Real-Time Access to Operation Data Using Internet of Things (IoT)

Challenge:

Customers/Operators need to make decisions when job is in progress in real-time
Mobile units in the remote areas that do not have a high bandwidth Internet service
Demonstrate advanced digital connectivity to overcome the competition

Solution:

Bursys Monitoring Equipment Utilization
IoT Enablement of Emerson and Allen & Bradley equipment
Managed services for AWS cloud
Near Real-Time Data flow to AWS Cloud

Results:

Enabled connectivity to mobile chemical injection trailer units, which are installed with PLC’s and measuring equipment from different manufacturers
Real-time access to operational data on Cloud
Mission critical, 99.9% available solution on AWS
Low cost of ownership by utilizing FieldEquip edge gateway

An Independent Oilfield Service Company providing Chemicals to Operators in Shale Frac Operations

Our customer is a privately-owned Oil and Gas service company. They provide industry-leading chemical solutions for all O&G industry needs. They also offer an extensive product portfolio for drilling, fracking, completion, and production chemical solutions. They operate their mobile trailer units with complete equipment installed on the trailer along with necessary chemical totes. In addition, they have a small data cabin on the trailer unit.

This service company wanted to offer advanced solutions to their customers. They wanted to provide complete visibility into the operational data in real-time to their customers, many of whom are large operators, such as BP petroleum. The real-time access to operations data can enable engineers to monitor the progress remotely and make any changes in the chemical mix, pressure, and tank levels remotely.

Digitization of the field units without having to invest millions

In general, enabling IoT for the oil field equipment using the solutions provided by industry leaders, such as Emerson and Honeywell, can be cost prohibitive. Our customer is relatively a smaller Oil and Gas service provider and was looking to have a fully digital solution without having to invest millions in technology. As they were building new units, they were also installing measurement (pressure monitors, flow meters, etc.) devices, sensors, and PLC’s from different manufacturers. They wanted to have a solution that will be secure, reduce capital expenditure (CAPEX), and result in minimal operational costs (OPEX) and manufacturer agnostic.

Implementation of FieldEquip IoT Edge Gateway

Bursys IoT architects put together a solution that will use their FieldEquip IoT Edge gateway on each mobile unit that will be wired through cellular gateway to AWS cloud. Bursys software engineers developed interface to Emerson ROC 800L, Allen Bradley , etc. PLC’s in the field. The gateway technology took all the data received from the PLC’s and converted it into light weight MQTT messages that had to be sent automatically to AWS IoT core.

FieldEquip Edge Gateway has the built-in technology to cache the data locally in case of connectivity failures and to automatically push the data from cache to AWS IoT core upon restoration of connectivity. The data is then automatically transmitted to FieldEquip intelligent analytics platform for ingestion, data visualization, and analytics. FieldEquip presents the data monitoring dashboards, alerts, and workflow automation through different channels, such as mobile app and portal applications, to the end users.

Delivery of a cutting-edge IoT solution at very little cost

Our solution is very scalable and requires a very simple configuration of FieldEquip Edge Gateway at site, which easily connects the unit with FieldEquip cloud platform. Our customer paid very little upfront cost to setup the FieldEquip platform and then a nominal subscription cost for each unit per month. Our solution leveraged the scalable and secure AWS IoT Core platform and further delivered the industry solution on FieldEquip SaaS platform. We delivered a world-class scalable solution that can handle terabytes of data flowing from the oil field and deliver this data for visualization, interpretation, and action in real-time.