Say the word and you'll be free.
Say the word and be like me.

("The Word," by the Beatles, 1965).

 

ORIENTATION TO PROCESS TECHNOLOGY

What is Process Technology?
Heck, What Does the Word "Process" Mean?

Add Value/Upgrade: To make stuff more valuable by changing it into a form that people will pay more money for.  The purpose of processing facilities is to add value to feedstocks by converting them into more valuable products.People will pay more money for lumber than the tree that the lumber was made out of. People pay more for gasoline than crude oil because it is more useful to them.

Feedstocks/Raw Materials: the stuff that enters the processing facility that will be converted into products. For a coffee kiosk, one of the raw materials is coffee beans and another raw material is water. For a fuels refinery, the raw material is crude that will be turned into fuels.

Processing Technologies: The technologies used to turn feedstocks into final products at a processing facility. This orientation segment includes a list of Processing Technology examples. Processing technologies combine what is known about the physical, chemical, and biological characteristics of feedstocks with process steps designed to make desired final products.

Products/Final Products: the stuff that raw materials are turned into at a processing facility. For a coffee kiosk processing facility, the coffee and lattes are the final products made from coffee beans, water, and additives. For a fuels refinery the final products are propane, butane, white gas, gasoline, jet fuel, diesel, asphalt.

Intermediate Products: Raw materials that have not quite finished being processed into Final Products. A complicated process can require many steps to convert raw materials to desired products.

Manufacturing: Assembling many parts into a final product. Differs from processing because the parts are not flowing through pipes during the conversion process.

 

ORIENTATION TO PROCESS INDUSTRY TYPES

How Do the Process Technology Industries Impact Lifestyles in Developed Countries?

Automatic Instrumentation Technicians: Process facility workers responsible for maintaining the many and varied automatic instrumentation components in use at the facility.

Cooling Water: A utility used in processing facilities where it is necessary to indirectly cool the process temperature by exchanging heat. Don't stress about understanding this concept totally right now.

Exploration and Production (E&P): A type of process tech industry that extracts raw materials from the earth. E&Ps upgrade the extracted materials so that they can be safely transported via pipeline, waterborne, or vehicle to another processing facility where they become feedstocks. Examples of raw materials are mined minerals, crude oil, and natural gas.

Fired Heater: A piece of temperature-increasing equipment that is required when a specified process temperature must be attained for the next step in the upgrading to occur.

Furnace-boiler: A piece of equipment used to boil water into steam.

Gas-turbine: A piece of equipment frequently used as a driver to generate electricity. Don't stress about this now.

Mechanics/Mechanic Technicians: Processing facility workers that are responsible for monitoring and repairing rotating equipment like pumps, compressors, turbines. A part of the facility Maintenance department.

Natural Gas: Gas that is extracted with crude oil from earth or from gas fields which have more gas to extract than oil. Natural gas contains mostly methane. Methane is the simplest of the hydrocarbons with one carbon atom holding hands with four hydrogens, ergo CH4. A remarkable slate of products can be made from methane, for example hydrogen and ammonia based fertilizers.

Nitrogen: A gaseous utility used in processing that can be purchased or made by separating nitrogen out of air.Nitrogen uses include insuring a non-explosive (inert) atmosphere exists and super cooling  gas products so that they become liquids (the fancy name is 'cryogenic cooling'). Nitrogen can also be a feedstock.

Process Plant Operators: The process facility workers that are accountable and responsible 24/7 to safely operate the multi million dollars worth of equipment that make up the processes which convert feedstocks into intermediate and final products. Not part of the facility Maintenance department.

Steam: The final product that exits a boiler. Steam is a multi purpose utility that can be used for cleaning pathways and equipment, insuring a non reactive environment exists, used by a steam turbine to produce electricity, used as a feedstock in certain processes that make hydrogen.

 

ORIENTATION TO PROCESS INDUSTRY TYPES CONTINUED

Baby, You Can Drive My Car...
With the Help of Process Technologies

No additional jargon appears in this PTOA Orientation segment.

 

ORIENTATION TO PROCESS INDUSTRY TYPES CONTINUED 

Why You Can't Count on Polar Fleece Sheep to Get Sleepy

Petrochemicals: Valuable intermediate products derived from crude oil after many,many processing steps. Petrochemicals can be chemically reacted into making a wide variety of consumer goods like plastics, fabrics, shampoos, cosmetics.

Safety Culture: A work environment that prioritizes safe operations and safe-minded behavior.

 

ORIENTATION TO SHIFT WORK

Shift  Work in the Process Industries

24/7: Twenty four hours a day, 7 days a week. Never stops.

Downtime: The time interval in which the processing facility is not making final products. Downtime can be scheduled for maintenance or unscheduled when something goes wrong. Everyone working at the processing facility works to minimized unscheduled downtime.

Process Unit Operators: The process facility workers that are accountable and responsible 24/7 to safely operate the multi million dollars worth of equipment that make up the processes which convert feedstocks into intermediate and final products. Not part of the facility Maintenance department.

Remote (Processing Facility): A processing facility that cannot be easily accessed for example an offshore oil rig.

Unplanned Emergency Shutdown: The type of facility shutdown everybody works to avoid.  This type of shutdown could be due to electrical outage, failure of instrument air, earthquake, rotating equipment failure, fire, etc.

 

ORIENTATION TO SHIFT WORK CONTINUED

The Top Ten Reasons to Work Shift Work

No additional industrial process jargon appears in this PTOA Orientation segment.

 

 

ORIENTATION TO SHIFT WORK CONTINUED

The 2 Two Reasons Not to Work Shift Work (Especially at Remote Locations)

No additional industrial process jargon appears in this PTOA Orientation segment.

 

ORIENTATION TO SHIFT WORK CONTINUED

The Next Five Reasons Not to Work A Shift Work Schedule

No additional industrial process jargon appears in this PTOA Orientation segment.

 

 

That's enough reading for this segment!

The next segment wraps up the industrial process jargon that appeared in the PTOA Orientation series.

 

©2015 PTOA Segment 00004
PTOA Process Industry Jargon O-1

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