The U.S. chemical process industry must exert strict cost-justification as it applies the tools of information technology to improve itself or it runs the risk of adding cost without adding value, and of merely automating inefficiency.

IT managers and corporate executives discussed efficiency, productivity, security and safety at Philadelphia meeting.

That was a major theme presented to more than 100 engineering, operations and information technology managers and executives from the industry who met Oct 9-10 in Philadelphia at PlantSuccess 2002 to discuss their companies' efforts to apply information technology to improve efficiency, productivity, security and safety. They met in the same hall they convened in last year on the heels of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. But while last year's meeting was overshadowed by a pall of catastrophe and a circle-the-wagons mentality, this year's meeting focused on forging ahead.

"We're back to where we were," says Carl Howk, founder and chairman of PlantSuccess. "We've moved past what we went through after Sept. 11 and we're back to working for improved productivity and better management of people, although a part of that from now on will be this on-going concern with security."

The industry is slogging through by a long trough in the economy, even as it is being beset by the growing sophistication of overseas competition and dogged by packs of new regulatory constraints on environmental and security issues.

Keynote speaker Herman Ortega, vice president of engineering and manufacturing with the chemicals group of Air Products and Chemicals Inc., made the case that the industry's future depends upon improving efficiency by rooting out processes that add cost without adding product value. He suggested that automation upgrades, such as are happening now with the application of new tools of information technology, offer an opportunity to do just that. "Cost justify automation before implementation," he stressed. "Automating inefficient processes is just automating inefficiency."

Presentations consisted of case studies from companies of how they are addressing the challenges. Topics ranged from meeting the proactive compliance assurance strictures of federal Title V environmental regulations, to the use of 3D modeling of plant data to automate the drafting of start-up and operational procedures, to outsourcing IT services, particularly data management, by forming business alliances with key technology vendors.

A presentation by an industry outsider from the construction arena on using the principals of lean production to improve project execution sparked considerable interest. Lean production replaces schedule-driven execution with a team-based, running assessment of project status that focuses on optimizing the flow of a project as a whole, rather than point performance of tasks. Jeff Niesen, senior project executive from The Boldt company, an Appleton, Wis., construction firm using lean principals on institutional and commercial construction, demonstrated the relatively low-tech, but very people-oriented spreadsheet tools his company uses to track and advance project performance.

Security issues cast a shadow over the gathering toward the close of the two-day event as attendees discussed surveys being circulated by various state attorneys general. The surveys solicit detailed information about plant security policies and practices, including issues of data security. Even business practices whose disruption could affect local communities, such as the handling of payroll data, are being scrutinized.

The industry leaders expressed concern that the surveys, which they criticized as being less than well conceived, could be pre-coursers to a new, and possibly equally ill-conceived waves of security regulation. The concern expressed was that heavy-handed regulation could be imposed by legislators unaware of steps already being taken, and insensitive to the nuances of the complex process industry. "We don't need more regulation," Howk says. "The industry has learned its lessons."

The next PlantSuccess conference will take place April 2-3, 2003 in Houston, Texas.