Case Study

cALMS PLC Support

CORE

All operators generally have maintenance/service contracts in place for the main automation system and larger rotating equipment. However, for the larger equipment packages, the focus is more on the mechanical equipment rather than the controls and the smaller packages generally have no maintenance contracts in place at all.

BACKGROUND

All operators generally have maintenance/service contracts in place for the main automation system and larger rotating equipment.

However, for the larger equipment packages, the focus is more on the mechanical equipment rather than the controls and the smaller packages generally have no maintenance contracts in place at all.

Since 2016 Core, in collaboration with Semco Maritime, has been providing clients with PLC Maintenance Support as part of our Asset Lifecycle Management Service to address these omissions.

THE PROJECT

The scope for the PLC Maintenance Support contract is tailored to a client’s specific requirements with respect to the level of support and the equipment covered.

However, common to all contracts, is the 24/7 access to the duty support engineer who will respond within 30 mins to discuss and assess the issue and if this can not be resolved over the phone, they will mobilise a suitable resource to address the issue in person.

For some clients we hold ‘grab bags’ which contain a support laptop loaded with all the PLC configurations along with the necessary cables and interface devices to expedite any offshore repair.

In addition, using the cALMS Web Application, the support engineer can quickly identify all components within the panel, spares holding, obsolescence status and migration path for upgraded replacement. Finally, all support calls are documented and stored in cALMS.

SUPPORT CALL EXAMPLE

Fuel Gas Superheater PLC – The duty support engineer at Semco was contacted by the platform, requesting assistance with their fuel gas superheater PLC which had failed over the weekend.

The dialogue between the support engineer and the platform determined that the issue was with the PLC CPU and confirmed the exact specification of the PLC system components (using cALMS) allowing a suitable replacement CPU to be sourced.

Quotations were issued to the client on the same day and approved, two CPUs were ordered to provide an additional spare at the clients request.

 

The replacement CPUs were configured with the latest version of the software backup held in the cALMS database which was verified with the client and shipped to the platform within a week of the original request for support.

The support engineer remained on standby to assist the platform with any issues arising during the changeover and start-up of the PLC system.

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