action items

Need a Champion (preferentially from operations)Leads the review process

Drills down using logmate to identify worst (3 - 5) bad actors

Involves appropriate people to address the identified issues

Follows up to ensure quick implementation

Start dynamic alarm handling

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Benefits from Dynamic Alarm Handling (OASYS-AM from UReason)Two phased approach:

Provide Real-Time Reduced Alarm Lists to OperatorsUses alarm and configuration data stored/collected by logmateRecognizes alarm relationships, chattering alarms and nuisance

alarmsProvides operators with reduced alarm lists independent of the DCS

Prevents Alarm Floods by Predicting Process Upsets

Correlates alarm and process data to predict process upsetsProvides operators with alarm advisories (checklists…) independent of the DCS

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Alarm Data during a Plant Upset

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Alarm Data during a Plant Upset (continued)

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Playback of Alarm Data Using a Rule for Reducing Six Most Frequent Chattering Alarms

significant alarm reduction after

initial alarm burst

Data generated using U

Reason

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Playback of Alarm Plant Using a Rule for Reducing Six Most Frequent Chattering Alarms

Original two most frequent alarms are no longer among ten most frequent alarms

Data generated using U

Reason

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Phases for – Control Loop Performance Management

Benchmark & assessmentDefine KPIEstablish baseline

Analyze – systematic review of worst performers and highest impact loopsHardware – transmitters, control valves, speed control, analyzersTuningControl structure

Implementation & execution MOC, capital, turnaround timing

Continuous improvementPerformance monitoring & optimizationPublish and review KPI

Maintenance and sustainabilityCompany standard PlantTriage from Expertune

External Focus

InternalFocus

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KPI for Control Loop Performance

% of loops with valve issues

% of loops that are oscillating

% of loops running more than 5 % of the time at their limits (saturation)

% of loops not in normal operation (i.e. manual or cascade open) more than 10 % of the time

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“% Control Loops in Normal Mode” IV 2006Industry Benchmark

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0

10

20

30

40

50

02/15/06 03/17/06 04/16/06 05/16/06 06/15/06

CPM KPI –February to June 2006

0

5

10

15

20

02/15/06 03/17/06 04/16/06 05/16/06 06/15/06

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

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02/15/06 03/17/06 04/16/06 05/16/06 06/15/06

% Loops above oscillating threshold- tuning•Rx – 0% - 4%•Distillation 0% – 4%•<5% good – tuning not current problem

% Loops above oscillating threshold -load•Rx – 20% - 50%•Distillation – 20% - 40% •>20% needs improvement– control strategies

% Loops with valve issues•Rx – average ~ 9%•Distillation average ~ 25%•<5% good, >10% needs improvement

REACTIONDISTILLATION

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Energy Savings – Finishing Unit 2005 - 2006Btu/gal Fin feed vs Fin feed for various time periods

10000

12000

14000

16000

18000

20000

22000

24000

26000

50 60 70 80 90 100 110 120 130 140

Fin Feed, gal

BTU

/gal

2nd Q 2005

3rd Q 2005

4th Q 2005

1st Q 2006

2nd Q 2006

Poly. (3rd Q 2005)

Poly. (4th Q 2005)

Poly. (1st Q 2006)

Poly. (2nd Q 2006)

Poly. (2nd Q 2005)

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Key Benefits of Process Control Loop Monitoring and Performance Improvements

Smoother operation

Less process upsets lead to increases in availability and rate

Running closer to process constraints allows increase of BDP (max. rates)

Reduced operator input

Reduced variability caused by differences in experience

Less biased operation

Less alarms

Reduced shutdown cost

Improved basis for DMC applications

Reduced upsets

Less mechanical damage

Major impactValve wearPumpsColumn internals…

Causes of many reliability problems are process control related and not strictly mechanical

Efficiency ↑

Planning ↑

Maintenance ↓

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Why Operator Advisory System?One Problem: Data Overload

Trends are a valuable tool for operators to identify potential critical conditionsThe human brain gains insight more easily from visual representations like graphs than from numbers No easy way to graph large amounts of data

Conventional maximum of 4 or 5 variables per graph435 x-y graphs needed to show the interactions of 30 variables

Difficult to visualize data sets of high dimension

But we want a proactive operating philosophy

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Process Move

Process Objective<Tag> <Descriptor>

NOW FUTURE

<Tag> <Descriptor>

Advisor shows where to position the process handles to meet the process objectives AND optimize the process economics

Suggestion of an Operator - Advisory Interface

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Path Forward – Critical Condition Management

Implement tools at all sitesAlarm management: Logmate (TiPS) – phase I CPM: PlantTriage (Expertune)

Establish KPI and baselines at the sitesDrive with continuous improvement program (CIP)Share best practices (Lyondell user groups…)Establish OE standardProvide dynamic alarm management and enhanced knowledge-based operator support systems

Implement UReason – phase IIOperator graphics, operator advisories…

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Success in Critical Condition Management

Accelerate implementation through the use of best practice and standard toolsSustain the gain through performance monitoring (KPI), CIP,and maintenance managementSupport Operations to be

More proactiveMore vigilant

Adopted by operationsPrevention of shutdowns and avoidance of process upsetsFaster recovery from process upsets and critical conditions (trips…)