Background & Purpose

The relationship between the design of a plant and the effectiveness of the plant in daily operations is crucial. The traditional silos of people and data and the subsequent disconnect have forced people to work, in effect, with one arm tied behind their back. How do you create operational efficiencies within a process so wrought with inefficiencies?

There are global economic shifts at work that are forcing owner/operators and EPCs to change the way they do business. Growing geopolitical and economic uncertainty affects every O/O and EPC. By 2025 China is expected to be the largest economy in the world in terms of purchasing power parity, while India and Russia could overtake Japan. How will the emergence of these consumers change your business? How will you redesign your processes to meet the needs of these new consumers? Where will your production facilities be?

High-performing companies have several basic elements in what some call the company's DNA that predisposes them to success: They plan for change—they don't just react to it. It revolves around examining the elements of your company's operations—everything from the products you currently make to how and where you make and sell them. How do you look at all possible scenarios and evaluate their portfolio of products, manufacturing facilities, sales channels and the like and then change what doesn't support the widest possible set of scenarios?

In light of all this, emerging technologies, strategies and best practices are enabling companies to better integrate the design, construction and operations of process facilities, in both new and brownfield projects. daratechPLANT2005 has expanded its scope considerably to include two additional tracks alongside the traditional asset lifecycle management theme. Instrumentation/Real-Time Operations and Plant Maintenance sessions will explore the barriers, and problem solving strategies to achieving operational excellence.

Asset Lifecycle Management

Asset lifecycle management—also referred to as plant lifecycle management or PLM—has been advocated at daratechPLANT for years because of its ability to promote process efficiencies. Asset lifecycle management components include data-centric systems, information backbones, data management, assorted data-centric applications, and more. But are these integrated environments a panacea or more of the same? What are the true capabilities and drawbacks of these new environments in the context of the asset lifecycle vision, and what are the real costs and benefits of implementing them? What is the real cost of creating, integrating, deploying, maintaining and renewing a far-reaching integrated system for the life of a plant? And do the benefits justify the cost and the possible disruptions that almost always occur when new untested systems are deployed? How do these technologies benefit decades-old brownfield facilities? The integrated data pipeline is ideal for inter-company collaboration, but how do you share this vital, and often proprietary information with partners and supplier? What are the risks involved and how can the suppliers help? What is the experience in the field?

Data incompatibility is costing you millions but how do you quantify it? daratechPLANT will provide in-depth analysis exploring this recurring cost, and what you can do to correct it. You'll hear strategies for low-cost plant optimization upgrades, and the ways to overcome the confusion and fear that cultural changes that accompany mergers and acquisitions, reduced headcounts and new work processes always impose. These and other related questions will be a theme of this year's daratechPLANT.

Instrumentation/Real-Time Operations

The modern goals of daily plant operations are to achieve lean and agile manufacturing, high productivity and profitability, maximum up-time, minimum upsets, fast recovery, safety, and other goals. The daratechPLANT2005 Instrumentation/Real-Time Operations track brings to the conference the discussion of real-time operations issues, and their implications for plant design. New technologies are becoming part of the information systems of plants, including wireless and Internet networks. How has wireless technology changed the design of instrumentation systems? What are the implications of wireless for plant design and for plant operations? Even in highly automated operations, there is a role for the operator, particularly during abnormal situations. How are plant models or simulations being used in training? How do these simulations help in decisions at the plant design stage? What is the experience of owner/operators with operator training systems offered by vendors? What do the vendors recommend for plant designers and owner/operators?

Intelligent P&ID's provide a framework of connected objects as they exist in the actual operations. For intelligent real-time applications and for simulation applications, additional plant knowledge such as behavior models and process expertise need to be added to the Intelligent P&ID. Are Intelligent P&ID's ready to become Super-Intelligent? What is the experience in building and maintaining comprehensive plant knowledge bases?

Supply chains in the process industry are increasingly managed using software applications. Can Intelligent P&ID's be leveraged to assist in this supply chain management? How do intelligent engineering tools integrate with control systems to give owners new opportunities for increased plant operational efficiency? How is intelligent plant configuration and instrumentation data integrated with control systems to provide fast access to accurate, consistent data for improved planning of turnarounds, maintenance, and revamps? daratechPLANT2005's Instrumentation/Real-Time operations track will investigate these subjects and more.

Maintenance & Operations

Another new area of concentration for the conference is plant maintenance. This very important component of owner/operator profitability is frequently neglected in the plant creation phases of a project and becomes an additional unexpected and sometimes difficult and expensive diversion during commissioning and early production. Strategies for heightening maintenance efficiency through better decision-making during design and construction are indeed coming to the fore, underpinned by new approaches to fostering data and information flow from conceptual and detail design through construction, operations and maintenance. We will be discussing how to connect the requirements of plant maintenance with the business case for plant creation so as to ensure they are not overlooked when the engineering data is first created.

One of the significant opportunities for business and plant improvement is to perform maintenance when it is needed, rather than on a fixed periodic schedule. How do the plant owner/operators deal with maintenance now, and how would they like to handle maintenance? What do the vendors say is possible, and what success examples exist? What decisions at the plant design stage affect plant maintainability effectiveness and cost?

About daratechPLANT

daratechPLANT has grown to be the largest, most successful and value-packed conference focused on owner/operator and EPC enterprise- through project-level business and work process advancements. It is a unique international forum in which real-world cases—successes and failures—are presented and discussed from all points of view including business metrics and justifications, people issues, and the underlying strategic implications for owner/operators, EPCs and IT solution providers.

If you plan to attend just one industry event in the next twelve months, make it daratechPLANT2005.

Hear from Industry Leaders

Owner/Operators

James B. Porter
Vice President, Engineering and Operations
DuPont

Karan Sorensen
Vice President, Global Infrastructure Programs
Johnson & Johnson

William E. Smith, III
formerly Vice President, Global Corporate and Manufacturing Services, Eli Lilly & Co..;
Managing Director
WES-TECH, LLC

Janette Whitehead
North America Gas & Power PMO Manager
BP

Kent Christopherson
General Manager, Reliability
Duke Energy Field Services

Michael Alianza
Senior Analyst, Emerging Trends & Technologies
Intel Corporation

T.S. Ramesh
Associate Director, Engineering Decision Support
Wyeth Pharmaceuticals

Sherry Murphree
Client Manager of Information Technology for Manufacturing, Engineering, Environmental Health & Safety
The Dow Chemical Company

Randall Sylvester
Knowledge Leader
ConocoPhillips Transportation

Bart Neighbors, P.E.
PMP Sr. Project Engineer
ConocoPhillips Alaska, Inc.

Jehu Burton
Manager, Engineering Strategic Systems Integration
DuPont

Alan Tough
Engineering & Operations Applications Portfolio Manager
Petro-Canada UK, Ltd.

Engineering / Procurement / Construction

Tim Barfield
President & Chief Operations Officer
The Shaw Group Inc.

Carlos A. Cabrera
Senior Vice President & General Manager, Process Technology & Equipment
UOP, LLC

G. Patrick Thompson, Jr.
Sr. VP Administration & CIO
The Shaw Group Inc.

K.C. Choi
Principal Vice President & CIO
Bechtel Petroleum Chemical GBU

Ray Topping
Senior Vice President, Director of Engineering Design
CH2M HILL

Glenn Gilkey
Vice President, Project Execution Services
Fluor Corporation

Steve McIntyre
CIO
Bechtel Power and Telecommunications

John McQuary
VP, Knowledge Management and Technology Strategies
Fluor Corporation

Tom Hannigan
VP, ISD
Zachry Construction Corporation

Bert Aragon
Director, Execution Technology
KBR

Ashish Shah
Director, Automation Process Technology
Fluor Corporation

Mike McGee
Director, Operations & Maintenance
Fluor Corporation

Jack DeBrunner
Manager, Capital Management Tools & Technologies
The Proctor and Gamble Company

Frank Matthewson
Manager of EPC Systems
Bechtel Group

Kumar Vakamudi
Chief Engineer, Control Systems
Bechtel

Jeffrey Katz
Manager, Advanced Computing
ALSTOM Power Plant Labs

Greg Lawes
Manager, WGI Laser Scanning Services
Washington Group International

Jonathan Paterson
Manager, Industrial Process Division
J-Tech Design Ltd.

Rogerio Bernardi
Engineering Director
S&C Laser Scanning Services

Michael Jenkins
Project Director, Major Projects and Programmes
Parsons Brinckerhoff Ltd.

Dr. Andreas Rebetzky
Managing Director
Teraport/M+W Zander

Bruce Gruber
IS&T Manager, Oil, Gas and Chemical
Bechtel

Darla Meriam
Global Excellence Lead For Project Document and Data Management
Fluor Corporation

Keith Cowan
Project IT Manager
Bechtel Oil, Gas and Chemical

Lars Kirchner
Manager Conceptual Design, Hydrogen and Synthesis Plants
Linde AG

Nick Simmons
Manager Engineering Applications
Foster Wheeler Energy Ltd.

Yoshiro Saito
Group Manager, Engineering Information Systems Dept.
Toshiba Corporation, Industrial and Power Systems & Services Company

Dr. Richard H. F. Jackson
Director
FIATECH

Charles Wood
Project Manager Fiatech Smart Chips
FIATECH

Instrumentation & Real Time Operations & Plant Maintenance

Kyle Loudermilk
VP, Engineering Business
Aspen Technology, Inc.

Mark O'Rosky, P.E.
Senior Operator Training Solutions Consultant
Emerson Process Management

Richard J. Timoney
President
Fieldbus Foundation

Hector Barresi
Wireless Technologies Program Manager
Honeywell Process Solutions

Phil Johnson
Manager of Global Operations for Simulation
Honeywell Process Solutions

Trevor Ruthenberg
RCM/RCO Program Manager
Invensys Avantis

Peter G. Martin, Ph.D.
Vice President, Performance Measurement and Management
Invensys Production Management

Alastair C.S. Fraser
Vice President
Invensys SimSci-Essor

Dr. Dave Shook
Senior Technical Officer
Matrikon Inc.

Jason Kasper
Industry Marketing Manager
MRO Software

Jack Stout
President
Nexus Solutions

Nic Gihl
Vice President of Industrial Automation
Schneider Electric

Peter Stein
Founder and Vice President of Business Development
Sensicast Systems, Inc.

Tim Holtan
Senior Business Analyst
SmartSignal Corp.

Dr. Frank Crawley
Strathclyde University, UK

Rick Kriss
CEO
Xsilogy

Constantine Lau
General Manager, Systems Marketing
Yokogawa Corporation of America

Speaking Opportunities

If you are interested in presenting at daratechPLANT2005, please contact Harvey Kaplowitz at (+1) 617.354.2339, ext. 2410 or send an email to harvey@daratech.com.

Co-Sponsorship Opportunities

Daratech offers Co-sponsorship opportunities for software developers, hardware suppliers and engineering IT service providers interested in supporting daratechPLANT2005, showcase their solutions and share their vision and wisdom with senior-level engineering and IT executives. For information on Co-sponsorship, please contact Dana Toland at (+1) 617.354.2339, ext. 2003 or via e-mail at dana@daratech.com.

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Co-Sponsored By

To learn more about our co-sponsors, please make a selection below:

Please Select a Co-Sponsor: Alias AspenTech Autodesk AVEVA Bentley Plant Cadalyst CEA CEP Chemical Engineering COADE Dassault Systemes Desktop Engineering EMC FIATECH FileNet Hydrocarbon Engineering Hydrocarbon Processing Intergraph PPM Invensys SIMSCI-ESSCOR Leica Geosystems McLaren Microsoft Open Text PIP Software Innovation Spescom Trinity Technologies VRcontext Xerox Global

Co-Sponsor Presenters

Andy Osborne
Commercial Manager
Alias Limited

Kyle Loudermilk
VP, Engineering Business
Aspen Technology, Inc.

Abel Smit
Director of Business Development, Platform Technologies Division
Autodesk, Inc.

Richard Longdon
Chief Executive
AVEVA Group plc

Dr. Jeffrey Hollings
Senior Vice President, Bentley Plant
Bentley Systems, Incorporated

Maurice De Clercq
Managing Director
CEA Systems Inc.

Thomas J. Van Laan, P.E.
President
COADE, Inc.

Rolf Gibbels
PLM Americas Sales, Industry Manager, Process, Power & Petroleum—AEC
Dassault Systemes

Justin Schuster
PMM Enterprise Document Management Products
EMC Corporation

Ric Jackson
Director
FIATECH

Tawna Canhoto
Marketing Manager
FileNet Corporation

Gerhard Sallinger
President, Process, Power & Marine Division
Intergraph Corporation

Alastair C.S. Fraser
Vice President
Invensys SimSci-Essor

Derrel Shaffer
Senior Industry Marketing Manager, Industrial Facilities
Leica Geosystems HDS

Paul Muir
CEO
McLaren Software

Marisé Mikulis
Global Energy Industry Manager
Microsoft Corporation

Waqar Zaidi
COO
Software Innovation, Inc.

Carl Mostert
CEO
Spescom Software Inc.

Joseph P. Morray, Jr.
President
Trinity Technologies

Alain Hubrecht
President & CEO
VRcontext

Sam Baker
VP of Business Process Services
Xerox Global Services