Presentation: Air Liquide Advanced Industrial IT Project

Founded in 1902, Air Liquide is the world leader in industrial and medical gases and related services. Our core business is to supply oxygen, nitrogen, hydrogen and many other gases and services to most industries. Air Liquide also owns and operates over 1,400 MW of cogeneration-produced power. Air Liquide is one of the world's largest industrial gas pipeline operators with more than 7,000 km of pipeline carrying over 200 million standard cubic feet of hydrogen and carbon monoxide per day. In 2001, the European operations launched a major IT initiative. The ultimate goal was to build a fully integrated, real-time and Web-based global industrial information system for all plants and pipelines. The first phase of the project covers pipeline and related plants. Major functional requirements include global pipelines and energy management & optimisation, remote plant monitoring and machinery analysis. The major expected benefit was to implement a system that gives AL access to real-time information anytime, anywhere, so as to optimise its utility costs and facilitate decision-making between different production configurations and locations instantaneously. The OSIsoft RtPM platform has been selected to be the backbone of the new system that includes various communication technologies (Web, intranet, DSL, phone, messaging, radio). The system has been in operation since February 2003 and has already allowed Air Liquide to optimise energy consumption and benefit from electricity market opportunities.