Wireless technology helps digitally transform oil refinery in Asia

To make digital transformation a reality, a large refinery in Asia turned to Cisco and Emerson for enterprise networking and OT solutions that promote the safety and cybersecurity of its manufacturing facilities and processes, resolve the challenges created by production downtime, and support real-time data collection and collaboration.

With a compact, scalable, and flexible design, the refinery company selected the Emerson and Cisco Wireless Access Point, which delivers WirelessHART® and WiFi coverage to transform tasks such as pump condition monitoring, corrosion monitoring, and pressure measurement for berth loading and unloading. This technology also provides mobile connectivity to refinery employees who access information from ruggedized tablets.

The results of implementing this solution include:

  • Reduced costs by enabling the customer to significantly and increase operational efficiencies while building a foundation that supports future IoT innovation use cases
  • Improved productivity by enabling a lean workforce to assess equipment health in real-time, respond quickly to problematic situations, and continue to provide a high degree of safety
  • Increased productivity by offering mobile and wireless views of production and process data anywhere in the refinery, eliminating the need to collect critical performance data using cumbersome, time-consuming paper-based method

The Emerson and Cisco team helped the refinery digitally transform in phases, in short agile sprints, for holistic transformation across multiple operational departments. In the next phase of this project, Emerson Plantweb™ Insight, an industrial analytics solution, can be added to collect data from sensors and mobile devices to deliver actionable, real-time insights to further improve operational performance and worker safety in potentially hazardous surroundings.