|
Application Summary
This application describes
petroleum bulk storage terminals.
Customers store various petroleum products at these facilities
and are charged monthly storage fees. The petroleum
terminal choose to enhance its full-service offerings with affordable state-of-the
art web technology. The
project requirements are to allow customers direct access to
inventory levels of products they have stored at the facility
by providing an Internet port on the automation network
of the facility. With the proper security, users can log on to the web site from anywhere in the world and access
tank inventories. All that is needed
is a standard web browser.
Using an ordinary web
browser, a customer can monitor his inventory stored at a
commercial liquid bulk storage facility.
The aim
is to provide customers with
web-based direct monitoring and control of their inventory at the commercial liquid bulk storage
terminal by upgrading its automation system to interface transparently with the Internet. The result
is to save money for bulk storage company and its customers.
When customers can ascertain the status of their materials
directly from the system, it frees up service staff for more
productive work.
 |
|
 |
Photo
1: Web Browser -
Propane Storage Sphere graphic. |
|
Photo
2: Propane Storage Sphere. |
Benefits of Real-time
Inventory and Operational data such as tank level and delivery data is
made accessible to partners,
customers, and suppliers via the web.
The use of Web Access increases the quality and value
services to customers, but also saves money for both the
company and its customers. When customers can ascertain the
status of their materials directly from the system, it frees
up customer service staff for more productive work.
Information obtained by customers can be virtually real-time,
delayed by just minutes or seconds instead of days or weeks.
Real-time inventory also enhances their ability to promise
delivery to their own customers, leading to greater speed,
efficiency, accuracy, and convenience in their transactions.
All parties involved reduce the costs of idle inventories.
An additional benefit is that engineers, technicians and
managers can log on to the system and remotely access the
process controls at the facility using an ordinary web browser
from anywhere and at any time. This enables engineers
and technicians to solve problems as soon as they occur,
rather than waiting hours or days to drive (or fly) to the
facility.
In the past, some of these requirements were
provided via dial-up access via telephone modem. The advantages
of an ordinary Web Browser using the Internet, or an intranet, over
private dial-up arrangements are speed of the connection and that any number of remote users can access the
network from any computer by familiar procedures, without special software.
Security Levels assigned to each users and areas of the
facility specify what data can be changed by various groups of
people.
 |
Photo 2: Petroleum Bulk Storage
Facility.
Using an ordinary web browser, a customer
can monitor his inventory stored at a commercial liquid bulk storage
facility. |
Petroleum
Bulk Storage Application
This liquid bulk storage terminal sits on 30 acres
and has 80 tanks with an aggregate capacity of about a
million barrels. The facility stores a wide variety of liquid materials for many
different clients on a toll basis. These chemicals move in and out via rail tank
cars, tank trucks, barges, and tanker ships.
Typical of facilities of
this sort around the world, the terminal previously did not make wide use
of remote data acquisition and control. Pumps and valves were turned on and off
mostly by hand. Levels, flow
rates, temperatures, and pressures were typically read by eye and keyed into
computer terminals connected to a mainframe at headquarters.
In
the past, terminal management software in the computer serves all Terminals
in North America, keeping track of
customers' materials, issuing invoices, etc. Customers may log onto the mainframe via dial-up modem to read
inventory levels, utility usage, and other information about their accounts for
efficient demand supply planning and management.
Photo
3: Supervisory Control
and Data Acquisition (SCADA)
A PC-based operator station running
standard Windows NT is connected to the control system via Ethernet local area networks.
Implementing
Web Access
The most direct way to implement Internet access to automation data
by customers (including business partners) is the same way one would provide it
for remote users within your company. Simply install web server
software right in the plant automation network, which is the source of the
information. This example is based on the latest in open, field-based
architecture. It is a readily available, off-the-shelf solution.
In this
example, an off-the-shelf web server software suite is provided as part of the
open field-based architecture. OPC servers of various kinds are becoming
available for most automation systems. This one runs in a PC station that also
happens to be used as a link between the automation network and the plant's
information-systems (IS) LAN. The web server suite includes Microsoft's Internet
Information Server, which is included in the standard NT Server 4.0
package.
In this example, the plant's
information-systems LAN is equipped with an Internet server that handles all
Internet traffic for the plant. It is linked to the Internet via a high-speed
router that includes a firewall. Customers gain access by logging on to a web
site at a host name within the company's domain.
If the plant did not
already have an Internet connection, one could be arranged with a local Internet
service provider or telephone company. It would use a modem or other interface
device of the desired speed at the control network's web server
station.
This particular web server software connects to the automation
network using the industry standard OPC. Using a web browser such as Microsoft Internet
Explorer 6.0, customers or business partners can view process
graphics, process-variable trends updating on a real-time basis, historic
trends, and summaries of events and alarms.
The web server software allows security to grant or deny
access to individual modules, so that customers get only the information needed.
This arrangement also provides a fringe benefit to the company, in that the
plant LAN serves as an intranet for the automation network's web server station.
Personnel at any computer on the plant LAN can use a web browser to access the
automation system, without having to run automation software.
Figure 4: System Architecture
Operational data such as tank levels
and utility usage rates can be passed to management computer systems..
Customer
Data
Customers typically
say that if the data is not real-time, don't bother--and that raises the
question as to how frequent "real-time" is in each case. It depends on whether
the variables involved are changing, and how rapidly. When material is flowing
in or out of a tank, half an hour is too seldom for updating the liquid level,
but five minutes seems to satisfy most people in the chemical industry today. However,
using Web Access, data is only seconds old, limited only by
the speed of the tank gauging equipment.
Photo 5. Close-up
view: Web Browser showing Real-time
Inventory and Operational data such as tank level and delivery data is made accessible to partners,
customers, and suppliers via the web.
Currently, our latest innovation for
petroleum terminal automation is an Internet server on the plant's main Ethernet LAN,
to which the operator station is connected . Located in the terminal's office building, this computer provides access to
Tank Inventories over the
corporation's Internet-based network via a high-speed router
operating at 1.54 megabits per second. Real-time customer data can be accessed
directly from any Web Browser connected to the Internet. Customers will now be able to access their account data through a
web browser, using appropriate privacy features such as passwords.
Web-based automation
of petroleum bulk terminals is advancing in North America for eventual business-to-business integration of supply-chain
management via the Internet. We are installing the same technology at the
company's other terminals. Moreover, we expect that this
automation will interface very efficiently with enterprise resource planning systems that
are being globally implemented.
For a large company handling chemicals at many locations,
making useful real-time data available to customers via the Internet can be
complex and expensive, especially if the implementation involves interfacing
with a legacy system based on proprietary custom software. This example,
however, shows the importance of updating automation and information-systems in
shape to maintain a company's leadership in its field.
Chances are, not every company
will choose to enhance its full-service offerings with affordable state-of-the
art web technology. But perhaps your competitors in the global e-marketplace
will. The choice is to make web technology work for you.
BroadWin
Software Powers eAutomation
|
