Field Lifecycle Development

Effective Conceptual Engineering and Feasibility Studies set the foundation for project success. Having FLOWLEAD involved during this phase of project development will ensure that appropriate, and practical Automation technologies and strategies are identified to ensure the operability, reliability, maintainability, safety requirements, and capital cost of the project are proactively identified. The results are less scope creep during the course of the project, the establishment of more accurate project cost estimates earlier in the project cycle, consistently stable facility operations and reduced down-time through the life of the facility, and reduced life-cycle facility costs.

FLOWLEAD has the industry experience and depth in the application of automation technologies to ensure success at this stage of your project.

During FEED the high level Automation technologies and strategies developed during Conceptual Engineering phase, or defined within a client’s development program, are expanded upon to a level where systems architectures are defined, and major equipment and systems are defined and purchased.

Having Flowlead involved in this phase of project development ensures clear, concise definition of the Automation system functional requirements, and the associated detailed engineering deliverables resulting in increased efficiency during the detailed engineering phase.

Our vendor-independence ensures that our clients benefit from automation solutions designed to optimize operability, reliability, maintainability, safety, and capital cost leveraging the full spectrum of automation system offerings available in the marketplace.

Detailed Engineering constitutes the largest percentage of engineering costs on a project, and can make or break a project.
Flowlead’s mature detailed engineering processes, coupled with one of the largest and most experienced Electrical, Instrumentation, and Automation team rosters in North America, enable us to produce high quality detailed design engineering, system configuration, and programming deliverables. Our depth of experience in the process industries ensures we have the right expertise to ensure the success of your project.

Pre-commissioning, system turnover, and startup of process control systems have requirements that are unique in comparison to other engineering disciplines. Automation systems require rigorous commissioning methods to define, plan, and execute a large number of equipment test and verification activities, and to manage the identification, remediation, and final verification of all deficiencies identified.

Flowlead has highly developed tools and methods to optimize the controls system commissioning process, and we can adapt these tools to provide commissioning services on a wide spectrum of project scopes.

Our Field Services group provides automation system hardware and software technical support to industrial facilities throughout Western Canada. We have individuals with a wealth of experience relative to the most widely used DCS, PLC, HMI, and SCADA systems, as well as with the associated communications networks.

Services include:

• 24-hour technical support
• disaster recovery services
• control system audits

These services are offered as individual services or bundled into a full-scope automation support agreement that provides the automation reliability required to keep critical processes operating 24 hours a day.

Flowlead offers customized training, vendor-specific training, and generic technology training courses that meet our customers’ exact requirements. Flowlead has provided vendor-approved training courses for DCS and PLC manufacturers and has developed automation course content for a major Canadian technical institute.

Flowlead’s highly skilled technical personnel have diverse backgrounds and extensive process plant and industry specific experience, enabling us to provide teams (small or large) that can analyze process units of any size, and provide process optimization services. The direct benefits of our optimization services include:

• increased process reliability and improved plant uptime
• debottlenecking activities and recommendations which will increase plant sprint capacity
• decreased process and product variability
• reduced plant operating costs
• improved plant process safety

Flowlead has the process control capabilities to leverage control system technology to extract maximum operating efficiency from a process. Our optimization team can also look beyond the control systems and the software and into the physical process to identify opportunities and provide recommendations and solutions that capture unfound value in our clients’ assets.

Emergency shutdown (ESD) systems and procedures are critical elements of any process control system, to ensure the safety of people, the facility, and the environment, in the event of a safety incident.

Flowlead offers a complete review, design and implementation services for emergency shutdown systems and standby power, to ensure our clients’ facilities are in compliance with government regulations and that they meet corporate health, safety and environmental standards.

Through our Field Service division, targeted to meet your industrial automation support needs, Flowlead can offer onsite support long after a project has ended.  With qualified and experienced technicians available 24 hours a day, seven days a week, we can keep your systems working.

Unlike typical consultants and electrical and instrumentation contractors, Flowlead Field Services has experienced automation specialists to provide construction management, project commissioning, troubleshooting, and maintenance, and enhancements to your PLC, DCS, SCADA, and HMI systems.

Our lab facilities are equipped with a variety of automation equipment and PC-based host systems to allow us to develop and test automation applications. Our staging center is equipped to allow us to assemble fully functional systems for testing and customer acceptance prior to deployment.

Backed by an engineering team of industrial automation experts, and integrated with an information services group for PC networking and integration support, we have the skills and resources to fulfill your long-term automation support needs