Yokogawa releases VigilantPlant Services solutions package

Yokogawa Electric VigilantPlant Services is a comprehensive package of automation service solutions to help manufacturers achieve safe, environmentally friendly, and profitable plant operations.

February 10, 2010

Yokogawa VigilantPlant

Yokogawa Electric Corporation VigilantPlant Services is "the first-ever comprehensive package of automation service solutionsthat help manufacturers achieve safe, environmentally friendly, andprofitable plant operations in line with the Yokogawa VigilantPlantconcept," the company said at the 14th Annual ARC Forum in Orlando in a Feb. 8 announcement. From design through project execution, operations, and maintenance, VigilantPlant Services provide manufacturers the support they need to achieve operational excellence over the entire plant lifecycle, the company said.

Why this is needed
Manufacturers today seek to improve the safety, efficiency, andreliability of their operations while keeping quality high and costslow. At the same time, they face tough global competition. Yokogawasays to ensure survival, companies must identify operationalimprovements and create a master plan for implementation. Yokogawasaid, "This has been made difficult, however, by a lack of broadlyexperienced lead engineers due to retirement, and the fact thatengineers today tend to be more specialized and have feweropportunities to refine their knowledge by following up on theautomation platforms that they have installed. And even when companieshave identified the issues that need to be addressed, they may havelost, through repeated personnel cutbacks, the expertise required toselect and implement the necessary platforms and practicalmethodologies. And finally, it may be more difficult for them sustainthe results that have been achieved through such improvements due to alack of maintenance personnel or because the organization takes aone-off approach in implementing these activities."

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VigilantPlant Services
Yokogawa provides a wide variety of automation platform solutions that help companies protect health, safety, and environment (HSE), optimize production, improve asset utilization, and maximize plant uptime. Over the past 20 years, Yokogawa has gained rich experience in providing operations improvement services to major companies in many different world markets, including Japan. Yokogawa’s reorganization of its operational and consulting services business, under the VigilantPlant Services name, is based on the belief that manufacturers require a comprehensive package of services and solutions to support their continuous improvement activities throughout the plant lifecycle.

The company said VigilantPlant Services bring operational excellence by improving the effectiveness of automation platforms.

Three typs of VigilantPlant Services are:
1. Opportunity Identification Services-To identify new improvement possibilities and optimum solutions, Yokogawa provides Free Plant Analysis, Comparative Effectiveness Analysis, Management Seminar, Master Planning, and Improvement Leader Development programs.
2. Solution Implementation Services- To effectively implement identified solutions, Yokogawa provides Asset Management, Safety Management, Production Management, and Plant Lifecycle Management programs.
3. Lifecycle Effectiveness Services-Following the implementation phase, Yokogawa continually maintains and reevaluates these solutions for its customers to ensure that they remain effective throughout the plant lifecycle.

Yokogawa’s VigilantPlant Services address the sustainability of improvement initiatives. The program includes training so engineers can understand the methodology behind these improvements.

Quality management measures are included in VigilantPlant Services.

VigilantPlant Services benefits, according to Yokogawa, include:
• Compliance with HSE standards;
• Maximum asset availability;
• Optimal plant productivity;

Conventional maintenance and repair services are typically reactive in nature; in contrast, VigilantPlant Services take a proactive approach to maintenance that reduces the total cost of ownership.
Company said that major target markets and applications inlcude plant production management in industries such as oil & gas, petrochemicals & chemicals, power, fertilizer, and mining.

See Control Engineering ‘s Process Control channel and Information Control channel .

– Edited by Mark T. Hoske, editor in chief, Control Engineering , www.controleng.com.