Global Performance Advisor
A MS Performance Advisor
FREQUENTLY
ASKED QUESTIONS
© 2009, Emerson Process Management
Company Confidential Page 1 of 11
May 2009
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
AMS® Suite: Global Performance Advisor
AMS Suite: Global Performance Advisor is an onsite, real-time application that calculates equipment
performance. It is combined with AMS Suite: Asset Graphics to present protection, prediction, and
performance information in one consolidated display. The inputs to the calculations already exist in a
customer’s historian and are retrieved utilizing OPC. The calculated outputs are also available as OPC values
in the customer’s historian.
AMS Performance Advisor shows the difference in equipment performance efficiencies (actual versus design)
along with a graphical display of where performance is on the equipment performance ‘curve.’
Answers to the most frequently asked questions on AMS Performance Advisor are provided below.
GENERAL INFORMATION
Q1. What is equipment performance?
Equipment performance refers to information that communicates how efficiently process assets convert
energy to output. This applies to mechanical assets like compressors, gas turbines, steam turbines, pump s,
and fans or process assets like boilers, heat exchangers, and cooling towers.
Q2. Why do I want/need to monitor equipment performance?
Knowing equipment performance helps you to identify the 1% in lost efficiency in equipment like compressors
/ boilers / turbines / etc. Just saving 1% in energy usage for every 100 MW consumed is worth approximately
$250k per year. Availability gains through predictive intelligence are worth up to 3% in overall uptime.
Q3. How can AMS Performance Advisor help me monitor equipment performance better
than what I have been doing?
Equipment performance monitoring is not new to the market. In fact, the industry has been calculating asset
efficiency performance for the last 30 years. A mechanical engineer is typically assigned to develop a
thermodynamic model on key equipment and feed process values into the models either monthly or quarterly.
Operators and process engineers then use this information. This approach is good, but there are a few
challenges that make this approach cumbersome:
• Building models is arduous
• Entering data means reviewing all values for correctness, such as instrument drift
• Interpreting the data requires significant expertise
o Employee turnover impacts expertise and tribal knowledge
• Bad or incorrect input values causes unrealistic calculated results
© 2009, Emerson Process Management
Company Confidential Page 2 of 11
May 2009
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
Q4. What solutions are available from Emerson?
Emerson has two performance monitoring applications that can be combined or used separately to meet your
unique needs. AMS Suite: Equipment Performance Monitor is an existing service-based solution that provides
monthly or quarterly expert analysis on critical equipment performance.
AMS Performance Advisor is an online, real-time performance monitoring application that addresses the need
for timely delivery of information on performance condition. AMS Performance Advisor is designed to provide
continuous feedback to a number of users:
• Operators can influence control changes to meet operational targets
• Maintenance can look into degradation trends by correlating both condition and performance data in
order to plan actions to recover lost efficiency
• Process Engineers can identify potential instrument problems, pinpoint degradation sources, and
evaluate effectiveness of cost improvement actions
• Management receives financial value of performance deviations from which to evaluate meeting
availability targets
Q5. What application features are important to online monitoring of equipment
performance?
All equipment performance applications include the following:
• Data Input/Output – retrieval of data from existing Historian, typically OPC
• Data Validation – pre-processing and validation of values prior to input to calculations; minimizes
issues with poor or out-of-scale values that would cause incorrect efficiency calculations
• Calculation Engine – math methods required to calculate equipment efficiency
• User Interface – clear presentation of where equipment is operating
• Knowledge Base – recommended methods and procedures to guide personnel actions
• KPI /Business Metrics – clear presentation of the financial cost of not operating in green
• Alert Notification / Escalation – Displays alerts and escalation tactics (often email / group paging)
• Diagnostic Analysis – Helps correlate model or equipment issues using process flow diagra ms
• Error / Event Logs – Document log by Operator when alerts or issues occur
Q6. What features differentiate AMS Performance Advisor from other performance
monitoring applications?
AMS Performance Advisor differentiators include:
• Integration with any DCS, not tied to only Emerson systems
• AMS Machinery Manager software is not required as part of the AMS Suite solution. Other major
providers require their base application software which adds significant cost to the solution.
• Provides financial value of the time operating below acceptable levels. Emerson refers to this as
the percentage of Time Operating out-of-green zone.
• Intuitive screen presentation
• Quarterly tuning of system. Rather than set up an on-site calculator, Emerson has included
tuning of the system that results in alert colors and a “Knowledge Base” that documents
observations. The Knowledge Base helps to answer the question of what to do if equipment is
not operating in the acceptable zones.
© 2009, Emerson Process Management
Company Confidential Page 3 of 11
May 2009
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
Q7. What benefits will AMS Performance Advisor deliver?
AMS Performance Advisor delivers the following benefits:
• Provides immediate feedback of equipment performance values and corrective action s
• Presents financial consequence of operational status (the cost of not running in ‘green’)
• Real-time updates (every 2 minutes is typical cycle update, capable of even faster updates)
• Provides efficiency deviation values (design / actual / delta-from-design) back to Operator’s
existing DCS screens
• Performance integrates with machinery protection and prediction capabilities of the AMS Suite
• Live Process Flow Diagrams (PFDs) help with problem analysis
Q8. What are the target applications?
AMS Performance Advisor has modules that calculate efficiency for equipment present in most process
manufacturing industries and applications. Specific equipment supported includ es:
• Compressors (centrifugal / reciprocating / rotary screw)
• Gas Turbines
• Steam Turbines
• Heat Exchangers
• Boilers / Heaters / Furnaces
• HRSG (Heat-Recovery Steam Generators)
• Large Pumps
• Large Fans
• Cooling Towers
Q9. Does API 670 call for equipment performance monitoring?
Not directly. However, an appendix to API 670 5th Edition (CONDITION MONITORING INFORMATIVE
ANNEX, Section 4) recognizes the value of equipment performance monitoring for early identification of
predictable events. Machinery that is critical enough to protect is also a candidate for prediction and
performance monitoring.
© 2009, Emerson Process Management
Company Confidential Page 4 of 11
Loading...