Yokogawa Launches OpreX Managed Service

Monitoring and maintenance support for the efficient operation of plant equipment

Yokogawa Electric Corporation announces that it has developed the OpreX Managed Service, which supports the remote monitoring and maintenance of plant equipment. By identifying and correcting issues with plant equipment and devices before they can break down, this service can prevent unexpected plant shutdowns. It can be accessed and utilized in a variety of ways, depending on customer requirements. The service is being offered as part of the OpreX Sustainable Maintenance family lineup, and will be launched in all regions other than Japan on September 28.

Development Background
It is difficult to prevent equipment failure from being a leading cause of plant incidents and unplanned shutdowns with conventional maintenance practices alone. This is driving an increasing need for predictive maintenance capabilities that can prevent production losses by identifying the status of devices and looking for signs that a fault may occur. In addition, more and more plants are streamlining their production operations by linking control systems with the information systems that oversee production management and equipment maintenance, and integrating previously separate instrument rooms and control systems. This has resulted in systems that are larger and more complex than ever before, making it difficult to assess their condition. Another issue is the pressing need to implement the necessary cybersecurity measures at these plants. However, obtaining the expertise needed to maintain these large-scale systems has grown increasingly difficult with the mass retirement of skilled and knowledgeable personnel.

Yokogawa has developed the OpreX Managed Service to address these issues and meet the needs of industry by enabling the digital transformation of asset monitoring and maintenance in production and manufacturing.

Overview
The OpreX Managed Service is provided on top of a software platform that is able to ascertain the soundness not only of operational technology (OT) such as distributed control systems and field devices, but also a wide range of IT assets including network devices, meaning that it can be used in both predictive maintenance and incident management. Using this platform, Yokogawa can remotely monitor and identify the causes of any problems in this equipment for their customers. Leveraging the OT, IT, and plant maintenance know-how that Yokogawa has developed over the years by closely working with our customers in many different industries, Yokogawa is able to help customers reduce the frequency of unexpected plant shutdowns, streamline the operation of production equipment, and decrease maintenance workload.

Features

1. Centralized plant equipment status management and 24/7 monitoring
   With this service, data is collected 24/7 in real time to monitor the status of equipment anywhere in the world. This monitoring covers not only Yokogawa products, but also a wide variety of plant equipment from other vendors. Yokogawa provides incident management, remote maintenance, and advice on enhancements that can be made, along with notification of any device abnormalities or signs of an impending device failure. The service also offers centralized management of system and network cybersecurity measures.

   These services are provided via a Yokogawa service platform by teams of subject matter experts who are specialists in equipment maintenance and cybersecurity.

2. Operation support with a highly flexible service environment
   Depending on customer requirements, the service platform can be used from a customer's dedicated server or cloud environment, or Yokogawa's shared cloud environment. In cases where security measures preclude use of the cloud, the service platform can be provided from a server at the customer's plant.

Major Target Markets
Oil and gas, petrochemicals, chemicals, electric power, pulp and paper, pharmaceuticals, food, iron and steel, water supply and wastewater treatment, non-ferrous metals, metal, cement, etc.

Applications

• Predictive maintenance: Creation and execution of maintenance plans based on historical data used to forecast the timing of future failures
• Condition-based maintenance: maintenance based on real-time analysis that shows irregularities
• Preventive maintenance: Periodical maintenance scheduled by time, run hours etc.
• Corrective maintenance: Prompt restoration of equipment when a fault occurs