INDUSTRY 4.0 APPLIED TO AIR GAS PRODUCTION UNIT

Abstract

One of the most used methods for the production of air gases is the cryogenic distillation. To simplify the logistics of delivering the products to customers, the gases are produced and distributed in liquid state. In some Production Units, due to market demand fluctuations, frequent Plant start and stop happens which requires several manual interventions of the operator. To minimize the variability of the startup required time, and to improve the operator experience in the interaction with the plant, innovative tools were implemented. High Performance Human Machine Interface displays were designed. For the Plant startup, a supervised automatic sequencer was developed, where the sequencer executes all the routine with the supervision of the operator. Using the PID controller tuning tool designed in the “Control systems research group” (GESiC – FRSN), the feedback loop controller performance was improved. An alarm management system was setup, and the “Communications research group” (GICom – FRSN) developed a tool to alert the operator in the mobile phone. In case of a Plant event, the operator receives an instant message with the process alarm description. In the present paper, the implementations and the results are described