Oil Refining Digitalization Software and Consulting | Technical Support Service

PRIVACY POLICY

Last updated: September 18, 2018

Astron International recognizes that your privacy is very important and we take it seriously. This Privacy Policy (“Privacy Policy”) describes our policies and procedures on the collection, use, disclosure, and sharing of your personal information or personal data when you use the Astron International website or associated services (“Delfin”, “DelfinSia”, “RefiningOnline”). This Privacy Policy applies to activities by Astron International and its affiliates (collectively “Astron International,” “we” or “us”).

The Information We Collect

We may collect information directly and/or automatically through the Astron International website.

Communications. When you communicate with us (via email, phone, through the Astron International website, or otherwise), we may maintain a record of your communication.

Automatically Collected Information About Your Activity. We use cookies, log files, local storage objects, and other tracking technologies to automatically collect information about your activities, such as your page views, date and time of your visit, and other information about your use of the Astron International Website. We also collect and may store information that your computer or mobile device provides to us in connection with your use of the Astron International website such as your browser type, type of computer or mobile device, browser language, IP address, mobile carrier, unique device identifier, location, and requested and referring URLs. We also receive information when you view content on or otherwise interact with the Astron International Website.

Engagement. We collect browsing information – such as IP address and location, date and time stamp, user agent, Astron International cookie ID (if applicable), URL, and time zone, and other information about user activities on the Astron International website.

How We Use Your Information

We do not sell your personal data – such as your name and contact information – to third parties to use for their own marketing purposes. Astron International uses the information we collect for the following purposes:

Provide our Services. To provide you the services we offer on the Astron International website, communicate with you about your use of the Astron International website, respond to your inquiries, provide troubleshooting, and for other customer service purposes.

Marketing and Promotions. For marketing and promotional purposes, such as to send you news and newsletters, or to otherwise contact you about products or information we think may interest you, including information about third party products and services.

Analytics. To gather metrics to better understand how users access and use the Astron International website; to evaluate and improve the Astron International website.

Comply with Law. To comply with legal obligations, as part of our general business operations, and for other business administration purposes.

Prevent Misuse. Where we believe necessary to investigate, prevent or take action regarding illegal activities, suspected fraud, situations involving potential threats to the safety of any person or violations of this Privacy Policy.

How We Share Your Information

We share information as set forth below, and where individuals have otherwise consented:

Service Providers. We may share your information with third party service providers who use this information to perform services for us, such as hosting providers, auditors, advisors, consultants, customer service and support providers.

Affiliates. The information collected about you may be accessed by or shared with subsidiaries and affiliates of Astron International, whose use and disclosure of your personal information is subject to this Privacy Policy.

Business Transfers. We may disclose or transfer information, including personal information, as part of any merger, sale, and transfer of our assets, acquisition or restructuring of all or part of our business, bankruptcy, or similar event.

Legally Required. We may disclose your information if we are required to do so by law.

Protection of Rights. We may disclose information where we believe it necessary to respond to claims asserted against us or, comply with legal process (e.g., subpoenas or warrants), enforce or administer our agreements and terms, for fraud prevention, risk assessment, investigation, and protect the rights, property or safety of Astron International, its users, or others.

Anonymized and Aggregated Data. We may share aggregated or de-identified information with third parties for research, marketing, analytics and other purposes, provided such information does not identify a particular individual.

Cookies and Tracking

We and our third-party providers may use cookies, JavaScript, local storage, log files, and other mechanisms to automatically collect and record information about your usage and browsing activities on the Astron International website. We may combine this information with other information we collect about users. Below, we provide a brief summary these activities.

Cookies. These are small files with a unique identifier that are transferred to your browser through our websites. They allow us to remember users who are logged in, to understand how users navigate through and use the Astron International Website.

Analytics Tools. We may use internal and third-party analytics tools, including Google Analytics. The third-party analytics companies we work with may combine the information collected with other information they have independently collected from other websites and/or other online products and services. Their collection and use of information is subject to their own privacy policies.

Do-Not-Track Signals. Please note we do not change system behavior within the Astron International website in response to browser requests not to be tracked.

How We Protect Your Information

The security of your information is important to us. Astron International has implemented safeguards to protect the information we collect. However, no website or Internet transmission is completely secure.

Transferring Your Data

Astron International is headquartered in the United States, and has operations, entities and service providers in the United States and other parts of the world. As such, we and our service providers may transfer your personal information to, or access it in, jurisdictions (including the United States) that may not provide equivalent levels of data protection as your home jurisdiction. We will take steps to ensure that your personal information receives an adequate level of protection in the jurisdictions in which we process it.

Children’s Privacy

We do not knowingly collect or solicit personal information from anyone under the age of 13 (or under the age of 14 for anyone living in Spain or South Korea. If we become aware that we have collected personal information from a child under the relevant age without parental consent, we take steps to delete that information.

Links to Other Websites

The Astron International Website may contain links to third party sites or online services. We are not responsible for the practices of such third parties, whose information practices are subject to their own policies and procedures, not to this Privacy Policy.

Your California Privacy Rights

California law permits users who are California residents to request and obtain from us once a year, free of charge, a list of the third parties to whom we have disclosed their personal information (if any) for their direct marketing purposes in the prior calendar year, as well as the types of personal information disclosed to those parties. If you are a California resident and would like to request this information, please submit your request in an email to privacy@astroninc.com.

If you have any questions about our practices or this Privacy Policy, please contact us at privacy@astroninc.com, or send mail to:

Astron International
Attn: Privacy
P.O. Box 218275
Houston, TX 77218

Changes to Our Privacy Policy

If we change our privacy policies and procedures, we will post those changes on this page. If we make any changes to this Privacy Policy that materially change how we treat your personal information, we will endeavor to provide you with reasonable notice of such changes, such as via prominent notice in the Astron International Website or to your email address of record, and where required by law, we will obtain your consent or give you the opportunity to opt out of such changes.

WHAT WE OFFER

Technical Support Service

Refining Consulting Services

Technical Support Service

A corner stone of unit monitoring, Technical Support Service (TSS) lets suppliers deliver high value technical service to clients by providing standardized analysis of unit operating data. TSS is positioned as a key part of a customer’s digitalization strategy to boost technical service value and efficiency.

	Cloud based offering for FCC and Hydroprocessing units
	Data import, validation, cleanup, and calculations
	Technical service report generation with extensive charting tools
	Data analytics integration with kinetic and statistical models

For more information, please see our product sheets: TSS for FCC and TSS for Hydroprocessing

Digitalization initiatives also aim to unearth, use and deploy expertise buried in inhouse reports, literature, emails, and other textual data collectively called ‘unstructured data’. Delfin is a Natural Language Processing platform based on advances in text analytics and machine learning from Astron International that lets employees readily tap the intelligence buried in their company’s unstructured data through a virtual advisor called Sia. Delfin also extracts structured data from unstructured data.

Employees interact with Sia by asking questions in natural language and Sia responds in natural language with the knowledge they seek. Sia understands your company’s domain, your proprietary terms, and the question’s intent to respond meaningfully.

	Exploit documented in-house expertise to make better decisions faster
	Provide faster and more informed technical service to your customers
	Capture the experiential knowledge of subject matter experts
	Extract and create structured data from unstructured data
	Train less experienced staff and boost their productivity

Refining Consulting Services

Astron International, Inc.’s refining consulting division is headed by CJ Farley. CJ. brings over 28 years of Fluidized Catalytic Cracking (FCC) experience, combining operations troubleshooting and optimization with hardware design and catalyst technology know-how.

Astron International offers the following consulting services:

	Performance surveys
	Optimization and debottlenecking
	Technology selection
	Catalyst evaluations
	Troubleshooting FCC issues

OUR CLIENTS

OUR NEWS

Delfin and Sia: AI and NLP based cognitive applications from Astron International. Astron International has built and launched an AI-based cognitive application platform called Delfin to harness their customers’ unstructured data. The Delfin platform delivers a customized virtual advisor called Sia which mines intelligence and expertise that reside in in-house reports, papers, and other forms of textual information.

Astron International launches initiative to deliver mobile apps Astron International has released a mobile version of its free ROL Assistant software for iPhone, Android and Windows Phone devices. This is part of a larger scale initiative to deliver mobile applications and solutions.

Criterion Catalysts presents benefits of Microsoft SharePoint solution co-developed by Astron International At Microsoft Global Energy Forum 2011, Criterion Catalysts presents benefits of Microsoft SharePoint based Cat-Check Information Portal.

Astron International Sponsors the Shaw/Axens 8th FCC Forum at Abu Dhabi Astron International was one of the sponsors the Shaw/Axens 8th FCC Forum held at Abu Dhabi from 30 March to 2 April, 2009.

Benchmarking FCC Operations - article in PTQ This article published in PTQ (Petroleum Technology Quarterly, Q3 2006) describes the benefits of using a Web based Benchmarking tool by BASF in routine FCC data evaluations. This tool was developed by Astron International, Inc.

Astron International co-authors NPRA paper with BASF A technical service paper entitled "FCC Operations Benchmarking: A Valuable Tool for Identifying Opportunities for Improved Profitability".

Technical Support Service™ for Refining Industry Technical Support Service™ assists refiners and their suppliers capture optimization opportunities by providing rigorous analysis of operating data on a routine basis.

Astron International Launches Refinery Productivity Center ™ Refinery Productivity Center is a knowledge management and collaboration application for the petroleum refining industry.

Using Microsoft's .NET Platform, Astron International Delivers XML-based Digital Solutions for BASF Astron International developed and delivered XML Web Services based e-business solutions for BASF using Microsoft's .NET platform.

more...

OUR ALLIANCES

To provide high quality cost-effective software development services to its customers, Astron International owns this programming services company in India. In addition to offering low cost services this also allows us to provide continuous development around the clock.

Astron International has teamed up with technology leader, Microsoft, to provide cutting edge Web based solutions. As a Microsoft Certified Partner, we provide proven, robust, and sophisticated solutions as well as assurances that the products will function effectively with Microsoft operating systems and server applications. With the assistance of Microsoft, we were the first in the Gulf coast region to develop a fully functioning e-business Web site using the .NET framework.

Miles	Directions
	Depart George Bush Intercontinental Airport. Get on TX-8 Beltway W from John F Kennedy Blvd
0.03	Head north on John F Kennedy Blvd
0.6	Keep left to stay on John F Kennedy Blvd
0.04	Use the left lane to merge onto N Terminal Rd
0.3	Turn left onto John F Kennedy Blvd
2.1	Continue straight to stay on John F Kennedy Blvd
0.2	Use the left 2 lanes to take the Beltway 8 exit
0.8	Continue onto John F Kennedy Blvd
0.04	Slight right toward Texas 8 Beltway Frontage Rd
0.4	Turn right onto Texas 8 Beltway Frontage Rd
0.2	Use the left lane to take the Texas 8 Beltway W ramp to I-45
	Take Sam Houston Tollway W to Interstate 10 Frontage Rd W. Take the exit toward Park 10 from I-10 W
5.0	Merge onto TX-8 Beltway W
17.3	Continue onto Sam Houston Tollway W
1.6	Use the right 2 lanes to take the Interstate 10 W exit toward San Antonio
4.1	Merge onto I-10 W
0.3	Take the exit toward Park 10
	Continue on Interstate 10 Frontage Rd W. Drive to Park Ten Pl
0.5	Merge onto Interstate 10 Frontage Rd W
0.09	Turn right onto Broadfield Blvd
0.06	Turn left at the 1st cross street onto Park Ten Pl
	Destination will be on the right

Miles	Directions
	Depart William P. Hobby Airport and Get on I-45 N from Broadway St
0.2	Head east on Hobby Airport Loop
0.1	Keep left to stay on Hobby Airport Loop
2.0	Continue straight onto Broadway St
0.1	Use the middle lane to turn left onto Gulf Fwy
0.1	Use the left lane to take the ramp onto I-45 N
	Follow I-45 N and I-10 W to Interstate 10 Frontage Rd W. Take the exit toward Park 10 from I-10 W
8.9	Merge onto I-45 N
0.1	Use the left 2 lanes to take exit 48B for Interstate 10 W toward San Antonio
17.0	Merge onto I-10 W
0.3	Take the exit toward Park 10
	Continue on Interstate 10 Frontage Rd W. Drive to Park Ten Pl
0.5	Merge onto Interstate 10 Frontage Rd W
0.09	Turn right onto Broadfield Blvd
0.06	Turn left at the 1st cross street onto Park Ten Pl
	Destination will be on the right

Astron International, Inc. 15810 Park Ten Place, Suite 250 Houston, TX 77084
	(281) 589-6600
	(281) 589-7335
	Info@astroninc.com

PRIVACY POLICY

WHAT WE OFFER

OUR CLIENTS

OUR NEWS

OUR ALLIANCES

CONTACT US

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