As manufacturers continue working to improve profitability, they are looking for ways to optimize asset efficiencies. Many are turning to predictive maintenance to help reduce maintenance costs, improve asset availability, and optimize asset utilization. Intelligent field devices are a key piece to implementing a successful predictive maintenance strategy.

While ARC Advisory Group has been following the trend to automated on-off valve controllers in the plant for some time now, the latest trend is to install intelligent valve controllers on critical automated on-off valves to bring some of the diagnostic benefits commonly available with control valves to automated on-off valves. Intelligent valve controllers provide improved control and, what is more important, the diagnostic features and communications that can help end users move from a reactive to a predictive maintenance strategy. A predictive valve maintenance strategy can help plants avoid costly unplanned downtime and improve valve reliability, which can translate into millions of dollars of savings for manufacturers.

The majority of the automated on-off valves currently in service are actuated by "dumb" analog controllers. These cannot provide asset health or connect to digital plant communications, such as FOUNDATION fieldbus, Profibus, or digital HART networks for online diagnostics. As a result, end users have no visibility into the health of these automated on-off valves or the processes they control. This lack of real-time feedback can lead to a situation of the "blind leading the blind."