L&T Infotech Provides Top to Bottom Terminal Automation Solution

Summary
Despite the current volatility in oil prices; the need to transport, store, and distribute oil, natural gas, LNG, refined petroleum products, and petrochemicals continues to grow. Petroleum product terminals play a key role in this supply chain.

With the increasing variety of products and additives, thin profit margins, price volatility, onerous and diverse regulatory environments, and other considerations (often including the need to operate around the clock), terminal automation solutions are no longer optional. Virtually every terminal requires some degree of automation to be able to operate in a safe, secure, compliant, and optimally profitable manner. Terminal automation systems (TAS) are also being used in some very creative ways to help increase customer satisfaction. This can include providing customers with real-time inventory and transaction status via the Internet, enabling customers to reserve truck loading times in advance (also via the Internet), and supporting their demanding e-commerce or data exchange requirements.

Based on what ARC Advisory Group learned during recent briefings, L&T Infotech offers what appears to be a complete, value-based terminal automation offering. This applies both to users with a single terminal, as well as for those with geographically dispersed assets. Key findings from the discussions include:

• L&T Infotech's terminal automation product and services offering is designed to address electric, environmental, physical security, safety, instrumentation, and automation requirements.
• The company has leveraged the application expertise of its parent company, L&T's Electrical and Automation Business, to offer a scalable, high-availability solution that is independent of specific field hardware and computer operating systems.

One Stop Shop

According to the company, L&T's experience in system integration provides it with expertise in all significant aspects of terminal automation. It has automated more than 200 terminal bays in over 25 terminals and utilized its competency in drives, field instrumentation, control systems, SCADA systems, safety systems, and management information systems to create a relatively complete and well-integrated solution. L&T's terminal and tank farm experience includes products such as crude oil, refined oil, liquefied natural gas, petroleum gas, and chemical tank farms utilizing loading systems for ships, trains, trucks, and pipelines.

Solution Flexibility

L&T Infotech incorporates a variety of hardware and/or software products into its solution. By not being limited to its own portfolio of hardware and/or software, the company feels that it has the flexibility to better meet the needs of the end user. This includes the ability to use the customer's hardware and software standards, utilize the most performant hardware and software platforms, adjust the solution to meet the needs based on regional support of the hardware supplier, and more easily meet budgetary requirements.

This flexibility is the result of decades of system integration expertise. The company offers many automation services, which span from level 1 of the Purdue Model up through level 4.

Bringing the Data Together: iVisionmax-I-TAS

A terminal automation system (TAS) coordinates the field automation, verifies and tracks all transfers, and communicates with enterprise business systems. Based on ARC's technical analysis, the company's iVisionmax application provides a high degree of functionality, offering the features required for a wide variety of terminal automation applications. According to L&T Infotech documentation, the application supports the following functions:

• Loading / Un-Loading Operations
  • Jetty Loading Bay Interface
  • Tank Receipt Preparation
  • Import Sequence
  • Tank Dispatch Preparation
  • Export Sequence
  • Receipt/Dispatch Reconciliation

   

• Tanker Truck Loading/Un Loading Operations
  • Tanker Truck Allocation
  • Bay Allocation & Bay Queuing
  • Automated Entry/Exit and Bay Access Control
  • Automated Tanker Truck Filling
  • Product Delivery Note Generation
  • Product Delivery Acknowledgement
  • Receipt/Dispatch Reconciliation

   

• Rail Wagon Loading/Un Loading Operations
  • Rake Allocation
  • Bay Allocation
  • Automated Bay Access Control
  • Automated Wagon Filling
  • Wagon Delivery Note Generation
  • Wagon Product Delivery Acknowledgement
  • Receipt/Dispatch Reconciliation

   

• Fleet Management
  • Tanker Truck Master Database Maintenance
  • Driver Master Database Maintenance
  • Tanker Truck Allocation
  • Tanker Truck Tracking Module
  • Tanker Truck Maintenance Module
  • Route Management Module

   

• Business Process Interface
  • VPN Interface thru secure networks
  • Lease Line Interface
  • SAP/Oracle ERP Interface

   

• Product Blending Management
  • Product Profiling
  • Product Menu
  • Product Recipes
  • Documentation

   

Capability and Differentiation

According to the company, the iVisionmax solution can handle over ten million data points and support over 2,000 distributed systems with hot-standby redundancy. The company offers what it calls 2x2 redundancy; a redundant pair backing up a redundant pair. This second pair can be located remotely to provide a disaster recovery system. Although capable of supporting huge terminals or sets of terminals, the system is also scalable for smaller terminal automation applications.

iVisionmax is designed to help ensure data security through three main features. The first is through tightly integrated software components, which helps reduce the exposure to external vulnerabilities. Secondly, L&T Infotech has developed a thorough access and authorization system to help ensure appropriate user and program data access. Lastly, the solution also employs secure data transmission techniques between iVisionmax and external business and other systems.

L&T Infotech's TAS is SIL-3 certified, so it can be utilized across a wide variety of applications. Unlike most other solutions, the company's TAS is independent of Microsoft operating systems and can utilize Windows, Linux, or Unix/Solaris platforms without loss of functionality.

Conclusion

L&T Infotech's terminal automation solution aims to be functionally competitive with market leaders. The company believes that its experience integrating automation equipment and software from multiple vendors as well as its experience in manufacturing execution systems and enterprise integration provide it with a competitive advantage since it can provide a complete top-to-bottom solution.

ARC believes that L&T Infotech's flexibility and wide experience place it in a good position to deliver solutions that provide a good fit for its customers' demanding requirements.

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Keywords: L&T InfoTech, Terminal Automation, iVisionmax, TAS.