Digitisation can improve the safety of industrial processes

Improving the safety of industrial processes through digitalisation is a significant leap in terms of benefits for the productivity, flexibility, and quality of any organisation. However, the use of advanced technologies and the form they take will inevitably differ from one industry to another.

The idea is for each to focus on process safety, denying the possibility of personal injury, significant property loss, and business interruption, thereby achieving a positive outcome in creating business value, taking into account that best practices help to mitigate any potential problems.

Likewise, the benefits of discrete manufacturing include collaboration between cyber-physical systems, the use of the Internet of Things (IoT) and the Internet of Services to embrace digitalisation across the entire value chain, leading to greater production flexibility and improved productivity performance.

Talking about digitalisation for strategic decision-making in process industries such as the chemical sector, refers to the application of integrated engineering and operation in processing plants throughout the entire lifecycle. However, it also encompasses topics like simulation using «Digital Twins” and Big Data for information.

From the “virtual” world, where integrated engineering can be accommodated via a cloud-based platform and operating system, areas such as data analytics and asset performance management are linked to the “real” world of integrated operation by virtue of secure connectivity.

Whereas, in preventative maintenance regimes, the use of digitally enhanced products and the optimisation of industrial processes, through maintenance work The possibility exists to improve the safety of industrial processes by reducing the scope of systematic errors throughout the lifecycle and using a digital twin that thoroughly tests the automation layer, which includes simulation to avoid costly and prolonged errors. 

Now, among the benefits included in the digital enablement of integrated engineering and operations for the operator of any industrial plant are: 

• Plant lifecycle management with a panorama of holistic tools.
• Common data model to shorten time-to-market.
• Greater efficiency thanks to simulation and testing technologies.
• Optimised operations based on high transparency.
• Plant and process availability thanks to current digital twin technology.

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How to improve the safety of industrial processes by turning big data into smart data

The proliferation of industrial data volumes has improved both the level and depth of business insight in recent years, and the key to helping organisations improve industrial process safety lies in creating true connectivity between the eight billion devices currently connected to the internet.

The increase in industrial digitalisation within a chemical plant's operations not only facilitates the collection, analysis, and use of data, but also significantly enhances a plant operator's ability to consolidate data from disparate systems in the cloud and eliminate the difficulties of dealing with data silos.

It is for this reason that big or smarter data has the real potential to contribute to improving industrial process safety in a number of areas, such as:

• Plant reliability and asset integrity.
• Steady-state process control.
• Optimisation of the process by means of Industrial process planning solutions.
• Accident investigation.
• Collection of leading indicators to improve industrial process safety, such as access to data available in maintenance and incident systems, and to better promote future process safety. 

The open cloud platform offers a solid foundation for new business models based on industrial plant data, achieving data-driven digital transformation regardless of company size. Starting from analytical insights, big data can be turned into smart data, driving tangible business value.

Before we conclude, let's not forget cybersecurity. While digitalisation promises many benefits, such as improved productivity, reduced time to market, enhanced product quality, and can improve the safety of industrial processes, the additional level of integration across the plant's lifecycle brings with it new IT security challenges.

The adoption of a digitisation strategy is now the way forward for many within the industrial base, therefore the additional connectivity required to implement digitisation requires further consideration of cybersecurity measures to protect the control system and associated datasets.

Cybersecurity is necessarily important to address in a process plant because the impact of a cyber-attack could be so severe; ranging from financial losses due to production downtime, to critical infrastructure, harm to people or the environment.

Currently, best practices involve the implementation of a series of new and evolving industrial automation and control systems cybersecurity standards to improve the safety of industrial processes.

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