Month: April 2016

Biopharmax saves time and engineering effort by deploying a distributed control system at state-of-the-art insulin production facility in China

Advanced insulin production facility, with integrated process control system, creates completely automated facility, which raises the benchmark for process operations

Background
Established 40 years ago, Biopharmax designs and builds manufacturing facilities around the world, specialising in the pharmaceutical industry. Actively present in Europe, China, India and the Middle East, it undertakes turnkey projects, from user requirement specifications and conceptual design through implementation to successful validation, and has designed and constructed over 100 facilities in 14 countries around the globe.

Biopharmax was challenged to design a new Life Science and Technology park in China, spanning a total area of 120,000 square meters. The first facility built in the park was a 7,000 square meter insulin production facility, which had to meet all relevant regulatory requirements established by the U.S., Europe, and China. The company not only had the expertise and experience in the engineering arena, but was also familiar with a variety of technologies in the pharmaceutical field. In this instance, they used an insulin technology, based on recombinant e-coli fermentation that was procured from a third party.

Challenge
Insulin production involves a very complicated automated production process, which includes process systems and equipment, clean utilities, industrial utilities, clean rooms, laboratories, warehousing and control systems to run production, in addition to all the associated commissioning and validation. In this instance, production complexity and recipe variety compounded the challenge, requiring the development of tailor-made process applications capable of supporting more than 300 phases and 70 recipes.

Biopharmax also faced a very short commissioning time, and numerous sub-contractors and suppliers from a wide range of disciplines and countries, which required a special approach to bridge the cultural and language barriers.

DS4 (smaller)

Solution
The application, based on the Rockwell Automation process control system, comprises over 10,000 I/O and a range of process controllers – from large to micro-sized. System flexibility allows the implementation of a PlantPAx® system for the fermentation process and a tailor-made implementation for the other process areas, providing a complete integration of both application techniques using the same engineering and operation tools. Controllers collect and process the field information from distributed I/O and redundant I/O in critical areas.

Field information and process data is accessible from a central control room. Allen-Bradley® PowerFlex® variable frequency drives are also deployed at key points within the facility to provide more efficient and monitored motor control.

From a visualisation perspective, Biopharmax has leveraged high-end operator workstations (OWS), which provide an operator interface with advanced diagnostics and access to all relevant process components such as pumps, valves, etc. Biopharmax used its own special pharmaceutical library based on Rockwell Automation process objects and its associated faceplates for ease in design and engineering. A virtual system was deployed to deliver redundancy and increased system availability. Two physical servers – one for production and a second to provide redundancy – utilising VMware virtualisation technology, enable quick disaster recovery.

The plant process batch and recipe formulation is fully automatic, is implemented according to the S88 standards and incorporates modular software blocks and fixed FDS Syntax, offering quick and efficient troubleshooting. Batch reports were also implemented, which describe the batch process activity, including critical parameters, alarms and events, batch listing, batch summary, batch execution, material usage, forward tracking, and backward tracing.

The process control system also offers validation management, so whenever a new operator station is added, validation is done only for that specific stand. Historical data is also stored to a SQL database, which includes all system alarms and events and field device data (trends).

Finally, the EtherNet/IP communication link between the controllers on the diverse process areas and the different system components like: variable-speed drives, remote I/O and weighing scales, coupled to the serial link communication with the fan filter units (FFU), allows the system to analyse the highly detailed data received and execute the control and corrective measures where required. This significantly increases the system reliability and performance in response to changing conditions, as well as helping to optimise energy consumption.

Results

According to Sarel Chen Tov, CEO of Biopharmax: “Biopharmax is committed to putting the customer’s needs and long-term goals at the centre of its concerns. This project demonstrated how we delivered an end-to-end solution, implementing third-party process technology in a turnkey project. As the customer had a strong business orientation, with limited operational experience with insulin production, Biopharmax took the responsibility of selecting the proper equipment and implementing the most suitable recombinant E.coli cell line.”

The deployment of the Rockwell Automation process control system reduced development and installation time, as all systems have similar protocols and all communication was based on EtherNet/IP. Indeed, as Lior Meir, Lead-Control Systems, at Biopharmax explains: “We saw a start-up time of just six months from end of mechanical completion to execution; this is very short in comparison to other similar processes, which usually take around 18 months to complete.”

According to engineers on the project, the system is very easy to program and configure and the integration between software, controllers and the I/O helped improve reliability and was user-friendly. The engineers also appreciated the speed at which the system could be installed as a result of the EtherNet/IP architecture with its immediate ‘plug and play’ capability. Other benefits of the fully integrated system include: common programming standards, easier trouble shooting and correction, efficient validation without any redundant work.

Biopharmax created a facility which is completely automated; with the control of the entire facility taking place in one control room. For the customer this means that the system controls all aspects of the process, providing complete visualisation and operator interface; there is no need to go between rooms for inspection – all inspections can be done from one spot. The use of automatic recipes in this facility has also resulted in minimum human intervention in the production process, reducing the possibility of human error and contamination risks. This, in turn, has led to increased efficiency and higher yield.

This article was written as part of a precess industry marketing campaign for Rockwell Automation

The resulting PDF, also prepared by me, can be found here: EMEA1967 Biopharmax (Lo)

RFID in an integrated environment provides new levels of data capabilities

Udo Füger, European Product Manager Sensing & Connectivity at Rockwell Automation explains how RFID technology is liberating data from a vast array of manufacturing applications and how industry is starting to enjoy unheard of levels of data capture.

They may have different names, different dates and different numbers, but Industrie 4.0 (Germany), Intelligent Manufacturing 2025 (China), Advanced Manufacturing Partnership 2.0 (United States) and Manufacturing Innovation 3.0 (Korea) are essentially the same thing. Each is a Government initiative focused on bringing manufacturing and technology leadership back to their respective nations.

Backed by heavy Government investment, they all hinge around the concept of the “Smart Factory”. This approach leverages widely available manufacturing data to analyse physical processes and procedures to create models, simulations, dashboards and virtual copies of the physical world in order for decision makers to make decentralised decisions. Core to the “Smart Factory” is the free flow of data and the leverage of the so-called “Internet of Things” (IoT). IoT allows multiple discrete and connected/integrated systems and associated adjacent systems to not only communicate with each other, but also with operators at line side and with software and personnel at the enterprise level.

According to Udo Füger, European Product Manager Sensing & Connectivity at Rockwell Automation: “The IoT is connecting the physical and virtual worlds. It has brought people, processes and equipment together, from smart sensors and other devices to entire systems.”

“This connectivity is deepening our understanding of plant-floor events and sharpening decision-making. But for this smart approach to be fully effective, optimal and complete data capture is vital; as is a network infrastructure that allows the free and unobstructed flow of this data.

RFID apps

“The proliferation of smarter end points, data analytics, scalable computing, mobility and visualisation,” he continues, “is reshaping the future of industrial automation. And it is only with comprehensive product and software portfolios – such as those from Rockwell Automation – that suppliers can genuinely offer solutions that deliver full immersion in the “Smart Factory” right now as opposed to the first few tentative steps on the ladder. An example of this full-portfolio approach is our growing range of RFID technologies.”

Like the various nationally-based initiatives, if we drill down, there are also many approaches being offered by the leading automation and networking companies. The “Connected Enterprise” approach from Rockwell Automation is one such initiative that is gaining significant traction across multiple industries and application in many different countries. And thanks to the significant global position that Rockwell Automation enjoys, it is able to develop “Smart Factory” solutions – for both small and multi-national companies – that reflect the local demands and, just as importantly, local legislation and Government initiatives.

The Connected Enterprise from Rockwell Automation leverages a number of technological approaches in order to deliver multiple tangible benefits, including faster time to market, lower total cost of ownership (TCO), improved asset utilisation and optimisation and enhanced enterprise risk management. Core to this initiative is an integrated suite of software and hardware platforms, all of which communicate across a common network infrastructure – in this case EtherNet/IP – a standard Ethernet network that provides data flow from the smallest line-side device up to enterprise-wide ERP suites.

“This is where our RFID portfolio comes into its own,” Füger explains. “Our RFID technology is already Ethernet capable, meaning that it can be connected directly to the wider network, without any information or translation bottle necks. From our viewpoint – one that is also shared by many of our leading customers – this makes our RFID solution an enabling technology that offers significant advantages over other solutions, especially when it is coupled directly to an Ethernet network.”

It is a proven fact the linking of production data with supply chain information and its subsequent processing in modern MES software or, indeed, industry-specific control solutions, not only optimises inventory control but also improves production efficiency, flexibility and responsiveness. By exploiting this data effectively, companies have a much more effective means of obtaining accurate, detailed and timely information relating to their manufacturing operations, which in turn offers them the chance to get the most value out of their existing automation investments.

One application arena where optimum data capabilities are paramount, is track, trace and compliance management. This is particularly true in the pharmaceutical industry, where counterfeiting is already a global issue. In this scenario, RFID is arguably one of the most effective approaches to addressing both functional and legislative demands.

“Increasingly demanding international quality requirements are forcing companies to better manage product information, lot tracking and related quality standards across their entire supply chain network,” Füger explains. “If a company ever needs to recall a product, it must be done as quickly and as precisely as possible. RFID’s ability to provide reliable, accurate, and up-to-date information is absolutely critical to cost-effectively achieving a company’s recall objectives. For manufacturing operations in a pharmaceutical environment that require a high degree of compliance with Governmental standards and regulations, RFID can also provide additional information streams. In turn, these can support existing MES activities and enable companies to more tightly track, verify, and validate their processes in accordance with 21CFR Part 11 compliance. RFID also can complement existing MES efforts to provide genealogy tracking. Typically, at each stage of processing.”

Pharmaceutical manufacturers can also use RFID technology to tag raw materials with detailed specification information. If a formulation is incorrect, an alert would automatically be triggered. This can help reduce scrap rates and increase yield, helping to assure a higher degree of reliability and quality in processing.

Traditional bar coding works to some extent, in that it can provide an instantaneous burst of information, but it has many shortfalls as it relies on line of sight, correct lighting and optimal code placement or product orientation. RFID, as a track and trace solution, suffers from none of these issues and the ability to add information to the chip as the product progresses through the manufacturing process gives it even greater appeal. Indeed, RFID can provide more accurate and reliable data than what’s available through manual bar coding methods, and this can have a major impact in high volume and high-speed manufacturing operations where speed, accuracy and timeliness are critical for throughput and performance.

For optimal RFID success, efforts to improve inventory visibility across the supply chain should be closely tied to a company’s control systems and execution processes driving production. “This is where our RFID portfolio demonstrates its strengths,” Füger explains. “With a direct Ethernet connection, our RFID technology is already part of the bigger picture. It is also easier to justify the Return on Investment (ROI), as many manufacturers recognise that the plant floor presents a vast, untapped opportunity for value creation and even strategic advantage. By applying integrated RFID technology incrementally across the plant floor, manufacturers can seamlessly exploit the new information captured by RFID without disrupting their existing control, visualisation and information infrastructure. Existing manufacturing execution and information systems can then be updated to deliver robust and reliable real-time information flow to drive manufacturing execution in tune with the RFID-enabled supply chain.”

For specialised industries there may well be greater benefits in data visualisation and subsequent reuse through the deployment of industry-specific MES software and process control solutions. “One example of this,” Füger elaborates, “is PharmaSuite from Rockwell Automation. PharmaSuite brings an innovative approach to MES, with role-based optimisation of each stage of a recipe’s life cycle that drives time to results for every user. Open-content architecture paired with an intelligent upgrade engine provides users with a powerful system designed for growth in both batch and discrete processing. The end results being reduced time to market and the elimination of paperwork leading to the highest quality of standards and process optimisation.”

Rockwell Automation also offers a number of other industry-specific MES solutions that are just as capable of leveraging real time data, such as that delivered by RFID technology, and then putting it to work to achieve performance targets. One such MES solution is Rockwell Software AutoSuite™. With its proven results in track and trace, error proofing, quality management, and operations intelligence, AutoSuite covers industrial automation, control and software solutions across the entire automotive supply chain. Using AutoSuite, users can focus on improving quality, reducing costs, increasing responsiveness and ultimately improving time-to-market. Rockwell Software CPGSuite® is another performance management MES solution that gives its Consumer Packaged Goods industry users the ability to set factory-performance goals and track progress in real time. Like other MES solutions it contributes to increased productivity, reduced waste and increased profitability.

“In order to deliver this rich information from RFID upstream out to the supply chain and Enterprise Resource Planning system and downstream into production and the various MES solutions,” Füger explains, “companies must convert their existing information infrastructure so that it co-exists with emerging EPC standards and IT; including software and application management technology.

RFID technology can also be used for simpler, but arguably just as important, applications such as asset tagging. By tagging physical assets, such as machines, fork trucks and material handling devices, manufacturers can gain better information about the location, usability and maintenance requirements. Using this information, manufacturers can devise production steps as well as maintenance and labour schedules to help decrease asset costs, optimise asset performance and maximise asset utilisation. Thanks to its passive method of operation, RFID does not require proactive scanning; all that is required is readers placed at tactical points across an enterprise. This removes the onus on the operator to “check in” at regular intervals.

“Traceability, tracking and data collection in all of their many guises are slowly becoming vital facets to the successful implementation of the “Smart Factory” and the onward journey to Industrie 4.0 and its many worldwide peers,” Füger explains. “RFID has an immensely important role to play in these data gathering exercises, either in simple asset-tracking applications or all the way up to large-scale pharmaceutical batch monitoring. Thanks to its greater data-gathering capabilities, compared to traditional barcoding, it is seeing massive acceptance in a great many industries in applications that may have previously been ignored due to technical limitations.

“With our impressive RFID portfolio,” he concludes, “Rockwell Automation is in an incredibly strong position worldwide, a position which is further strengthened by the fact that our Ethernet capable technology can integrate seamlessly with existing control, automation, safety, motion and process solutions that are deployed in a huge amount of different applications the world over. With market demands and our own research and development efforts driving product capabilities, we will soon be announcing the introduction of a new range of UHF-capable interfaces and readers that are set to expand the deployment of RFID into many more demanding industrial applications.”

 

This article was written for RFID im Blick magazine on behalf of Rockwell Automation

Process industry challenges addressed by proactive suppliers and distributors

The process industry is facing pressure from all sides of the industrial and legislative spectrum. Industrial customers large and small are demanding adaptable contemporary solutions that deliver new levels of performance, integration, throughput and flexibility. Local and international legislative bodies are then compounding these demands with the need for full traceability, safety and accountability. Far from being a grim and rather onerous scenario, the majority of the leading technology providers and their distributors have, in fact, got it all in hand and are well placed to deliver solutions.

Technological advances more often than not deliver a double-edged sword. As well as giving OEMs the ability to deliver the latest and greatest in terms of performance and capability, they also give end users, external bodies and other entities in the value chain a shopping list of features they want to see. It is these two channels – both the pushing and pulling of technology – that are driving the majority of developments in research and development labs at the major suppliers of process automation and control solutions.

Looking at the industry’s demands, the majority of requests from the machine builders are those filtered down from their customers. They want flexible, open and agile solutions that can be adapted to suit a broad range of manufacturing demands and infrastructures. Probably the biggest breakthrough in recent years is the ability to apply the economies of mass production in batch-production applications.

Economies of scale is a pervading economic metric which still stands true in a great many industries, including the process industry. In its basic guise, large CAPEX investments are offset over a period of time through the sheer volume of (often identical) products manufactured. The problem is that most manufacturing operations these days are demanding smaller, more flexible machines that are capable of producing a larger variety of different products, with minimal time, engineering and changeover costs. Modern advances in hardware and control solutions have certainly addressed many of these issues and with the advent of greater access to data and its subsequent use, these advances will continue to gather pace.

Familiarity is another demand from many of the leading end users. One only has to look at the PackML standard, established by leading blue-chip home and healthcare end users. The standard was developed to define a common approach, or machine language, for automated machines – and not just those from one supplier, we’re talking all leading suppliers here. The primary goal is to encourage a common look and feel across all plant floors, no matter where they are in the world. Adopted as part of the ISA88 industry standard, PackML has since been implemented by users and machine builders on a wide variety of control platforms and is a great example of industry demands being solved by automation providers and then implemented by machine builders.

Data, mentioned earlier, is a primary driver in many of the technological “pushes and pulls”. The advent of more open control architectures has led to standard Ethernet and its standards-based derivatives becoming pervasive on the shop floor; with many of the older, less open protocols being restricted to discrete operations, often the niche applications for which they were first developed. By using open protocols the flow of manufacturing and process data has turned from a trickle of need-to-know bespoke parameters into a flood of ones and zeros that can be viewed by anyone with the right access privileges.

This massive increase in data infrastructures and data handling capabilities means that process recipes and machine-operating parameters can be changed at the flick of a switch, either by lineside operators or by enterprise-level ERP systems. What is more, thanks to much easier access and the subsequent presentation of historical data, the same staff or ERP system can subsequently fine tune production runs to maximise yield, quality and profitability.

Access to far greater volumes of time-sensitive and pertinent data being generate at the machine/component level is also allowing the process industry to cater for two of the biggest international legislative drivers – especially in terms of products manufactured for consumption or healthcare – traceability and tracking. As well as giving companies the ability to track ingredients and raw materials from goods in to the supermarket shelf, for quality and recall reasons, the same technology is giving drug manufacturers very powerful tools in the constant fight against counterfeiting, which is a huge problem internationally. By creating unique batch and company specific coding regimens generated at process machine level, resellers and purchasers alike can have a lot more confidence that the drugs and pharmaceuticals they are purchasing are from legitimate sources and that the batch codes and ingredients can be traced back to precise timeslots and specific machines, operators and raw materials. This approach is still under discussion and is seeing a variety of approaches from different economic, geographic and legislative bodies, but the good news is that the hardware is available from the process automation providers as is the all-important communication stream at all levels of the production process.

The process industry also faces a unique set of safety challenges – even milk powder can be explosive in the right conditions – so process automation providers are now making safety solutions and their subsequent interoperability with the wider process control solution part of a holistic solution as opposed to a bolted on afterthought. Regular headlines have shown the devastating effects that explosions can have, with the recent chemical plant in China being an unpleasant, but graphic example of what can go wrong if safety solutions are not up to scratch. Like many incidents like this, subsequent investigations may show that more robust procedures coupled to up-to-date technology can play a huge part in preventing catastrophes.

Machine builders have access to an enormous range of safety solutions, from small discrete safety-relay based solutions to fully integrated safety suites; and from a product perspective there are a multitude of ATEX-compliant products and hardware that make these safety systems even more robust.

Sustainability is another major ethic that many process companies are publically broadcasting. ISO 14000 has just about as much impact these days as ISO 9001, with sustainability targets getting ever tougher, either through self-set targets, or indeed, through national and international legislation. Process automation may not sound like the most obvious solution – and it certainly doesn’t work in isolation – but it can offer incredible savings in time, energy and raw materials and, by removing what is often the weak link in many process (the operator) the risks of leaks, unwarranted venting and spills can be significantly reduced – the result being increased environmental credentials, even if these aren’t immediately apparent due to nothing happening being a positive result.

As industries go, the process industry certainly faces a much broader set of challenges than many others due to the variety of procedures and raw materials being deployed and the huge breadth of end user and customer types. Legislation abounds from end users, local, national and international bodies and the end users also want familiarity with what they are using. For these reasons the suppliers of process automation solutions have to stay one step ahead and cater for future legislation while also helping their customers to deal with existing market demands. Distributors such as RS Components also play a vital role in educating the market and supplying the hardware that will allow users to address this vast variety of needs.

This article was written for Publitek on behalf of RS Components.

Wireless technology gains momentum

With just about every walk of life openly embracing the freedom offered by wireless technology, why does it seem that industry has lagged behind? We look at some of the perceived issues and how many of the leading suppliers are starting to address these and develop industry-specific software and hardware solutions.

One of the most important prospects for the industrial fieldbus arena is the incorporation and deployment of wireless infrastructures and capabilities into industrial products, equipment, processes and facilities. Speed and bandwidth improvements have made this approach inevitable, as industrial companies also attempt to leverage the same benefits they see from wireless solutions in other walks of life.

As Manufacturing 4.0 and the so-called “Internet of things” philosophy begins to permeate into the mind-set of industry leaders, more and more suppliers are releasing wireless- and internet-capable equipment in order to leverage the wireless protocols that already exist for a number of established and proven communication solutions. Most of these solutions are simply wireless variants of their existing wired counterparts. They deliver the same functionality, but with the obvious benefit of significantly less cabling.

A wireless approach offers many benefits, especially in remote and geographically dispersed installations, where a traditional wired infrastructure would potentially be difficult to deploy and maintain. A good example would be in a liquid or gas storage facility, which would typically deploy multiple sensors to gather a wide variety of state data, such as level, temperature, volume, flow, etc. This data eventually needs to be fed back to a central repository, which could be kilometres from the furthest sensor. With wireless access points and repeaters, a single wireless network could easily replace many hundreds of kilometres of cabling.

Industry has been slower on the uptake of wireless, arguably because it demands more from its solutions in terms of signal quality, bandwidth, speed and robustness.

With many of us experiencing domestic wireless issues, such as signal drop offs and less-than-ideal router performance, it is understandable that some of these misgivings have rubbed off and have made their way into the business sector. A two second delay in handshaking between your PC and a wireless office printer is one thing, but the same delay in a factory environment could stop a production line. For this reason, the industrial arena demands more capable hardware specifically designed to operate in critical manufacturing and process applications.

The other issue with wireless in a sensitive industrial environment is security, with wireless Ethernet being a big target. However, security solutions are often sold hand-in-hand with industrial wireless suites, allowing industrial wireless networks to be integrated with (but ring fenced from) enterprise solutions using gateways and buffer zones.

RS currently offers a range of wireless-capable products, covering multiple protocols from many leading vendors. These products range in size and complexity from wireless pushbuttons from Schneider Electric, up to wireless access points from Omron. These leading vendors, and many others like them, are introducing new technology on a regular basis and much of it will leverage the flexibility and ease of use available from wireless infrastructures. Access points also open up wireless capabilities to just about any type of industrial hardware you care to mention, as long as it can ultimately ‘talk’ with the more popular communication protocols such as Ethernet.

The beauty of most standardised wireless solutions is that they tend to be ‘agnostic’ in the fact that a certified products from any vendors should happily operate side by side with products from another vendor and deliver data over a common shared network. This lack of a closed approach means that users also have a much broader base of products to choose from, especially down at the lower levels. In most instances, an automation suite, whether it be wireless or not, will be designed in the same way, with higher-level components such as PLCs, drives, HMIs, etc. all coming from a  single supplier, but the lower level (low voltage) components can be sourced from other suppliers. They don’t even have to be wireless themselves as wireless I/O modules – which offer wireless data/signal transfer to and from PLCs – are readily available.

Industrial wireless technology is only going to get better as products evolve in line with revised standards, enhanced technology, greater bandwidths and faster speeds. One only has to look at the way Ethernet has evolved over the last 40 years to see how a single, basic protocol has mutated into to the most widespread commercial and industrial communications solution on the planet. It may be that in the next 10 years wireless will overtake wired solutions and become the industry standard. With investigations gathering speed into, among other things, wireless energy transfer, the future certainly looks interesting.

This article was written for Publitek on behalf of RS Components.

Warehousing fire risks handled by mature standards and contemporary testing routines

 

Mark Fletcher speaks to Dan Steppan, a Senior Staff Engineer with UL, to discover how warehousing and storage facilities are assessed for fire risks and firefighting equipment. He discovers that there are multiple factors involved in the assessment, as well as multiple approaches to addressing potential risks

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Dan really knows his stuff: “I’ve been working with warehouse sprinkler systems my whole career here at UL and I’ve seen an incredible array of tests and technology go through our facility. The building in which I do most of my testing is a one-of-a-kind structure developed specifically to assess warehouse fire protection. We use it for the evaluation of warehouses and industrial plant fire sprinkler systems as they have similar risk management issues.”

The large-scale laboratory in which he works measures 36.5 x 36.5 m (120 x 120 ft) and is 18.3m (60 ft) tall. “We also have a moveable 30.5 x 30.5 m (100 x 100 ft) ceiling, which can be positioned anywhere, ranging from 2.4 m (8 ft) to 14.6 m (48 ft) in the air. The moveable ceiling plays a core role in our fire assessment activities as different warehouses have different ceiling heights and over the many years we have been doing these tests we have proved that the ceiling height plays a huge part in a fire’s dynamics. This truly is a unique test area and we can accomplish many things at the push of a button.”

Dan works with a number of stakeholders, including sprinkler manufacturers who are looking for certifications, the insurance industry, which has many concerns over what they are insuring and finally end users – owners of distribution centres and warehouses as well as manufacturing locations (for both parts and warehousing) including those that produce combustible products.

“The primary standard we use in these evaluations,” he continues, “is the National Fire Protection Association’s NFPA13, which covers the installation of sprinkler systems. NFPA documents are well used in Europe and in the Middle East and Asia. There are of course other standards, both national and international, but they follow very similar testing regimens and have a similar set of demands and results. The primary job in relation to this standard is related to industrial fires and it asks the question, ‘once a fire starts, will the sprinkler systems be adequate to deal with it’.”

UL and NFPA13 define a commodity classification as the basis of the measurement system used in the test methodology. “An insurance company would go in and look around a site to assess the hazard of the products in the warehouse using NFPA13. This provides a wide path to lock down hazards, which can be anything from low, Class 1 commodity, such as non-combustible materials in wooden crates. The class level then increases from Class 2 through to Class 4 as the amount of combustible materials increase.

“Class 2 may typically be corrugated board (cardboard) boxes with minimal combustibles inside,” he adds, “with plastic packaging and products – which burn significantly hotter – taking the Class levels up to 3 or 4. Plastics have their own sub categories. The lowest being unexpanded Group A plastics, such as hard plastic cups inside a corrugated box, up to expanded plastics – including Styrofoam  that is used for product protection – that burn very well. All of these categories are defined in NFPA13.”

Once the class of the product and packaging has been defined, the stakeholders can then determine how much water the sprinkler system needs to supply. “So the definition of different products and their packaging is key to understanding if the existing system is adequate, if not either the insurance rates become higher or the sprinkler system gets upgraded.”

“A lot of what we do requires large scale testing of a portion of a warehouse full of products, but we also offer another test that allows us to assign hazard-class rankings to specific products,” Steppan elaborates. “Warehouse owners and fire marshals may not understand how a product is created and the issues associated with creative packaging; and guidance may simply not exist. What we can do is test a product to ascertain the rating. But it is not just the product defining the hazard class. We look at the makeup of the product and what materials are involved, as each may have a different role in the overall hazard class. If we look at a stuffed toy, for example, the product itself has a plastic outer shell and plastic beads internally (which burn really well). One could consider the toy to be an expanded plastic (fur outer shell) or unexpanded (internal beads), so the customer may not know how to rank it and if their sprinkler system was between the two, they may want to do a test with us.”

When UL does a test it deploys eight full pallet  loads of products. “The classification rank is not just for the product, but also the box, any secondary packaging and the support platform on which the secondary packaging sits – such as a wooden or plastic pallet. Quite often the packaging and content will conflict in terms of ratings. An example will be appliances, stored in cardboard boxes with styrofoam packaging. A metal washing machine is not inherently that combustible, but its packaging is. The product maybe Class 1 or 2, whereas the packaging will be expanded plastic.

“We use 24 pallet loads of product in total, in order to perform three tests (8 pallet loads each).  We burn the product and then apply water when a sprinkler would have activated. The test demonstrates how the products react with water,” he continues. “We do three different tests relating to water levels from low levels, where the fire continues to burn, through to higher level of water where the fire is fully controlled or even suppressed to the point of extinguishment. As long as we can understand what water levels are needed, we can then assign a hazard class. Big box stores are hugely impacted; and sometimes we get manufacturers coming to us to look at different packaging schemes, as they understand that different packaging can have different penalties, either for them or their customers.

“We also have a category for plastic pallets, which burn much hotter than wood,” Steppan continues. “We use our own standard – UL 2335 – to look at plastic pallets in order to assess flammability and the effectiveness of fire retardants, which are added to make them burn in a way similar to or lower than wooden pallets when sprinkler systems are employed.”

Plastic pallets are being used more and more – especially in taller, automated warehouses – due to the fact that wooden pallet can break or splinter and jam the automated systems. The food industry is also using them more frequently due to cleanliness issues (washability).  Another reason for the use of plastics is due to the proliferation of RFID technology, which does have limitations with wooden pallets that may have picked up moisture from the atmosphere.

Within NFPA13, non-approved plastic pallets attract a penalty, increasing classifications by one or two classes.  Steel reinforced plastic pallets are even worse as they can keep the product in the racking for longer periods of time. With non-reinforced pallets, the product may fall through the racks and subsequently be better protected by the discharging water.

“There are always interesting scenarios,” Steppan explains. “When a beer manufacturer came to us, they had a Class 1 commodity product, but they wanted to use reinforced plastic pallets – and this would have meant a move from Class 1 to Class 3. They came to us and argued ‘we have a lot of water in our product… how does this water content affect the pallet’s classification?’ We tested cans and glass bottles and discovered that the liquid in the beer was able to ‘help’ keep any fires under control, so the brewer was able to make a case for maintaining a Class 1 status, even though NFPA13 says they should have a 2-class penalty. There is a paragraph in NFPA13 that states when there’s an unknown hazard class, you can go to a nationally recognised test laboratory to evaluate hazard classification’. It’s rare that the testing allows for a lower classification, but with in-depth testing it can make a difference.

“Other variations can include mixed storage areas,” he continues. “NFPA13 allows you segregate areas, using firewalls and compartmented spaces in order define different classification areas, but as a general rule, you protect for the highest classification. Insurance companies may also have data that might allow further reductions, but that typically comes as part of large-scale fire testing.”

“NFPA13 is on three-year revision cycle and this allows it to evolve to cover new technologies and new materials. One example would be the recent proliferation of lithium ion batteries. This is challenging from a suppression standpoint,” Steppan explains, “as we can see both fires and rocketing of the burning batteries due to their effectively being combustible liquids in a metal container. In cases like this we evaluate the product and firefighting technology in order to create or improve acceptable suppression procedures.

“Looking to the future, NFPA13 has the provision for larger K factor (flow vs. pressure) sprinklers due to the fact that taller warehouses need more water to get from ceiling to floor.  Sprinkler system effectiveness is often helped by the deployment of rack-based sprinklers. Another technology being proposed for warehouses is lowered-oxygen environments, into which typically only robots would venture. This is in its infancy in terms of standardisation, but we are aware of this approach and its current deployment in data centres; it is only a matter of time before we see it being used more and more in warehousing operations.”

NFPA13 may have found its roots in 1896, but it still forms an intrinsic part of testing regimens for many variations of industrial premises. Like all standards, it is not set in stone and through effective supplementary testing, such as that carried out by UL, owner/operators can gain a bit of flexibility from their insurers. It is great to see that even the old standards still carry weight, thanks in part to the impressive work undertaken by UL, associated stakeholders and all their worldwide peers.

This article was published in ‘International Fire Buyer‘ published by Hand Media

Cloud storage: deployment and security – there’s plenty of choice

 

In the space of a few years the cloud has gone from a concept talked about in esoteric circles to a product to which everyone has access. Mark Fletcher looks at what is on offer and discusses the merits of local versus remote storage and what sort of security you need to consider.

cloud

When this article was being written in Microsoft Word, it not only lived on my hard drive, but also on a OneDrive server, which could have been anywhere on the globe as far as I knew. The peace of mind this gave me was immense; I knew that if my computer blew up, I could still get access to my work in progress.

Now I am a natural pessimist, so the whole idea of someone else helping me to not really foul things up comes as a great relief, but I know that this is not a mind-set shared by everyone. My choice of OneDrive was initially driven by its easy integration with the latest version of MS Office and, if I am honest, the price plan Microsoft offered for additional storage. Google and DropBox (and many others) now offer fairly similar pricing structures, so the choice is out there.

Cloud storage is a no brainer. It is much like having access to a network drive, but one that is nowhere near you geographically. The main issue people have is the fact that they are entrusting their data with someone else and, like any issue revolving around personal information, can they trust that other person?

The Cloud has not had an easy ride on the privacy front. The recent leak of highly personal photographs belonging to many Hollywood celebrities bought security into very sharp focus a few months back. But it turns out that it was primarily an issue with user passwords rather than the security of the depository. Much like phone hacking and router passwords, if you don’t change the default password you could very easily be in a whole heap of trouble.

So, is the cloud secure? In a word, yes… but with the caveat that your account is only as strong as your password.

Most cloud solutions will offer a raft of security measures, including 2-step authentication via an app, phone and/or email verification and, down at the simplest level, a traffic light system to tell you how secure your password is. Encryption is, of course another barrier, with many sites offering encryption services. Mega.co.nz goes one step further by offering encryption by client devices, i.e. they don’t hold the encryption key, you do.

With all of these considerations taken into account, most of the major players will offer you a perfectly acceptable solution, with many of them offering ties-ins to office products and existing or additional enterprise infrastructure.

Going back to the earlier thought about hosting your data on a remote server and trusting it to someone you have never met, there is another course of action and that is to host the cloud storage yourself. In many instances some organisations will already have significant data-capacity capabilities, especially if they have multiple users. Simple server/client relationships work well in this instance, when you are on the same network that is, but many of the cloud solutions offer an equally attractive remote interface if you are working from home or another office, and it is these aesthetics, coupled with ease of use that make them attractive.

Once company that delivers the best of both worlds is Varonis and its Datanywhere solution. Datanywhere gives users full file syncing capabilities and mobile access, but with their data stored in a private cloud. The University of Liverpool in the UK has recently deployed a Datanywhere solutions and I spoke to Andrew Williams, Systems Manager at the University of Liverpool to understand his thoughts behind the adoption of this approach.

“We already had significant storage in place, with both staff and students having a very generous capacity. We also had the capability to give them remote access, but it was never particularly user friendly, being cumbersome and prone to simple syntax errors. Then Dropbox came along and gave staff and students alike the ability to share data with external parties. We saw lots of installs and offered staff and students the local admin rights to install the software, along with others from Microsoft and Box.net, for example.”

After a while, the university realised that this multi-platform approach, although effective, created many disparate data sources and a more suitable option was sought. “In 2012 there wasn’t really an enterprise offering that fitted the bill,” Williams explains, “but we did keep looking. Then, all of a sudden Varonis appeared on our radar and we realised that it was a good fit for us.

“As well as addressing the issues of the current approach – operating across isolated pools using multiple storage solutions – we realised that Datanywhere also kept the data in-house and it would not be lost if someone left. When people leave the university, it is virtually impossible to retain or even revoke access to data stored in uncontrolled repositories.” he explains.

At this point Williams is keen to point out that the data does remain completely private and remains the property of the individual, but in certain mitigating circumstances the University could gain access. “In a university this is not really a primary selling point,” he elaborates, “but out in industry it is important for companies to keep data accessible, in house and secure, especially when privacy is not so much of an issue due to the nature of the data being stored. In addition to the data being vulnerable offsite, concerns of document version control needed to be addressed.”

The university is not making the switch to Datanywhere compulsory, but what has surprised Williams and his colleagues is that despite this deployment choice, the uptake of software from both staff and students has been far in excess of expectations. “Collaboration with external parties is through a web interface,” Williams explains, “they get e-mailed a link and a code they can then upload and download files and work collaboratively. One thing we really liked is the security – it’s all audited, so we can see who sees what, when they see it and how they see it.”

Williams then goes on to mention another of the issues with an external cloud approach. “With enterprise cloud systems you have third-party issues. Microsoft is currently trying to access data stored in Ireland, which is currently against EU rules. The whole big brother concept, especially relating to data snooping is a real issue. As an individual, concerning my private data, I am not that bothered, but the university is an information business and, as such, its data can be extremely sensitive.”

There are obviously decisions to be made with regards to your data storage strategy. If you have capacity, keep it in house, if you don’t, either buy that capacity or work with someone that does have it in the cloud. There is no wrong a right answer here as both solutions have their merits and will either match or conflict with your needs and business model. The remote cloud works for me, while Datanywhere and its “local cloud” works for the University of Liverpool. We are two distinctly different entities, but we both want the same thing… and we get it.

This article was published in ‘Security Buyer‘, published by Hand Media