Technology innovations to track valve lifecycle

摘要

Valves are a critical class of equipment that operating facilities rely upon to control the flow of process fluids. Despite their critical nature in operating a facility both safely and profitably, valves are rarely inventoried and tracked with details to efficiently support plant-wide disciplines. Traditionally, plant Environmental Departments maintain the most detailed valve inventory, in order to monitor, repair, and track compliance with fugitive emission regulations. This is likely due to plant-wide valve inventories totaling into the tens (or even hundreds) of thousands. Regardless, these valves have an important lifecycle that can potentially impact nearly all plant disciplines, including engineering, operations, maintenance, safety, and environmental personnel. Neglecting this equipment for extended periods can ultimately lead to consequences that impact safety of workers, regulatory penalties, operational imbalances, as well as loss of product/profit.