Tag: process industry

Wilmar International Ltd. Oleochemicals plant ramps up to full production much quicker thanks to Rockwell Automation

Allen-Bradley PowerFlex 7000 medium-voltage drive addresses power, start-up and operational issues at critical chemical process in The Netherlands

Background: Wilmar International Limited, founded in 1991 and headquartered in Singapore, is one of the world’s leading agribusiness groups and is ranked among the largest listed companies by market capitalisation on the Singapore Exchange.

The company’s business activities include oil palm cultivation, oilseed crushing, edible oil refining, sugar milling and refining, specialty fat, oleo chemical, biodiesel and fertiliser manufacturing and grain processing. It has over 500 manufacturing plants and an extensive distribution network and is backed by a multinational workforce of more than 90,000 people.

Wilmar’s oleo chemicals manufacturing operations has production facilities in China, Malaysia, Indonesia, The Netherlands, France and Belgium. With new facilities operating successfully in China and Indonesia, Wilmar recently introduced a new plant in The Netherlands – based on the successful format deployed in Asia – but it hit an issue when it was unable to use the primary compressor at full load on plant start-up due to limited power supply available. After reviewing various options without success, Wilmar turned to Rockwell Automation and its industry leading PowerFlex® 7000 Active Front End Direct-to-Drive™ drive.

Challenge: According to Arief Santosa, Technical Engineer at the Rotterdam plant: “At the plant we use methyl ester from palm oil to create fatty alcohols for subsequent use in the food and chemicals industry. This intermediate chemical is then sold to other parties for additional processing – such as ethoxylation – where the resulting products are eventually used in cleaning gels as a surfactant and for cosmetics.

“The methyl ester raw material goes through a high temperature, high-pressure hydrogenation process,” he continues, “which relies heavily on the performance of the compressor. After hydrogenation the product then passes through a refining/distilling process to produce the fatty alcohol end product.”

The facility in the Netherlands relies on the compressor to dictate the speed of flow and circulation of the product through the hydrogenation processes. The inability to start the compressor at full load and limitation requirements to ramp it up slowly to the required pressure had a huge impact on overall factory down-time and resulted in an inefficient production.

When the plant was being commissioned, Wilmar and the compressor manufacturer found that they were unable to start the compressor at the required 38 bar (g). “We were being forced to reduce the hydrogenation loop pressure to 15 bar (g) due to the available starting current,” Santosa explains. “At this pressure the gas compression and weight is lower, which makes it easier for the compressor to turn, but it did not suit our processing demands. We maintained this configuration for a while, but eventually we had discussions with the installer, the power company and the compressor supplier only to be told that the power from the grid there was not sufficient to start the compressor at full load. Mechanical solutions and injections systems would have consumed too much power, so at this stage, we talked with Rockwell Automation who had supplied other elements of the plant, to see if a more suitable solution was available.”

Solution: Rockwell Automation provided a class-leading Allen-Bradley PowerFlex® 7000 Active Front End Direct-to-Drive™ medium-voltage drive. Made in the company’s Katowice plant in Poland – which is currently celebrating 10 years of drive manufacturing in Europe – the flagship drive is based on the Allen-Bradley PowerFlex 7000, which has seen numerous successful installations around the world. The only current-source inverter on the market in the desired power/voltage range (3,3 kV / 50 Hz / 1,8 MW), the PowerFlex 7000 was ideal for the task at hand as it was also able to offer synchronous bypass with the compressor running at full speed.

As well as providing the necessary soft-starting capabilities to bring the compressor to full pressure much more rapidly, the drive, when fully commissioned, will also offer bypass functionality. This will allow it to be maintained even when the motor is in operation – a critical requirement for plants such as this. In operation, with the output contactor closed and the bypass contactor open, the drive operates the motor as normal. When bypass is required, the output contactor can be opened and the bypass switch closed, switching the load from a variable-frequency bus to a fixed-frequency bus. This will result in the drive input and output being isolated from the line and load voltage.

Results: For Wilmar this was a high-visibility project internally, as there was a real desire to start the whole plant under the designed conditions, mirroring the operations at the Asian plants. Therefore the commissioning and start-up was monitored as a critical performance metric.

Thanks to the PowerFlex 7000 drive, the company is now able to (soft) start the compressor at the required 38 bar (g), satisfying the needs of its process and productivity objectives. And, with the imminent implementation of the bypass functionality, the drive can literally be bypassed after it has started the compressor – with an in-rush current limited to 1 x the nominal current. As a result, practically no energy will be consumed when the drive is bypassed, so there will be minimal need for significant heat dissipation.

“The combination of the drive and the synchronous bypass has the potential to be a very robust solution for us,” explains Santosa. “We are confident that the bypass will eventually offer us additional energy savings and maintenance freedoms, but safety precautions, the high value of the equipment being driven and the demands of the production process, mean that small steps are being taken.

“The Rockwell Automation guys demonstrated impressive engineering skills and the right level of communication to give us peace of mind,” he concludes. “They were very professional and I have no issues with regards to what Rockwell Automation is doing for us. I would certainly consider Rockwell Automation for other projects in the future – due to the total support we have had to resolve any engineering issues.”

Written by Technical Lucidity on behalf of Rockwell Automation

New dairy ingredients plant for Fonterra deploys integrated automation, motor control and process control solution

Leading multinational dairy company successfully deploys worldwide in- house standards on single-solution, single-supplier Connected Enterprise compliant control infrastructure

Background
Fonterra Co-operative Group Limited is a multinational dairy co-operative, owned by around 10,500 New Zealand farmers. The company is responsible for approximately 30% of the world’s dairy exports and with revenues in excess of NZ$19.87 billion, it is New Zealand’s largest company and accounts for 25% of the country’s total exports.

With a network of offices, productions sites and technical centres across the globe, it employs some 16,000 people in New Zealand and around the world; collecting 22 billion litres of milk annually in order to make dairy products available to millions of consumers in 140 countries.

The company recently commissioned a new dairy ingredients plant in Heerenveen, in the north of The Netherlands, which would be used to produce three variants of lactose powder and a range of protein products. This includes whey protein concentrate, whey protein isolate and a lipid-rich whey protein concentrate as well as several specialty functional whey protein concentrate powders for use in high-value paediatric, maternal, and sports nutrition products.

Officially opened in July 2015, with His Majesty King Willem-Alexander of the Netherlands in attendance, the new plant is built on a 25 hectare site and has been developed in partnership with a leading Dutch cheese manufacturer – where the Fonterra plant processes the whey originating from the other plant’s cheese making process. The plant is Fonterra’s first wholly owned and operated ingredients plant in Europe. Peak production will see the plant process up to 2.7 million litres of whey per day, with annual production figures of around 25,000 tonnes of lactose and 5,000 tonnes of protein products.

For the automation and control of the plant, Fonterra had a wide choice of suppliers and system integrators from which to source primary equipment. In New Zealand it uses Allen-Bradley® programmable automation controllers (PACs) and SCADA solutions from Rockwell Automation, with motors and motor-control technology from other suppliers. At the Heerenveen development, Fonterra did initially investigate using the same combination of suppliers. However, with an incredibly powerful integration and Connected Enterprise solution proposed by Rockwell Automation and Beenen B.V., a Rockwell Automation Recognised System Integrator, Fonterra opted for a complete wall-to-wall solution of automation, process and motor control based around Allen-Bradley products.

Recognized System Integrators make the commitment to deliver the highest technical solution and customer service, leading with Rockwell Automation technologies. These integrators have a mutually supportive relationship with the Rockwell Automation sales and/or distributors they work with.

Using this approach Fonterra was able to deploy a completely integrated control solution from a single supplier that also offered effective communication from the shop floor to the top floor.  Production data can be captured, collated, and analysed in order to improve processes and Fonterra can share vital manufacturing information with a wide variety of disciplines both inside and outside of the factory.

Challenge
The primary challenge for the new site was the relatively short timescales in which the plant had to be up and running – the first orders were received in February 2014 and the plant needed to be up and running by the end of 2014. Beenen, with support from Rockwell Automation, was instrumental in addressing this challenge in its commitment to meet the 12 month timescale, compared to an industry average of 18 to 24 months.

In addition to the timescale challenge, Fonterra has its own standards for motor control and faceplates – with interfaces to devices from other providers and competitors. During the project, they were converted to the Rockwell Automation standards by using our process library.

Solution
The complete integrated solution chosen by Fonterra, comprised multiple elements of the Rockwell Automation product offering, many of which are part of the company’s cutting-edge Connected Enterprise offering.

By using EtherNet/IP as the primary communication protocol, Fonterra has given itself the opportunity to move easily into The Connected Enterprise, an approach manufacturers are adopting to leverage the use of connected machines, supply chains and customers.  Manufacturers are able to establish manufacturing processes that are data / information rich, supported, secure and future ready for market demands.

Ultimately, a Connected Enterprise approach for manufacturers will create a more competitive, innovative enterprise that can deliver insights to improve productivity, sustainability and economic performance through faster time to market, lower total cost of ownership, improved asset utilisation and enterprise risk management.

Other benefits of access to real-time, contextualised information, include minimised downtime, improved technology and process optimisation, greater workforce efficiency and smarter expenditure. Because EtherNet/IP is based on standard, unmodified Ethernet, it means that there is very little that needs to be done for these connections to be established; and full security solutions are also available for user control and to prevent unwarranted access.

From a product perspective, Fonterra has deployed multiple Allen-Bradley ControlLogix programmable automation controllers (PACs), working in conjunction with Allen-Bradley CENTERLINE® 2500 motor control centres (MCC), complete with Allen-Bradley E300™ Electronic Overload Relays and more than 250 Allen-Bradley PowerFlex® variable-speed drives, some with dual-Ethernet capabilities. Arranged in 42 cabinet columns, the MCC installation is 50 m in length. As well as providing intelligent centralised motor control, the CENTERLINE MCCs also offer advanced energy management capabilities and integration into the Rockwell Automation Integrated Architecture – delivering true plug-and-play capabilities.

According to Alex van Dalen, the General Manager from Beenen BV: “Beenen worked very hard to win this project and was initially bidding against two other local system integrators. We go for quality and the best solution, therefore Beenen employed Rockwell Automation to design and develop the MCC solution, while Beenen undertook the remainder of the electrical and automation work based around other Allen-Bradley solutions. We built up a real team ethic with Rockwell Automation and the positive effects of this cooperation was evident in the dealings with Fonterra and, of course, the success of the project.”

The software installation is just as impressive:  FactoryTalk® View offers overall visibility into the processes and interface with the ERP and process-control systems; FactoryTalk® Historian is used for collection; and FactoryTalk® VantagePoint is used for information, visualisation and dissemination. By making data freely available in an easy-to-read format, when you need it, in the specific format required for each job role; operators and managers are able to make much more informed decisions, much quicker and with greater positive effects on the line optimisation. FactoryTalk® AssetCentre gives Fonterra the ability to centrally secure, manage, version control, track and report automation-related asset information across its entire facility. AssetCentre also provides automatic scheduled backups of controllers thus supporting “disaster recovery”. Rockwell Software® CPG Suite® delivers value-based applications that can help Fonterra achieve operational excellence, increase supply chain effectiveness, adhere to regulatory compliance guidelines and meet sustainability goals.

Completing the installation is a number of value-added service offerings, which include a parts-management contract providing critical spare parts, a TechConnect® support contract and in-depth training for the Fonterra operatives.

Results
According to Alex van Dalen: “The Fonterra team was particularly enthusiastic about the benefits of Premier Integration in relation to the motor control offering from Rockwell Automation. They found the diagnostic software very useful to ‘see’ into the contactor from the MCC and also in the frequently controllers. The Connected Enterprise approach will also allow them to leverage their manufacturing data far more effectively and then share it with all those that need to see both historic and real-time information.”

Hans Berghorst, Operations Director at Fonterra, explains: “Rockwell Automation is the Fonterra standard in the Netherlands and by deploying a complete Rockwell Automation solution, we only have one supplier instead of two, which also offers benefits in terms of maintenance and spares. We also selected our suppliers based on total cost of ownership (TCO). Rockwell Automation came out well; we not only looked at the CAPEX, but also at the life costs over 10 years and determined that the Rockwell Automation approach developed by Beenen was the best solution. Our engineers are also enjoying the benefits of the integrated approach. The MCC IntelliCENTER® solution allows them to do restarts from the HMI in the control room; they don’t have to go to the MCC.”

Discussing the creation of the new faceplates, Berghorst adds: “It’s a mixture of Fonterra, Beenen and Rockwell Automation engineering. Our plan was always to have a standardised solution and we do have our own in-house libraries that we use as standard within Fonterra, which are all the same worldwide. But of course now that the motor drives are from Rockwell Automation, we jointly developed new faceplates, based on Fonterra’s engineering standards.

“We knew from the start that we wanted to use Allen-Bradley PACs and control solutions. We do a lot of joint development with Rockwell Automation back in New Zealand, so it is easy to copy and paste routines and programmes.  In addition, we have specialists in our process control department in New Zealand who know and understand Rockwell Automation solutions very well. Also, from a support point of view, it’s always better when you have a standardised solution.”

Discussing the five year service contract, Berghorst continues: “I think within Rockwell Automation there are some very knowledgeable advisors, who know the systems inside out. We also saw very good co-operation from Beenen who undertook most of the direct interactions with Rockwell Automation.

“It is the first time we have built a new facility in Europe,” Berghorst concludes, “so it is difficult to compare the performance characteristics compared to other sites and other technology, however, so far we are very satisfied with the performance.”

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)

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.