Honeywell’s Experion PKS reaches $200 million in orders in first year

Phoenix, AZ—Because of strong demand from users, Honeywell Industry Solutions reported at an April 3 meeting with Control Engineering that it has received orders totaling approximately $200 million for its Experion Process Knowledge Solution (PKS). Honeywell's business, process and asset management system was introduced in April 2002, and began shipping in January 2003.

By Control Engineering Staff April 4, 2003

Phoenix, AZ— Because of strong demand from users, Honeywell Industry Solutions

Experion PKS allows users to integrate, control and monitor complex processes in many indus-trial settings, including refineries, pharmaceutical facilities, power and chemical plants, and pulp, paper and printing mills. By making possible site-wide management of production process knowledge, as well as site-wide workflow optimization, Experion helps customers control the en-tire scope of production, simultaneously addressing the needs of operations, maintenance, engi-neering and business.

“With Experion PKS, companies in process manufacturing can reduce costs, improve productiv-ity and easily and cost-effectively migrate existing control systems to next-generation, open-systems technology,” says Jack Bolick, Honeywell Industry Solutions’ president. “By taking full advantage of open standards and technologies, Experion PKS not only streamlines migration from legacy systems, but also eases integration with customers’ other enterprise applications.”

Oil, gas lead the way Users in the oil and gas industries account for approximately 75% of Experion’s initial orders. The first shipment went to ConocoPhillips in January 2003 for its Wood River Refinery, located just northeast of St. Louis. The 1,888-acre refinery, ConocoPhillips’ largest, produces gasoline, diesel fuel, jet fuel, propane and asphalt, with a crude oil processing capacity of 286,400 barrels per day.

“We chose Honeywell because of our longstanding relationship and the ability to easily integrate our legacy systems with the new Experion PKS system,” says Ronald Moidel, ConocoPhillips’ control systems engineering team leader at Wood River. “Honeywell’s commitment to deliver the Experion PKS solution with the functionality we required and in the timeframe that would meet our critical project schedules was very important to us.”

Likewise, Brunei Shell Petroleum recently chose Experion PKS for monitoring, control and safety shutdown operations at its Well Jacket-2 platform off the coast of Brunei. The oil company expects the system will result in lower initial capital expenditures, as well as lower ongoing op-erational costs.

“Honeywell has demonstrated that they have the products, solutions, capabilities and resources to fulfill the project requirements,” says Leong Woon Choon, Brunei Shell’s pro-ject manager. “We are convinced that Honeywell can execute and deliver the required solution for the project.”

Other customers selecting Experion PKS since its 2002 introduction are Shin-Etsu, Ahlstrom, Lenzig Papier and Tembec Paperboard. Contracts in the chemicals and pharmaceuticals indus-tries, and pulp and paper business, account for about 25% of the $200 million in Experion PKS orders to date.

Well-informed decisions In general, Experion PKS enables continuous and efficient monitoring of the condition of a user’s system and all of the processes that impact it. While competing asset management systems focus on replacement of devices, Experion takes input from devices, prioritizes the data and turns it into information customers can act on to make well-informed decisions that benefit productivity, effi-ciency and operating costs. This approach to asset management can reduce customers’ instru-ment- and control-system maintenance costs by up to 30%.

In addition, only Honeywell has Abnormal Situation Management (ASM) Consortium research built into its products. Abnormal situations are estimated to cost the petrochemical industry alone as much as $20 billion annually. Providing plant employees with the right information at the right time improves decision-making and reduces abnormal situation occurrences, leading to substantial savings.

“As our year-to-date order volume shows, Experion PKS is gaining momentum in the marketplace thanks to its ability to deliver the results our customers desire,” Honeywell’s Mr. Bolick said. “Experion PKS enables our customers to dramatically improve their manufacturing and production processes by offering a solution that extends from sensors and field instrumentation to enterprise manufacturing execution and supply chain management.”

Control Engineering Daily News DeskJim Montague, news editorjmontague@reedbusiness.com