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Now that you have narrowed down the area that is causing problems or identified the root causes in your plant, the next step is automating operating procedures. 

You may of course have some operators who are sufficiently skilled and experienced to carry out procedures on their own and who can respond appropriately to any sudden change in circumstances. But what about your new operators? Are they as capable? Would you like it if production output or quality varied depending on an individual operator's skill level? This is not at all a favorable situation.

Have you ever had difficulties training new operators? Have they always stayed with your company long enough to become skilled and experienced?

Have you ever found it difficult to recruit new operators? Why so? Is it because your plant is in a remote location, is in an extreme climate, or has very demanding and/or dangerous working conditions?

What about the problem of an aging workforce? Are a number of your most experienced operators who know everything about plant automation approaching retirement age? Is their know-how fully documented for the younger operators to use, and can they access it when problems occur?

Skilled operators all know what needs to be done to operate a plant. They have encountered practically every type of situation and know exactly what to do when something unusual happens. With　Exapilot, that knowledge can be visualized for other plant operators in flowchart form on a screen.

Exapilot icons for common operations can be dragged and dropped into the desired sequence and connected to show an entire procedure from start to end. Such sequences may include basic plant operations such as changes to SV/MV parameters, starting or stopping pumps, changes to PH/PL; the monitoring of trend, alarm or annunciator messages; a request to opening or closing a field control valve; a process hold until a predefined period of time has lapsed or a specific temperature or pressure has been reached; and the relay of messages to workers on the next shift or personnel in the field. No special engineering skills are required to configure these procedural sequences.

As operators work their way through these flowcharts, the current step is highlighted with a bright green color. Steps already completed are shaded gray, while steps that are yet to be completed are white.

Each step in an Exapilot procedure can be programmed to be done automatically or initiated manually by an operator.

At every point it is clear what needs to be done next. A long operational sequence can be broken down into smaller subsets of operations, as shown in the lower part of the above window.

Once the automated procedures are input, they can be converted to a PDF format standard operating procedure (SOP) document.

Based on their analysis of alarm & event messages, operators can determine where to introduce an automated sequence, and where to retain a manual operation.

Exapilot helps to reduce the amount of manual operations in a plant, thereby eliminating the possibility for human error. This increases both efficiency and productivity in plant operations.

Furthermore, Exapilot works in three different modes - offline, test run, and normal. In offline mode, the system is isolated from the operation of the plant and no signals are received from the input/output modules. It functions as a training simulator on an independent PC, allowing the new operators to learn the system on their own and freeing up your time for other tasks.

More experienced operators can also use this mode for refresher training in transient operations such as periodic shutdowns. This mode also allows newly transferred operators to train on their own and fully familiarize themselves with operations in the new work location.

In test run mode, Exapilot is connected to the actual control system to read parameters and figures from the plant without providing feedback to the system. With this mode, engineers can also test and confirm that the procedural sequences written with Exapilot are valid for actual operations.

Some operators may feel that they are endangering their own job security by sharing their expert knowledge. Is this really true? No, it is not. By sharing their know-how with others, competent operators can move on to higher responsibilities and move up in their careers.

And by improving the competency of all operators, the entire plant can benefit. Companies that have introduced Exapilot to automate manual operations report a reduction in operator workloads. Total operation time, transient products, and engineering time are all reduced, and even operator morale is improved! Shortening the operation　hours and improving product quality reduces overall operation costs. With just a simple software package, you have the opportunity to run your plant more efficiently without additional investment or equipment.

Detailed product information and success stories are available on our website.

Exapilot works on all Yokogawa DCSs as well as Honeywell's, Emerson's, and others. 
Yokogawa has sold more than 850 licenses since Exapilot's sales release in 1999.
For more detailed information about this software, please visit the Yokogawa-Plus SBP Package site and download the General Specifications.
You may also contact our nearest sales office.