In chemical manufacturing enterprises, to which category should the components in the control cabinets provided by the manufacturers of individual equipment belong...

Does the instrumentation field only deal with local instruments? In the control cabinet, the control and measurement components fall under the responsibility of the instrumentation team, while the high-voltage components are handled by the electrical engineering team. The low-voltage components can be managed by the instrumentation and control team as long as they are not related to relay protection or power supply and distribution.

I am referring to some individual devices, such as the measuring instruments and control components in gas boiler control systems, refrigerant control systems, and air compression nitrogen generation control systems. The special issue on automatic control doesn’t contain these design documents; they are all developed and designed by the manufacturers themselves. How is that managed?

Firstly, even for content designed by the manufacturer, corresponding completion documents as well as operation and maintenance manuals should be provided, so that work can be carried out based on this information. If this part is indeed the case, there are generally several reasons: first, no constraints were set at the time of signing the contract; second, the installation company failed to hand over the relevant items; third, the project and documentation departments of Party A failed to transfer them. The origin can be traced to locate such file packages. Secondly, one can seek manufacturer support by purchasing major repair packages and outsourcing them to the original supplier. However, not all outsourced parties can carry out the work in a timely and reliable manner. Moreover, adopting a laissez-faire approach and relying solely on major repairs is unsafe.

I think you still don’t understand what I mean. What I’m referring to is management. It’s natural for the instrument workshop to assist with maintenance tasks, but what about tasks such as creating lists of spare parts, determining the demand for those parts, purchasing them, and managing inventory? How should the instrument specialists handle these tasks? If the items purchased are not suitable, it is necessary to communicate with the supplier. How do professionals in this field of work instruments handle this? None of them are part of the main DCS system; many of these devices are not standard instruments used in the chemical industry. The signals they generate are different, as are their operating principles and the frequency at which they fail. The impact of such failures on the equipment is also something that those specializing in instrumentation do not understand. It should be the equipment maintenance department that is best aware of these management-related issues. If technical discussions are needed for the acceptance of spare parts, does the instrumentation team have to turn to the equipment team to obtain the supplier’s contact information in order to communicate?

I fully agree with the three management suggestions you mentioned, but who should be responsible for organizing these tasks? I think it’s definitely the person in charge of the equipment who is organizing these things

OP, isn’t the operation and maintenance of these instrumentation devices the responsibility of the instrumentation team? Here, for such equipment once it is operating normally, the regular maintenance of the instruments on it falls under the responsibility of the instrumentation department; the technical documentation related to the equipment also has to be provided to them. Of course, if there are quality issues with the equipment, it is the person in charge of that equipment who is responsible for coordinating a solution. For example, items such as complete compressor sets are classified under the instruments category, while other items fall under the mechanical category; yet many mechanical failures also rely on monitoring data from instruments to be identified.

The maintenance and replacement tasks fall under the responsibility of the instrumentation department, but no documentation related to this has been handed over, not even a list of spare parts. As a result, maintenance work is very difficult to carry out; there are no spare parts available, and when problems arise, one has to ask the instrumentation department for them. There are many components that the instrumentation department has never seen before, so it’s necessary to contact the manufacturer directly to have those parts sent over. The operation of the equipment remains precarious as a result. Many accessories require original manufacturer parts to ensure compatibility; the device comes with the manufacturer’s contact information, but what about the instruments? There’s always arguing over this.

The biggest problem at the moment is the lack of spare parts; we’re constantly at a loss. The equipment department doesn’t provide a list of necessary spare parts, and even when we ask for it, they don’t organize any such list. In short, they say they understand instrumentation while we don’t, so we have to figure things out on our own. If they don’t even know the basic spare parts needed for the instrumentation, what are we supposed to do?

Hehe, if that’s the case, it seems like the responsibilities aren’t clearly defined. There’s nothing to do but to see if we can get the equipment documentation so we can familiarize ourselves with it and have a better idea of what to expect. Otherwise, if problems arise in the future, the blame will still be placed on the instrument.

This post was last edited by lotos1987 on 2015-12-5 at 15:28. Let’s explain it this way. During the project’s infrastructure construction phase, the equipment team should take the lead, with the instrumentation team providing support, to establish a dedicated department responsible for creating a list of spare parts and determining their required quantities. The equipment team is responsible for carrying out the procurement of all necessary spare parts (with some individual instruments being purchased separately by the instrumentation team), as well as handling all tasks related to inventory entry, exit, distribution, and inventory counting ； After the completion of the project’s infrastructure construction phase, this department was disbanded, and a dedicated maintenance department was formed using personnel from the instrumentation team. This department carried out production maintenance in accordance with the plans and guidelines established earlier; if those plans were not sufficient to meet the requirements, the instrumentation team had to redo the aforementioned tasks, excluding inventory management, based on the actual circumstances. During the engineering and operation phases, due to differences in departments, different departments within the same specialty focus on different aspects. However, the plans and materials required for production operations are consistent.