Every facility strives to make the best use of its assets. One challenge to reaching that objective is a good understanding of how each asset is performing, while collecting the data to do it at the lowest cost.
In most cases, manual data collection is expensive and susceptible to error. Automated, machine-to-machine data collection is becoming more common, driven by increasing use of intelligent devices that can provide data and reduce connectivity costs.
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Increased, data-density collection capabilities brought on by distributed I/O, including pending implementation of the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) in many industries, has grown data available today exponentially. All of it's collected for a reason, normally to improve asset performance, whether at the macro level (organization or facility), intermediate level (unit operations or machines such as compressors or centrifuges) or micro level (individual devices). The tools are placed to turn data into knowledge—a key step that’s often overlooked and one reason projects of this type often fail.
The increasing complexity of modern intelligent devices with hundreds of configurable parameters raises the question of what data should be sent where and how to use it. This was the reason ISA formed the ISA-108 Intelligent Device Management (IDM) committee last decade. Since then, it’s published two editions of “Part 1: Concepts and Terminology Technical Report.” The follow-up implementation standard, IEC 63082-2, “Intelligent device management—Part 2: Requirements and recommendations,” was published in August, and it defines requirements and recommendations for the full IDM lifecycle, including:
- Foundational requirements as the basis for detailed or derived requirements for IDM activities, products, and services related to IDM and its management;
- Risk management for the program, its work processes, and the potential for overlap/conflict with other programs;
- Developing and maintaining an IDM program;
- Enterprise-level activities applied across the organization, including supplier-management and program requirements;
- Coordinating across facilities with suppliers, and other enterprise programs, such as HSE and maintenance;
- Facility implementation from concept through commissioning, as well as operations and maintenance, including turnaround and eventual decommissioning;
- Supplier requirements for equipment and service suppliers; and
- Information management and transition between different lifecycle phases.
Key elements of IDM and effective management of sensors and actuators, which processes depend on for reliable operations, are addressed by IEC 63082-2. They include:
- Optimizing functionality and performance of intelligent devices;
- Managing information related to IDM;
- Integrating intelligent devices into industrial automation and control systems (IACS);
- Exchanging information between stakeholders to achieve and sustain IDM;
- Coordinating multiple asynchronous IDM lifecycles;
- Procedures, processes and tools or templates to implement and monitor the effectiveness of IDM, including support, selection and subsequent integration of device information and device configuration into the IACS;
- Cybersecurity and secure, data-retention considerations; and
- Long term support of the different lifecycles for facilities and the equipment.
If you have additional ideas on where intelligent device management standards are required please reach out to me with your thoughts to share with the committee.
