CC-02-160 INTEGRATED WEB-BASED IOMS SYSTEM FOR OPERATING AND MANAGING MOVEMENTS IN TANK FARMS

Description:

The iOMS (intelligent Oil Movement and Storage) application is used to monitor and control the movement of raw materials, intermediate products, and final products within a tank farm or similar facility. It automates blends, transfers, water drainage, shipments and receipts. It also supports advanced features like dynamic path searches for new tanks at the beginning of tasks and for swing tanks during the execution of tasks. Additionally, the product supports the execution of perpetual tasks for both the continuous receipt of feeds and the continuous shipment of products with automated tank swings requiring minimal operator actions. The server engine is based on ABB’s object oriented AiEM engineering platform. AiEM is based on Gensym’s G2 software product that inter-operates in a client-server relationship. The server can interface with any DCS/SCADA system that has an OPC server available. This DCS platform independence is one of the major advantages of the application. The application gets all tank related data as well as equipment status information using OPC subscriptions. Additionally, the engine supports the ability to subscribe to COM events which provides the capability to interface with standard Refinery/Tankfarm Databases such as LIMS and TIMS. The iOMS client operator station is the tool used by plant operators for creating and managing tasks for material movements. The operator interface is web-based. Operators use Microsoft’s Internet Explorer to access operator displays. Operator stations communicate with the server via an ActiveX Bridge. This software design architecture of the system (i.e. web-based client application) provides the capability for any user, with proper security authorization, to monitor/control the operation of a tank farm via an engineering and/or operator station from any remote location. The sequences generated for the executing tasks are downloaded to the DCS/SCADA system for execution using an OPC/COM based Sequence Table Processor (STP). Additionally, the server is linked to a relational database (e.g. ORACLE) for hot and cold system restarts as well as for providing data to a variety of reports. This data can easily be shared by other plant applications like a Data Reconciliation System if required. The iOMS application has been installed in two existing crude oil terminal facilities and is currently being installed in a 120-tank refinery tank farm.