Honeywell: Malaysia’s oil/gas sector in readiness for digital transformation

No doubt there’s a lot of hype about the Industrial Internet of Things (IoT) and how businesses can benefit from it. In fact, countries like Malaysia are on the cusp of two major revolutions – the transformation into a manufacturing hub and the digital transformation, driven by the government’s vision to digitise the economy, citizens, and infrastructure. It is also being driven by cybercrime, which has steadily grown in the region. Thus, cyber security solutions are an essential component of a robust IoT ecosystem.

Industrial software supplier Honeywell recently held a day-long event in Kuala Lumpur to highlight this. It was attended by automation professionals from across the process industries and addressed key topics such as the role of advanced analytics in smarter asset performance management, industrial cybersecurity as well as insights on safety and skills.

Connected Plant technologies such as advanced data analytics and cloud technology were at the core of Honeywell’s Malaysia Technology Summit 2018, highlighting how they can power Malaysia’s Industry 4.0 transformation.

Honeywell Connected Plant technologies support the evolution to IoT by addressing challenges that threaten to throttle industrial operations such as unplanned downtimes and a widening skills gap.

“Malaysia has been actively pursuing an Industry 4.0 agenda, particularly in the manufacturing and oil and gas sectors, which have invested heavily in solutions that enhance productivity,” said Nigel Brockett, Vice-President of Honeywell Process Solutions Asia Pacific. “The Honeywell technologies and solutions shown at the Malaysia Technology Summit will help them transform their operations and realise several benefits of digital transformation leading to increased plant performance.”

Honeywell says its Connected Plant applications deliver higher levels of safety, reliability, efficiency and profitability. By combining deep domain expertise along with data analytics Honeywell enables its customers to get unprecedented insights into their operations. The seamless integration of process, assets and people across the enterprise can make every day the best day of a manufacturer’s production and every member of the organization operate as a leading expert.

At the summit’s technology centre, attendees could view and experience the newest automation products and capabilities, including some of the Honeywell Connected Plant solutions that have been launched in 2018:

• Thermal IQ – Enables maintenance engineers and plant managers to more effectively monitor and manage their thermal process equipment, minimising unplanned downtime and maximising uptime.
• Uniformance Cloud Historian – This software-as-a-service cloud hosting solution for enterprise-wide data capture, visualisation and analysis helps customers improve asset availability, optimise processes and increase plant uptime.
• Asset Performance Management – Integrates asset and process data for actionable insights to improve asset performance and plant profitability.
• Immersive Competency – This cloud-based simulation offering uses a combination of augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) to train plant personnel on critical industrial work activities, empowering them to directly improve plant performance, uptime, reliability and safety.
• Personal Gas Safety – This solution integrates with Honeywell’s leading plant control system to protect workers and speed emergency response in case of hazardous leaks or worker injury.
• Intelligent Wearables – This hands-free, wearable technology allows industrial workers to more safely, reliably and efficiently accomplish their tasks in the plant or the field. It uses a head-mounted visual display that responds to voice and brings live data, documents, work procedures, as well as health and safety information into view and can connect field workers with remote experts in real time.
• Experion Batch – Combines Experion distributed control, batch automation, and new visualization technology for improved efficiency, quality and throughput.
• Measurement IQ for Gas – Provides measurement under control by transforming metering operations with 24/7 real-time condition-based monitoring.

In addition to the emphasis on digital technologies to improve productivity and manufacturing uptime, keeping the high-tech infrastructure secure is a key priority for Malaysian manufacturers, with Honeywell adding that as much as it is important to digitise, it is equally important for the country to minimise vulnerability to cyber-attacks, improve recovery and ensure its leading industries don’t lose view and control.