DENKA: IOT TRANSFORMING POLYMER PRODUCTION

The plant has successfully introduced a range of IoT technologies over recent years. Service provider Emerson has implemented mobile connectivity, sensor use, data analytics and cloud hosting in order to give Denka a remote monitoring application suitable for the plant.

The South Korean plant’s main focus was to improve the efficiency of steam traps, which are used as a heat source. Malfunctioning steam traps can result in lower heating efficiency and the escape of live steam – a problem commonly faced by plant operators due to an annual failure rate of 20%.

Denka’s past approach to monitoring steam traps was manual, annual inspections. However, this would often lead to the use of failing steam traps over long periods which also increased plant costs and expenditure.

In 2015, a manual survey revealed that 35 out of 210 steam traps – 17% – had failed over the course of the year. However, the deployment of Emerson IIoT solutions to remotely monitor these kinds of equipment provided weekly updates on failed equipment.

When the system was implemented, 33 of the 148 monitored traps were determined as failed. This failure rate of 22% dropped to 10% three months in. In addition, Denka is enjoying direct cost savings due to a 7% reduction in steam consumption.

drop in failure rate over 3 months