Business automation for captive power plant: a study, for the refinery complex of reliance petroleum limited

Abstract

Modern organizations are learning, living entities whose employees strive to maximize their company's wealth. In older to enable them to do so, business systems within the organization must be designed and implemented in an optimal manner. Today this can be achieved using a judicious mix of Business Process Re-design and Information Technology. In Reliance when both these concepts come together we speak of Business Automation or Computerized Integrated Manufacturing (CIM).CIM plans have been formulated for the main plants of various Reliance complexes. However it has been observed during such exercises the Captive Power Plant (CPP) facilities are taken for granted and no special efforts are made here. The realization that critical issues such as reliable, and safe operation of the complex rests solely with CPP dawns too late when ad-hoc measures are adopted to solve problems. The case for overall business automation at CPP can be viewed at three levels. At the entry level are the plant process control systems with their state-of-the-art technology employing distributed computerized control and having local intelligence to run the plant sections unattended. At the next level come the advanced process control systems and optimizers. Here, supervision of the whole CPP would be done by automatic software processes running on high end workstations. At the highest level are the business processes which closely involve CPP management personnel. Information flows are critical here since decisions are mainly taken by people and not machines. To lay out the CIM plan for the CPP at the refinery complex of Reliance Ptroleum, the CPP at the petrochemical complex of Hazira has been taken as a role model, since both plants are similar in configuration and consumers serviced. It has been determined that though CPP-Hazira has all the business functions required to successfully run the CPP, the supporting Information Systems are weak. Business processes studied for CPP Hazira indicate the following recommendations for a successful CIM implementation at CPP-Jamnagar. The CIM system at CPP must form an integral part of the larger Refinery Information Management System (RIMS), the Campus Area Network across the complex. The RIMS would provide CPP users with data from external sources both from within the complex and outside the company. Business functions with CPP, should be clearly demarcated as Operations Information System (01S). Maintenance Management System (MMS). Quality / General Management System (Q/GMS). The information flows between processes within these functions must be planned and optimised. Plant process and business data acquired from wide and varied sources should be served to users on a three-tier client server architecture. Open System concepts must be used to integrate user interfaces, application servers and data warehouses in a seamless manner. The CIM system must use and recognize the structure provided by the plant Distributed Control System (DCS) which is the heart of the CPP plant processes. Office Automation and work-flow methods must be used by business users of CPP to minimize documents and paper trails. E-mail, collaborative computing and user work groups would be used to enable users at work.. The suggested overall configuration for CPP-Jamnagar is shown in Annexure -I.