As we have come into the 21st century, the concepts of globalization and a flat world has been applied to virtually any topic related to manufacturing. One way it has been manifest in process industries has been the extent to which companies have deployed globally. It’s difficult to find a manufacturer of any size that does not have plants on different continents intended to move closer to raw materials, customers, or labor pools.

“It used to be that there were some closed societies within the former Soviet Union and China,” says Steven Garbrecht, director of product marketing for Wonderware. “Now things are opening up much more with the coming down of the Berlin Wall. It took a while for people to understand what it meant to 'go global’ but now everything’s tied together. By creating control platform standardization, cross training is minimized as people move from site to site.”

Companies grow organically, by acquisition, through joint ventures, or in various combinations of those. They build new plants or buy existing facilities. While there are many ways to facilitate growth, one truth has emerged: There is a value in creating uniformity in those facilities.

When a process plant changes ownership or receives new management, those responsible for operations frequently find themselves having to accomplish many tasks simultaneously:

• Increase, or at least maintain, current production output;
• Benchmark existing capabilities, training levels, safety performance;
• Analyze production constraints and bottlenecks;
• Identify areas for efficiency gains; and
• Bring internal reporting structures into line with existing enterprise level structures.

All of these are easier or at least clearer when there are established standards within a company.

One way to begin the process is to start at the instrumentation and control level. Seeing what makes a working plant tick is the first step to implementing improvements. But at the same time, new owners normally don’t start making changes without good reasons.

“I don’t see a company replacing controls simply for the sake of putting in corporate standards,” says Melissa Smrdel, manager of commercial projects for Rockwell Automation’s process division. “In today’s business world, they would have to have another reason for putting in a project, whether it’s to increase quality, because a system is obsolete, to increase throughput, enable data collection, or some other driver to replace instrumentation or controls. Then, as they replace the system, they change to the standard at a corporate level.”

Do companies always see the benefits of standardization at the beginning? Not necessarily, Smrdel suggests: “Sometimes customers don’t set off to build uniformity on their own. Sometimes we lead them in that direction. Whether we’re leading or they’re pushing, there are a number of things that they’re looking for. At a plant level they’re looking at maintainability, so if they build standard modules in the code configuration or the graphics, and they use those same standards across the plant, it becomes easier to maintain.”

Choosing a point to begin depends on the next steps of the plan. For example, if the new owners plan to bring in experienced operators, the first step will likely be upgrading HMIs so those operators will be able to work with familiar tools. On the other hand, if the first issue is maintenance, the control layer will be at the top of the list.

Once standards are implemented, those areas should begin to see incremental benefits. Smrdel likes the term “reusable engineering,” and says that once parts of a control system work consistently, they are worth using again. “If you have a module for a valve, a pump, totalizer, or PID, you can use those same modules over and over because you know that they’re field proven. When you eliminate issues with individual modules, the start-up time is usually much faster.”

Constellation Energy has deployed Emerson’s Ovation control system extensively throughout its steam and combustion turbine plants in the Baltimore area. Bill Collins, senior control system analyst for the utility, explains what he has seen: “The greatest benefits gained were from the support aspect. A common platform keeps us from having to have single system specialists, which provides a larger talent force to rely on. It also provides a common user interface for operation, so we don’t have to learn how to control a unit with different operator interfaces.”

Those who watch production from the enterprise level have different concerns. Yves DuFort, Wonderware director of manufacturing industry business development has seen the aftermath of a plant acquisition many times. He explains that when a new owner takes over, it has to deal with whatever control systems come with the facility.

“The issue is to get a common reporting structure normalized so they can have visibility throughout,” he says. “That visibility can be very granular at the equipment level and very aggregated at the planning level. This spectrum between granular and aggregated determines all those integration points. The more integration points there are, the more value there is in standardizing and normalizing the systems.

“The first day after the titles change from company 'A’ to company 'B’, they need visibility. The new management will try to deploy its own manufacturing system in the most critical areas first. The first things you look at will be purchase orders to suppliers. Second, internal production orders for manufacturing. Anything in between is secondary.”

Whether bringing uniformity from the top down, the bottom up, or both, the benefit ultimately is designing a framework that facilitates using the best work practices and technological advances, regardless of where they originate. A company can move individuals from plant to plant at any level, for any number of purposes and know that they will be able to perform with minimal training or disruption anywhere within the company networks. Plant operators, instrumentation technicians, accountants, and managers all enjoy the benefits.

The case histories accompanying this article tell compelling real-life stories of companies who have made it work and enjoyed the payoff. It requires a commitment, but the results are proven.