Successful Refinery Digital Transformation Journey
When done correctly, a Digital Transformation can lead to many benefits as exhbited by this Emerson Article on Ergon Refining. It is CESMII’s mission to be sure the benefits highlighted in this article are democratized, and available to industry as a whole…
About the Article:
Due to the high level of specificity involved in its more than 200 specialty lube products, Ergon Refining sought to better meet market demands by digitally transforming its operations to deliver products with high levels of customization for its customers.
A Hydrocarbon Processing article, Ergon Refining: A digital transformation story, provides a great illustration of a step-wise, scalable digital transformation journey that continues to drive business improvements. The authors, Ergon Refining’s Steve Elwart and Emerson’s Marcelo Carugo, share this journey and the results achieved.
Key to their strategy in being an early adopter of new technologies was starting small, proving it out, and scaling up successes. Choosing where best to invest centered on three criteria:
…scalability, workforce empowerment, and IT/OT integration. Management identified a handful of operational challenges—some obvious and others that were added to the list over time—and set about searching for solutions that met the criteria.
Projects were justified based on best practices or showing “…where a lack of technology has affected us and then use that to paint a clearer picture of how we could improve performance, which helps upper management see the value in investing in automation,” Steve states.
Ergon Refining unlocked newfound collaborative unification between its IT and OT teams, helping to solve production challenges, improve its profitability and enable strategic advantages in its marketplace.
Hear from Ergon leadership about the company’s ongoing digital transformation using Emerson technology and how it realized significant financial and operational benefits.