Session Number: 5 Proactive Remote Service Support

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1 Abstract Session Number: 5 Proactive Remote Service Support S.R. Subramani ABB Australia Pty Limited The purpose is to explain how high equipment availability can be achieved by the pro-active, remote management of industrial process control assets. How this reduces cost through predictive maintenance. Description will be made of how security issues have been addressed, both through technology and procedural methods. Support case management will be discussed, for ad-hoc, scheduled and predictive situations. The utilization of remote technologies within projects will also be described. Examples will be used to show how project execution can be improved and at reduced cost by use of remote technologies throughout the project. Introduction This paper describes some of the challenges faced by those who maintain and operate plant & equipment, especially for those in remote locations. The drive for increased efficiency has made Plant, Process and Control system equipment more sophisticated. Yet this sophistication can become an increasing liability when the means to maintain the systems are not at hand. Plant operators demand lower operating costs as well as faster service, and so suppliers must deliver innovative maintenance services to stay competitive. New strategies, based on remote monitoring and equipment diagnostics are gaining acceptance in the industry. Operators; their expectations We refer first to a survey conducted by the Aberdeen Group. This was a market-needs analysis for remote service. The survey was conducted in March It is no surprise, at a time when the global financial crisis was biting hard, that the most important requirement was the reduction in cost of service delivery. Additionally, service should be faster, asset availability improved, and output increased. A unique and equally tough combination like this called for fresh thinking.

2 Figure 1: Market need analysis for remote service by Aberdeen Group Security In most countries technologies are available to establish communication through the Internet. With correct selection of providers and infrastructure, a well secured connection can be established. Remote Access communication via the internet requires authentication to validate the identity of devices exchanging information and must also be supported with bidirectional digital certificates. The communication is supported via proxy servers with password protection. It also provides audit and security features, including audit logs to track user and application access. The communication can also be configured to allow access to specific information only or configured such that approval is required before access is allowed. The file transfers between connected devices go through the existing firewall and are also encrypted, and protected from viruses. The data transmissions are encrypted using 128-bit (or higher) Secure Socket Layer (SSL) protocol. A Schematic of the remote connection between networks of customer and vendor is shown in Figure 2.

3 DCS Connectivity Server PM QCS Controller Controller Customer Plant RDS RAP Node Operator Station Control Net TCP/IP Internet Service Expert in Service Center Iinternet RAP RDS Server In Vendor Office Figure 2: Remote connection network for automation systems When a vendor or service provider, supporting a mission critical Automation system application, requires access to a remote system, they often encounter substantial objections by the IT infrastructure provider, even though the access method has far superior features and security than the standard VPN connections widely used and accepted by the normal IT users. ABB has deployed new technology called RAP (Remote Access Platform), in order to provide the most innovative remote service offering in the industry. The security features address the concerns of IT administrators on the security issues that surround remote support technologies. Through this secured RAP, client equipment can now provide performance data, alerts and alarms to the support team so that the vendor can deliver proactive and rapid service support with advanced remote troubleshooting capabilities. Remote connection infrastructure The Remote Access Platform technology is designed to addresses the security concerns of the IT administrators and the automation system users. The core of the service is the service center, where the Application and communication servers are located. These servers control connection to the different customers via the internet and also control connectivity of the support structure through the corporate network or internet. At each mill site a software application is installed which acts as a Virtual Support Engineer (VSE). This interacts with the different devices in the plant and also provides

4 access to the support network through an encrypted SSL connection via the service center. The end customer has full control over all communications between the onsite Virtual Support Engineer and the Communication Server as well as between the applications and devices which the Virtual Support Engineer monitors on the network. All the remote connection activities can be recorded both at the service center and at the VSE server. Support Center Service Center Internet Virtual Support Engineer Monitored devices Customer (Logical) devices Field devices Figure 3: Remote access connection infrastructure The VSE is connected to multiple devices; each physical device is represented in the database as a specific instance of the Product Line to which the device belongs. There could be multiple product lines; again each product line may have multiple devices. If we take a typical process plant, it would contain multiple assets. Support for these assets may require different skill sets, which may require different resources and could also be from different locations. The remote service infrastructure therefore should have the ability to support all assets. Change management and safety procedures Although we have established a secure connection to the process plant or equipment and the service provider, there is a very important factor we need to consider, that is change management. It is important to categorize the equipment into critical and non- critical assets, also if possible review the level

5 of access to be provided remotely, then use proper change management procedures to define these assets including the safety procedures. Proactive support The real value addition in the remote service support are the support tools and monitors that facilitate the service personal with valuable information to proactively resolve the problems and eliminate the need for emergency service support. This results in the increased probability of resolving the issue faster with the pre analysis data. Processes and technologies have to be well established which lead to a more predictive and preventive maintenance. Even though breakdowns cannot be eliminated completely these processes and tools should be established to monitor the assets. Analysis of the assets can be undertaken to trigger alarms before a failure occurs or, in the case of failure, support fast resolution and reduce down time. Without real time visibility of the performance of the assets, it is not possible to troubleshoot remotely. Increasing real time visibility using this technology can also improve decision time. Even when there is a necessity to visit the customer for resolution of the issues, remote access and pre analysis leads to a proper planning of resources, tools, spares and faster resolution. Analysis tools Apart from the basic access of the systems remotely there is a high value in providing customized tools for different products. This makes the engineers task easier in terms of pooling of data for easy view and automated analysis. There is another factor where some intelligent analysis is done already by these tools to assist the engineers to guide and identify the root cause or to be used for performance improvement. These tools can also provide analysis support for equipment which is not connected through PC networks like motors and transformers. In this case there could be some processes established to physically collect the data from equipments, such as motors and transformers, this manual data collection by less skilled personnel can range from visual inspections and reporting to using offline vibration monitoring tool to collect data and load it on the tools. Higher level of expertise and support can be provided remotely through this process to get immediate support during critical situations, when the expertise is not available locally or response time is an issue. Asset monitors For some critical equipment it is also possible to analyze the data continuously on line and trigger an alarm through or SMS to prompt for remote support during abnormal condition. The information from field devices are collected continuously by the Product line servers; the applications reside in the server which analyze the data coming from the field devices and send only the required information to the VSE. Then the status of monitored assets

6 are transferred to the Service Center where they are presented in the form of alarms coming from the site with 4 levels of severity, Info, Warning, Error and Critical. Therefore an Operator can be notified via if the status of the monitored asset changes. SSH SNMP WMI TL1 DBI Proprietary HTTPS Field Device System monitoring field device locally Plug-in to the monitoring application Virtual Support Engineer Service Center Amount of data Figure 4: Asset monitors and remote information process The remote infrastructure also provides features to transfer files between the service center and the Virtual Support engineer. This can be done manually or scheduled automatically. Process Monitoring and optimization Apart from supporting the automation system trouble shooting, the remote access infrastructure can be used for control audit and process analysis support, the following are few examples of remote process KPI monitoring and process optimization support. Events occurring over a period of weeks and months can be monitored and analyzed remotely. To analyze such process issues might take several weeks or even months. It is not possible to keep the experts for several weeks in the plant to collect the data and analyze the issues. Their time would be better utilized to work on the resolution or improvement after the analysis has been done and when the potential improvement areas are identified. The following is a sample from one such tool which monitors the process performance on the set KPI s for a longer period of time.

7 Figure 5: sample Key Performance Indicators (KPI) monitoring tool The loggers and analysis tools can be setup to capture data during certain events at multiple occasions, once several events for the same conditions have been collected over a period of time; this information can be analyzed using smart analysis tools to provide recommendation to improve the process and saving potential. Some examples include monitoring conditions for boiler trips, boiler or process startup conditions. The example shown in Figure 6 is from the paper machine which monitors the paper breaks while manufacturing for several days.

8 Figure 6: Sample analysis of transition time during paper sheet breaks These conditions can be continuously monitored for a longer period of time to compare the performance results before and after and also for continuous monitoring of the KPI s to sustain the results. It is not cost effective and may not be possible to keep the experts in one plant for this type of analysis which takes long to troubleshoot or to make any process improvements. Remote access is also cost effective for suppliers to effectively use expertise to support several such customer plants even if they are located in different countries. Drives analysis support Specially developed tools to collect high speed data from drives and capture event driven data, in conjunction with remote service can save valuable machine production down time. These tools can also be setup to provide smart analysis and machine specific process modeling to detect process abnormal conditions and efficiency of the drives using past history. In the following example DC drives armature current drops are detected and resolved.

9 All DC drives armature currents drop to zero and recover within 100 ms. The only common reason for such perfectly synchronized behavior is the AC supply under voltage detection. Figure 7: Remote troubleshooting on Drives intermittent problem Proactive Remote services for mining industries Expert analysis tools for mine hoists (HoistScan) and Dragline (DranglineScan) with remote services allows site engineers to collaborate with the supplier for proactive troubleshooting and performance improvement. The expert tools help to analyse abnormal conditions by retrieval of information from the Drives system, motor, hydraulics and breaks of the mine hoists and help to diagnose the root cause of the problem and resolve performance issues. An important aspect of the mine hoist system monitoring is the observation of the changes over an extended period of time, which allows ABB to suggest preventive actions to keep mine hoist in peak performance. Scheduled quarterly analysis of archived data by experts against established performance benchmarks helps in the identification of potential performance improvement opportunities. The analysis is done remotely by experts. Corrective actions and recommendations are made to resolve abnormal conditions which may impact health and safety and also improve mine hoist efficiency. Project commissioning and warranty support Remote configuration of the automation equipment during a Project from different locations, is common practice among automation companies. During the commissioning phase, higher level expert support can be made available through remote services from different parts of the world. The remote support can also be used during the warranty phase to provide immediate support and reduce down time and cost. For some complex problems, where different expertise is required, the remote services are used to pool the expertise from

10 different locations to analyze the problem and speed up the resolution and commissioning time. Conclusion Remote service is not only an enabler of service delivery it is predictive facilitator of intelligent based smart services. Its best in class status is achieved through addressing Mean time to repair and First time fix. Over and above providing just the infrastructure for remote access, remote service can also increase value for the plant by providing the total solution based on the customers situation, including critical analysis of the equipment, availability of the resources and expertise and at the same time addressing the customer security concerns. This will enhance production companies to operate the manufacturing plants safely and enhance their production efficiency by minimizing equipment breakdowns and maintain performance at the highest level. Maximizing and extending the useful life of assets is the key driver in these difficult economic conditions. These remote maintenance systems reduce the life cycle costs and increase the returns on the assets, such as automation systems. Business organizations are turning to innovative maintenance solutions to reduce the operating costs and in order to stay competitive in the global market. New strategies based on remote monitoring and diagnostics of the equipments is gaining acceptance in the industry as an efficient and cost effective approach to provide maintenance of industrial assets. References 1. The Evolution of Remote Product Service and the Emergence of Smart services. Sumair Dutta, Aberdeen Group 2. Remote Maintenance of Plant Automation Systems Dr. BS. Babji, SR. Subramani, G. Srinivasrao 3. Security overview of ABB Remote Access Platform. Karolina Zarawska 4. ABB Remote service for paper drives systems ABB Drives Scan data sheet