Before Things Go Out of Control

Solutions Consultant, Don Mast, talks about providing more safety in oil refineries across the country. One way to do this is through the tools Canary Labs provides:

"With increased focus on the booming oil and gas industry by the media, the government, groups against anything gas, and health & safety industrial organizations, more needs to be done to prevent accidents upstream, midstream and downstream. 

Refineries convert raw materials into usable product.

Fact: Workers at American oil refineries die on the job about three times as often as their counterparts in other countries.  One example of this is Tesoro, a Washington state refinery that exploded in 2010, killing seven people. Recently the U.S. Chemical Safety board who investigates our nation’s worst industrial accidents says, that on average, across the nation there’s a significant accident at an oil refinery once every three days.  Companies’ report all the time that they are missing data or chunks of time and when that data is gone, bad things can happen including injuries, downtime and massive fines.  With all the technology available, this can be reduced and prevented. The answer is data.

Canary Labs, a leader in information solutions for the oil and gas industry, is working with global oil and gas companies, pipelines, drillers, and refining companies to protect workers and equipment, reduce production and exploration costs, improve process and production metrics while providing the data needed to drive crucial decisions before things at the job site go out of control.

Utilizing the latest technology, Canary Labs open, flexible and high performance enterprise software runs around the clock to monitor equipment and process metrics by collecting data via the Canary Historian and presenting both real-time and historical data trends, allowing operators to have a good understanding of the current plant / job site conditions. Similarly, Canary Labs software tools provide operators access to invisible variables that are not easily detected; providing early warning alerts to problems that can be resolved before they become a disaster. Solutions are deployed as a simple single site solution or as a complex distributed enterprise resource. 

Driving innovation in the data industry, Canary Labs technology allows operators to collect data from distributed or remote sites and safeguards that the data are sent to the historian in event of a communication outage. Furthermore Canary’s Axiom trending solution, AxiomTrend, is an intuitive and easy to use data analysis tool. It visually transforms process data into knowledge. It empowers operators, engineers, and managers to stay connected while using a common analytical tool for viewing data anywhere at any time via mobile devices. With increased scrutiny on the industry by governments and anti-gas groups, Canary Labs provides streamlined detailed reporting for regulatory compliance. 

“Canary Trending is an invaluable tool in our refinery. It runs around the clock, 24/7. Over the last 14+ years, Canary has provided quality products that utilize the latest technology.” Kevin Moran, System Engineer, Delaware City Refinery “As a trending tool, we like the flexibility in how it’s configured and the ease of use. Users can drag and drop to add trends to the chart and save charts for later recall. The speed is a big plus, allowing users to quickly scan and find historical data they want to see. Users can access overview charts and then quickly drill down to see detailed data. The user doesn’t have to be a genius to figure things out.”

Randy Walker, Control Systems Engineer says, “Canary is a valuable tool allowing us to graphically review archived data for maintenance issues and performance. Templates can be saved of commonly reviewed trends for quick future access. The export utility is used to generate viewed trends into reports for distribution. This trending software has proven to be a valuable asset in our day to day operations.” 

For nearly 30 years, Canary Labs has been a game-changer in the oil and gas, industrial automation, energy production and distribution sectors delivering world-class, real-time data historian and trending tools with a focus on safety and solutions." 

The Value in Time Series Data

At first glance, when I see large amounts of data, boredom quickly overcomes me. I would compare it to trying to read a different language or hearing a highly intelligent person try to explain a complicated task. The data seems worthless, but if used correctly it can be quite valuable. The simple truth is, after you see the value in something, a perspective can quickly change. At least, that is what caused my perspective on time series data to change. 

What is time series data? It is the constant monitoring of a piece of equipment; a steady stream of information that might record a machine's speed and productivity. It gives the company access to a timeline of what is happening and what has happened to the piece of equipment. After hearing that explanation, you might be inclined to think that there is a whole lot of pointless information that could be recorded. However, this is not the case.

The bottom line is that time series data can prove to be invaluable to a company. It gives operational insight that can help a piece of equipment run more efficiently. I now have access to information that could help me discover how a piece of equipment might be might be run more safely and efficiently. Looking at this gives a timeline of everything that happens to the equipment and may help me prevent future operator errors and

The AxiomTrend allows you to stream live data anytime and anywhere.

equipment failures. In short, it provides efficiency. Why would you not want your factory to run more efficiently? For me, when it comes to making decisions, I like to have all the facts. Having the time series data available provides these facts to a company and makes the decision-making process a whole lot quicker. Not only that, but it can also lead to some interesting observations that could be very beneficial for the future of your company.

There are lots of different options as to which software to choose when looking to record your time series data. However, If you want quality software that gives the answers you need and yet is easy to use, the Canary Historian is your best bet. It not only provides you with all the data that many other historians erase, it provides accurate and reliable information that can prove to be helpful. Many historians compress the data being recorded which only creates problems for the future. A company might see gaps in their time series data which leads to loss of time, value and quality parameters. The Canary Historian gives you all he data. The philosophy behind this, is that your data is your data. All I have to do is sit back and let the software do the rest. 

When you see the benefits of time series data, the answer is quite clear: it has too much value to be overlooked. If more companies recorded and utilized time series data, it would leave them asking the question, 'why didn't we take advantage of this sooner?' I would say, it was because they didn't see the value in it.