Air Products And Chemicals Selects Lighthammer For Pipeline Operations
Performance Management Application Integrates Plant Operations in West Gulf Coast
Exton, PA - Lighthammer, the leading provider of Manufacturing Intelligence and Collaborative Manufacturing applications, today announced that Air Products and Chemicals, Inc. has successfully deployed Lighthammer's Collaborative Manufacturing Suite (CMS) as the software platform for optimizing Air Products' West Gulf Coast pipeline operations. Lighthammer was implemented to enable improvements to asset management, demand planning, and energy procurement activities for a pipeline network that is fed by multiple production facilities around the Houston Ship Channel. The system is expected to facilitate annual savings through improved operating efficiencies while providing for enhanced customer responsiveness.
"Integrating plant demand, asset availability and customer orders for eight production facilities was a difficult requirement," said Tom Yurchak, technical lead for the Air Products initiative. "Lighthammer's ability to easily aggregate this information enables us to accurately complete our demand calculations in a timely manner and allows us to schedule our assets more effectively. Additionally, Lighthammer streamlined the integration among our various plant and business systems, facilitating our objective to complete the entire energy forecasting and purchasing cycle electronically."
"Air Products is a world-class manufacturer of industrial gases and chemicals. Lighthammer's capabilities will enable operational improvements in their West Gulf Coast pipeline franchise allowing Operations to schedule assets more productively, predict demand more accurately, and purchase energy more efficiently. The end result is a more competitive provider using existing production assets more effectively," said Russ Fadel, President and CEO of Lighthammer. "Our product enables manufacturers to continuously identify and capitalize on operational business opportunities. We look forward to working with Air Products to transfer all learning to other areas of their organization."
The capabilities based on Lighthammer's CMS were implemented at Air Products' Customer Service Center in LaPorte, Texas. Remote versions of the technology were also deployed at eight production sites in the West Gulf Coast that supply products to large refinery and petrochemical customers in the region. These sites are large consumers of energy and CMS allowed Air Products to aggregate their total energy needs into a common framework, enabling both improved production scheduling and cost effective energy purchasing.
"Lighthammer's Collaborative Manufacturing Suite provides real-time visibility to all process, production and energy information, enabling us to more effectively produce products to meet our customer needs," said Tony Colalillo, Oxygen/Nitrogen Pipeline business manager for Air Products. "The ability to manage production requirements from multiple plants against customer demand presents one set of challenges. The added complexities introduced by the deregulated energy environment and fluctuating energy prices caused us to look for a solution that integrates all of this disparate data into one environment. Lighthammer enabled us to implement this solution in a quick and cost effective manner."
About Lighthammer®
Lighthammer®, a privately held corporation headquartered in Exton, PA., is the leading supplier of Manufacturing Intelligence and Collaborative Manufacturing software products. Lighthammer's Collaborative Manufacturing Suite, combines Illuminator™, the market leading Manufacturing Intelligence Server, with Xacute™, its revolutionary Collaborative Execution engine. This unique convergence provides global manufacturers with all of the capabilities required to develop and deploy operational excellence and real-time performance management applications. Lighthammer software is currently in use at hundreds of companies worldwide and has been selected by more than 100 of the Fortune 500 manufacturers as their Collaborative Manufacturing solution.
Further information on Lighthammer and its products can be found at www.lighthammer.com.
About Air Products
Air Products (NYSE:APD) serves customers in technology, energy, healthcare and industrial markets worldwide with a unique portfolio of products, services and solutions, providing atmospheric gases, process and specialty gases, performance materials and chemical intermediates. Founded in 1940, Air Products has built leading positions in key growth markets such as semiconductor materials, refinery hydrogen, home healthcare services, natural gas liquefaction, and advanced coatings and adhesives. The company is recognized for its innovative culture, operational excellence and commitment to safety and the environment and is listed in the Dow Jones Sustainability and FTSE4Good Indices. The company has annual revenues of $7.4 billion, operations in over 30 countries, and nearly 20,000 employees around the globe.
Source: Lighthammer®