Business Optimisation

Maximise Economic Benefits

  • Optimise the whole – not the parts
  • Manage benefits across operational silos

Systems Approach

  • Everything is connected to everything else
  • Manage risks and avoid single points of failure
  • Build resilience with graceful degradation
  • Humans remain in control, supported by embedded intelligence
Systems Approach Diagram People Plant Processes

Decision Support

Embed Your Strategy

  • Underpinned by knowledge, intelligence and best practices
  • Reliable and trusted proposed decisions
  • Fast decision making
  • Labour saving
  • Transparent processes
  • No action unless approved by a human
Decision Support Diagram

Asset Performance

Plant Automation

  • Increased throughput
  • Reduced labour
  • Consistent quality

Automated Process Control

  • Save energy
  • Save materials
  • Tighter control reduces variances
Asset Performance Diagram

Expected Outcomes

  • Increased sales
  • Improved customer service
  • Reduced working capital
  • Cost reduction
  • Resilient operations
  • Safer operations
  • Quality improvement
Expected Outcomes Diagram

Automation

Automation delivers a wide range of benefits, which includes:

  • Reduction in labour
  • Increased safety
  • Greater productivity
  • Consistent quality
  • Increased reliability
  • Integration with business processes

But automation can be complex and opaque and leave the human team floundering if the system fails.

Smart Automation

By Smart Automation we mean automation that is appropriate for the economic enterprise. It is not automation for automation sake but is something that will improve the system.

Too often, exceedingly complex systems are implemented. Such systems are hard to understand and maintain and end up not being properly used.

We believe that Smart Automation possesses the following characteristics:

  • Outcomes are intuitively obvious
  • The logic is self evident or adequately described
  • Minimises cross linking with sub systems
  • Is fault tolerant
  • Is predictably fail safe
  • Permits quick manual intervention
  • Provides self-diagnostics
  • Allows for inter-operability with expert systems
  • Is low cost

It is highly advisable to carry out a Failure Modes and Effects Analysis (FMEA) on the whole plant and identify whether the proposed automation strategy will help mitigate the affects of faults and that it will not itself become a single point of failure. In addition, a Hazard and Operability analysis needs to be conducted to determine whether the proposed automation strategy will adequately support the operabilty of the plant and assist with reduction of hazards.

A word of caution - avoid the urge to annunciate a large number of faults and abnormal situations. Too many alarm signals can be confusing, the noise generated by minor events can draw attention away from serious events. Artificial Intelligence in the form of Expert System can further empower the human operators.