Emerson customer Mitsubishi Chemical Corporation earns 2009 HART Plant of the Year award

03-04-2010: Mitsubishi Chemical Corporation's ethylene plant in Kashima, Japan, has been named 2009 HART Plant of the Year by the HART Communication Foundation. The plant, an Emerson Process Management customer, was recognised for innovative use of the advanced capabilities of HART Communication in real-time applications to improve operations, lower costs, and increase availability.

The plant's achievements included reducing maintenance costs by 10 per cent and detecting device failures that might otherwise have led to unplanned shutdowns costing as much as €2.2 million in lost production.

"With HART, we have been shifting from time-based maintenance to condition-based maintenance," reported Takayuki Aoyama, instrumentation group team leader at the Kashima plant. "We have also been able to predict and prevent potential problems by monitoring advanced diagnostic information from field devices, such as the statistical process monitoring (SPM) capabilities of Emerson's Rosemount® 3051S transmitter."

Takayuki presented examples of these capabilities at the 2009 Emerson Global Users Exchange conference in Orlando, Florida, USA, describing how his team used advanced diagnostics to solve problems ranging from plugged impulse lines to entrained air in a pump intake.

The HART Plant of the Year award is presented by the HART Communication Foundation to end-user companies who have demonstrated creativity in using the full capabilities of HART technology. This is the third consecutive year that Emerson products have played a key role at the winning plant.