On 23 October, SIBUR’s corporate centre hosted a meeting to discuss implementation of digital tools to enhance safety at complex production facilities and facilitate control and oversight mechanisms. The task primarily applies to large facilities where the safety and risk management issue is particularly pressing. Specifically, it is relevant to the production and processing of coal, oil and gas, which are complex industries requiring special control. The meeting participants noted that monitoring systems can and should be improved by leveraging digital tools and solutions.

The meeting was attended by Dmitry Medvedev, Russia's Prime Minister, Dmitry Kozak, Russia's Deputy Prime Minister, Maxim Topilin, Russia's Labour and Social Protection Minister, Svetlana Radionova, Head of the Russian Federal Service for Supervision of Natural Resources (Rosprirodnadzor), and Alexei Aleshin, Head of the Russian Federal Service for Environmental, Technological, and Nuclear Supervision (Rostekhnadzor).

During the event, Dmitry Konov, Chairman of the Management Board at SIBUR Holding, presented a pilot project for a remote safety monitoring system. Implemented at SIBUR’s Perm site together with the Federal Service for Environmental, Technological and Nuclear Supervision (Rostechnadzor), the solution enables early identification of potential threats and helps to assess production risks. As a result, those can be mitigated early on: should any incident occur, employees get notified to respond immediately. All data on industrial safety are sent to Rostechnadzor’s Analysis and Response Centre. The launch of the system at the Perm site of SIBUR has been a staged exercise initiated in 2016. The solution processes around 18,000 signals in real time, showing the current state of industrial safety at the facility.

SIBUR-Khimprom boasts a functioning remote industrial safety monitoring system.

Prior to the meeting, Dmitry Medvedev inspected SIBUR’s digital capabilities. In particular, he examined the biometric employee and visitor identification technology rolled out at SIBUR’s offices a few years ago. The system prevents unauthorised trespassing and facilitates speedy and convenient entrance into the office building. The technology can administer most of the security control functions previously performed by a human, including ID checks, visitor’s face recognition to match the image against the person’s ID, pass application verification, storing of the visitor’s name and image, and pass issuance. As an authorised visitor approaches the turnstile, it opens automatically.

Prime Minister was shown a mobile inspection and repairs app that eliminates paper workflow, video analytics to control the production process and product quality, a tool to visualise the link between the economics of production and the process mode, explosion-proof IIoT sensors to reduce accident rates and improve efficiency, private LTE networks for safe and reliable data transfer, and digital boards for efficient shift hand-over.

Prior to the meeting, Dmitry Medvedev inspected SIBUR’s digital capabilities.

For the project to be rolled out to other production facilities, the government needs to pass the respective draft federal law and regulations that would govern the implementation of a remote industrial safety monitoring mechanism and the establishment of a state system for safety monitoring. There is also a need for procedures governing the interaction between the oversight bodies and the supervised facilities.

According to Dmitry Medvedev, the government is finalising the key bills set to reform oversight and control. It includes the draft Law on Mandatory Requirements in the Russian Federation and the draft Law on State Control (Oversight) and Municipal Control in the Russian Federation.

The participants of the meeting supported the proposed additions and improvements to the legislation, stating that these changes will also benefit other digital solutions. For example, the processes that still rely on paper-based equipment data sheets and log records will become more efficient, replacing paper records at production facilities will improve labour safety and facilitate process transparency.

“Electronic systems minimise the risk of human error and improve work efficiency. Aligning and rolling out digital instruments across industries and introducing effective regulation is both a feasible and pressing task for the Russian economy,” said Dmitry Konov.

“The remote safety monitoring system for hazardous facilities is currently being tested by Rostekhnadzor,” commented Dmitry Medvedev. “It provides real-time updates on the facility's operation and can identify irregularities caused by disruptions in technological processes – in other words, any deviations from normal process parameters. This way, any potential incidents and risks can be detected and, most importantly, prevented at the earliest possible stage. Today, we were able to see the system in action at SIBUR.”

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