2018 Product of the Year Award Winners Recognized
Equipment, software solutions get the thumbs up
The Oil & Gas Engineering annual Product of the Year awards recognize significant innovation and advancement in technologies and best practices. Here and in the December issue we announce the award winners.
IIoT & Process Control Category
Gold Award Winner: Bedrock Automation seeks to remake industrial automation
From its inception, Bedrock Automation has been dedicated to reimagining every aspect of the installed base of automation assets. The company says it can support traditional PLC and DCS applications with a fully compliant and cybersecure IEC 61131 development environment.
Bedrock’s system is architected on a patented 4GB backplane. Combined with capacious computing power in its system modules, I/O is refreshed at a fixed rate independent of system size. This kind of unprecedented performance enables ease of use, higher process yields, and more precise control. Patented I/O module circuits enable universal, software-configurable analog and discrete I/O. This enables automation solutions engineered with just three I/O module types.
The OSA Remote Controller combines PLC, RTU, and edge control; intrinsic cybersecurity; and universal I/O into a compact standalone module ideal for remote monitoring and control applications. The OSA Remote is configured with standard Bedrock IEC 61131-3 engineering tools. Intrinsic cyber security reduces the need for external firewalls, intrusion detection, and other devices. In addition to securing its own controls, the OSA Remote can extend protection to other systems and devices via embedded anomaly detection.
Silver Award Winner: Well lifecycle reporting based on software, services, and support
A two-time 2018 Product of the Year honoree, Quorum Software’s dynamic response to a quickly evolving market is described on the facing page. WellEz On Demand, its well lifecycle reporting application delivers value based on cloud technology, 24 hours by 7 days a week support, and pay-as-you-go pricing. Two outstanding features are the ability to generate well-bore diagrams from the field that evolve as the well moves from drilling to completions to workovers. An XML feed automates transfers between applications for authorization-for-expenditure management, production, accounting, and data visualization.
With WellEz On Demand, users can implement a pre-packaged solution to reduce IT overhead and scale with their needs quickly. WellEz On Demand features an easy-to-use interface for capturing drilling, completion, workover, and facility information; automatically distributed daily reports and trend analysis; the ability to upload and share any file type from the rig site to the office; and automated data transfer between operational data and other in-house applications.
Bronze Award Winner: Falcon Electric says industrial UPS system is way to protect yourself
Many types of uninterruptible power supply (UPS) products are available. UPS, also known as a battery back-up, provides varying degrees of power protection against blackouts and other power disturbances, depending on UPS type or topology.
Standby and line-interactive UPS is appropriate for non-critical applications; line-interactive UPS is similar to standby UPS except it is able to provide an acceptable output voltage to connected equipment during “brownout” conditions. An online UPS provides higher levels of protection but also an electrical firewall between the incoming utility power and electrical equipment.
Falcon’s SSG universal UPS with a hot-swap Lithium Iron Phosphate (LiFePO4) battery provides longer service life, longer backup times, lower weight, and higher safety than those with lead-acid batteries. The SSG UPS also lowers total cost of ownership by dramatically reducing costly battery replacements and downtime. Other key features of the SSG UPS with LiFePO4 battery include a small footprint, continuous operation from -20 to 55°C with no performance degradation, no thermal runaway issues that are inherent in Lithium-ion chemistry, and a service life of more than 10 years.
Data & Analytics Category
Gold Award Winner: Quorum Software is on the move
Things are changing at Quorum Software. In August, its acquisition by Thoma Bravo, LLC, the private equity investment firm was announced. The firm is doing so because “Quorum is a pioneer and leader in the energy software market, offering a broad portfolio of mission-critical technology solutions,” said Scott Crabill, managing partner, Thoma Bravo.
In November, J. Charles Goodman was named executive chairman of the board of directors at Quorom, the provider of finance, operations, and accounting software to the oil & gas industry, with a significant presence in the largest public energy companies, LNG exporters, and natural gas processors.
Quorum was recognized for its latest release, Entero Mosaic v2018, a unified application for petroleum economics, decline analysis, and reserves management. It features highly configurable, push-button reconciliation for both regulatory resources & reserves and capital and operating budgeting; a composite workbench to quickly filter, sort, and search on inputs, economic detail, and result variables; and presentations and layouts for detailed economics and comparing indicators between scenarios.
Silver Award Winner: Fox Thermal found in U.S. shale fields
For more than 20 years, Fox Thermal has manufactured thermal gas mass flowmeters, based on constant temperature differential technology to measure mass flow rate of air and gases, using proprietary sensor technology. Measurement is in standard volumetric or mass units. No additional temperature or pressure compensation is required, and there are no moving parts.
Thermal mass flowmeters have many uses in the oil & gas industries, including in U.S. shale fields. Examples include the measure of tank vent and flash gas during storage operations as well as tank leakage.
The Model FT4X thermal gas mass flow meter features a data logger to record flow rate, totals, and other events and alarms. The logs provide information about the flow meter’s settings and functionality, including gas or gas mix composition, configuration, and calibration validation historical test data. Other advanced features of the Model FT4X include a second generation non-cantilevered DDC-Sensor, expended Gas-SelectX menus, CAL-V, RS485 Modbus RTU or HART, standard USB port, and Ft4X View software.
Bronze Award Winner: SecurityMatters stands guard at operations technology inflection points
Frost & Sullivan says SecurityMatters and its SilentDefense solution protects information technology/operations technology (IT/OT) system networks against malware and zero-day attacks. It also helps companies comply with multiple regulator standards such as NERC CIP and NIST, guaranteeing network segmentation and policy enforcement and response, per IEC 62443.
The solution “leverages patented machine learning capabilities to monitor IT/OT ecosystems from three central anagles—network, protocol and semantics. It combines this machine learning with a vast industrial threat library and a comprehensive protection program to deliver timely and actionable updates regarding new threats,” said Danielle VanZandt, industry analyst for security, Frost & Sullivan.
Thereby, SilentDefense empowers industrial operators with visibility, threat detection capability, and network control. Featuring a user-friendly interface and out-of-the-box detection engines, SilentDefense delivers actionable results. SilentDefense allows users to assess risks, threats, and vulnerabilities; understand current network resilience state; and pinpoint weak spots and current inefficiencies.
Original content can be found at Oil and Gas Engineering.
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