There are a LOT of companies involved in fracking, so no that one is not ours.
This paper was submitted by Brad and Ron for NI-Week.
I am really proud of what those guys have done with that application so please excuse me while I do the "proud Poppa" thing.
On the side of every peice of equipment in the customers fleet there was a cFP (curently being upgraded to cRIO, I think I heard they just ordered 2000 more units) unit mounted. The equipment includes tankers, mixers, pumps, and many such vehicles. They all have wireless acces included for the cFP to do networking.
Present at every well-site there is a control van that has a PC running the controlling application (there can be more htan one). As each peice of equipment arives on-site they are "discovered" automatically by the controlling app(s). Once discovered they are added to the wellsite control and become availabel to the control app. The workers on-site go about their normal duties the whole time the controlling app is logging how many peices of equipment pumping how much of what for how long, blah blah blah.
AS equipment departs the site they are removed from the configuraion and the data ship up to corp for billing and book-keeping.
The system require no interaction by the well-site people if they choose. But the applicaiton does make their life a lot easier (and safer since operarting a pump at the pressures they use can be dangerous if a seal blows etc). The various pieces of equipment are controlled and coordinated (throotle and gearing of multiple pumps feeding a single manifold required to frac the well) as well as an over-all "Wellsite-safety" that allows the whole site to be shut-dwon from any where on the site.
An interesting requirement that drove the design and implementaion of the application is expressed in a quote from the customer namely;
"You can only ask the well-site personal to perform actions that can be completed using the three tools they use most often, a 4, 8, or 12 pound sledge."
So not dip switches or opening cabinets. I all had to be automatic.
And if that is not enough (drum roll please) every node can be re-imaged on the fly allowing software fixes and upgrades to be applied at the well-site without using a sledge. This allows any box on any vehicle to work on any other vehicle.
Done with the Proup Poppa thing I thank you for your time.
BTW:
While passing another facking site on the way home yesterday it hit me that a single interchange to an interstate roadway has a bigger foot print than a fracking site.
Frack away!
Ben
