Thu, 01/05/2017 - 12:47

LAKE FOREST, Calif. (Jan. 5, 2017)—Schneider Electric celebrated customers for innovative mobile workforce enablement strategies that resulted in new levels of efficiency and performance at the Empowering the Mobile Workforce in Process Industries conference in Houston. Three Schneider Electric software customers won awards based on their implementation of mobility solutions across their production environment. Ascend Performance Materials received an Excellence Award for its HERO (Handhelds for Excellence in Reliable Operations) Program. The company saved $500,000 in materials costs, $1 million in maintenance costs and $2 million in opportunity costs by avoiding unplanned plant shutdowns. Flint Hill Resources received an Innovation Award in recognition of its maintenance management program for improving asset availability, mean time between failures (MTBF) and labor productivity, while reducing rework, maintenance backlog and inventory carry costs. Shell Global received an Innovation Award based on launching a proactive mobile monitoring solution on Prelude, the world’s first floating liquefied natural gas (LNG) plant. Shell is helping to revolutionize the way natural gas resources are developed by bringing it offshore, as well as reducing the size of a traditional LNG plant to a quarter of its land size. “Our customers continue to amaze us with innovative applications of our technology and the significant benefits they achieve,” said Kim Custeau, Director of Asset Management, Schneider Electric. “Leveraging mobility has enabled these industry leaders to empower people to become active participants in real-time work streams, improving the collaboration of people, processes and equipment.” Schneider Electric’s mobile workforce and decision support system bridges the gap between field personnel and the control room, according to a statement from the company. Schneider Electric’s Wonderware IntelaTrac software equips field workers with information on operations and maintenance procedures, equipment diagrams and operating history. This system empowers users to make decisions on the spot, resulting in improved asset availability, increased productivity and reduced risk, the company said.