ABB provides tools and expertise to help you analyze, optimize and extend the life of existing equipment.
Extending the usable life of your existing equipment simply makes good fiscal sense. By relying on proven, familiar systems and processes, you gain increased confidence in capital expenditure plans, increase the reliability of assets, reduce dislocation and downtime associated with installing new equipment and the training needed to learn and operate it. ABB provides services to help you control system obsolescence, maximise equipment life and plan for system upgrades.
Your control system is the brains behind your process and maintaining its health and longevity is critical. Automation Sentinel is an ABB control system management and support program that helps you actively manage your control system, lifecycle, support and maintenance. It provides the fundamental software support you need to maintain operation and maximize the availability of your installed ABB control system. This flexible program allows you to keep your control software up to date while maintaining a flexible path toward new system software technology when needed.
Determining what it costs to operate and maintain your equipment effectively is paramount to deciding how long to keep it, how much to invest in it and when its time to upgrade. ABB’s experts can help ensure the longevity of your equipment by providing comprehensive lifecycle prediction and planning services. They can help you build a lifecycle strategy to manage system updates, plan for system obsolescence and justify costly equipment upgrades. They can also assess your current competitive situation and marketplace, help you gauge future demand and plan for expansion and new capacity.
Because capital is limited, your equipment needs to perform reliably for as long as possible. ABB provides optimization services to help you extend the life of your equipment by accurately diagnosing issues that limit current system performance and helping you implement cost-effective improvements. ABB’s system optimization services use a three phase methodology:
Phase 1: Diagnose
ABB engineers use the System Performance FingerprintTM to audit and analyze your control systems and identify improvement opportunities. The Fingerprint compares system performance and parameters to peak operating conditions, and compares actual operating data to designed capacities to identify optimum control system operation. The resulting implementation plan identifies corrective activities for performance improvement and associated financial benefits.
Phase 2: Implement
After a review of the Fingerprint findings and recommendations, ABB develops an improvement implementation plan. As soon as the plan has been set, changes and updates to control systems are implemented incrementally or at once for immediate improvement to maximize system performance, extend its life and provide optimal return on investment.
Phase 3: Sustain
ABB’s SystemScan service periodically analyzes the performance of previously Fingerprinted control systems and provides verification of corrections made in a previous phase and searches for new or recurring issues. In adition, ABB’s System Track service continually monitors the control system condition and sends proactive event and maintenance notifications to designated plant staff.
ABB’s optimization services can be performed onsite and remotely. Remote optimization helps ensure access to global experts 24/7 anywhere in the world, rapid response times and reduced costs by eliminating travel expenses. ABB ServicePort is a remote-enabled service delivery service that provides your process control system with an on-site connection to ABB’s experts and allows you to take full advantage of Scan and Track services. ABB ServicePort acts as an onsite ‘service cocoordinator’, providing access and management for all services related to ABB process automation. As the focal point for service communications, ABB ServicePort can run related applications, such as preventive maintenance, work order tracking, spare parts management, system and process optimization, maintenance reporting and alarm and message generation.