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INDUSTRY: MANUFACTURING WONDERWARE SOUTHERN AFRICA
CUSTOMER SUCCESS STORY
About Plascon SA
In 1889 a young Welshman called Herbert Evans arrived in Johannesburg and started Herbert Evans & Co. During the 1940s, while Herbert Evans & Co was expanding rapidly, a young businessman named Solly Rudner was helping to build a company called Chrome Chemicals - the manufacturer of Plascon Paint. The brand became so popular that in 1945 a new Company, “Plascon Paints and Chemical Industries” was formed. In 1970, the two companies merged and Plascon Evans was formed.
Plascon SA is a company with a history of more than a hundred years. It was the first South African paint company to manufacture ready-mixed products and continues with this tradition by bringing many new products and improvements to the market.
Plascon’s Mobeni plant in Kwa-Zulu-Natal is involved with the manufacture of paint, alkyd resin and vesiculated bead. It’s also the water and solvent-based centre of focus for solvent-based products.
Recognisable brands produced at Mobeni include Velvaglo, the Woodcare range of varnishes, Super Universal Enamel as well as stoep (patio) and road-marking paints among others. The batching is limited to the liquid components only, the powders being loaded by hand. Batch sizes range from 800L to10,000L depending on customer demand.
With respect to paint batches, consistency is the order of the day. Strict recipe control, traceable batch parameters and consistent quality
are the hallmarks of leading companies in the paint and coatings industry and Plascon is one of those leaders. This is a story about
safeguarding past investments while engineering for the future.
Plascon Mobeni - Batch implementation Plascon paints a brighter production picture with help from Wonderware
Background
Plascon was one of the first South African companies to implement InBatch (Wonderware’s batch
management solution) in 1995/6 but since then, many things had changed at the Mobeni plant with the
result that the existing batching system model could no longer cope with the plant’s evolution.
To complicate matters, the Mobeni plant manufactures a wide range of products from premium
decorative paint to road marking paint. For this reason, the plant is specifically designed to be flexible and
to cope with challenging production schedules.
The existing batch control at the General Paints plant was achieved through a batching model running on
an InBatch server. An InBatch development client was available to the plant chemist for creating recipes.
A stand-alone InTouch application served as the SCADA system for the plant as well as a batch client to
InBatch. This also served as the InTouch development client.
Why upgrade?
The current infrastructure and system could not meet Plascon’s business objective which was to produce
products of the highest quality, while coping with challenging production schedules in an increasingly
competitive market. At the same time, any new solution would also have to maintain production
efficiencies and effectively manage resources.
One of the main reasons why things had to change was that the InBatch model had not been kept up to
date with the plant changes that had occurred since commissioning in 1995. This led to some batches
having to be run manually resulting in poor production efficiency and traceability. Production scheduling
also became more difficult as plant equipment availability and usage needed to be planned manually.
These were all challenges to Plascon’s commitment to sustained product quality and prompted the need
for change.
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Plascon Mobeni - Batch implementation WONDERWARE SOUTHERN AFRICA
CUSTOMER SUCCESS STORY
Apart from these issues, Plascon had also developed new production
methodologies that would help the plant achieve its business objectives
and that needed to be implemented. At the same time, it was decided
that ISA-88 batch standards and tag-naming conventions would be
adopted. All these changes meant that the old InBatch model would
have to be replaced with a newly-designed batching model and that the
stand-alone InTouch HMI / SCADA system would have to follow suit as it
was replaced with a complete System Platform (Application Server)
implementation.
Operational requirements
While the new implementation would have to address numerous issues
and problems, it would also have to provide a clear, simple and reliable
operator interface:
Batch recipes would have to be clearly defined and created so that
batches could be run with minimal dependence on operators.
Batch statuses and interlocks would have to be clearly displayed on
the SCADA system when operator intervention was required.
A reliable semi-automatic mode of batching would have to be made
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Figure 1: The migration from plant model to object templates using ISA-88 standards
Figure 2: Topology of Plascon Mobeni’s General Paints Plant
Plascon Mobeni - Batch implementation WONDERWARE SOUTHERN AFRICA
CUSTOMER SUCCESS STORY
available in case the InBatch server ever went off line,
either through planned maintenance or an
unforeseen occurrence.
Solution selection
Plascon selected system integrator Convenient Software
Solutions (CSS) because of their excellent track record in
chemical process control and expertise in batching
implementations. They are Wonderware-approved and
ArchestrA-certified system integrators who are fully
trained across a host of Wonderware products.
“Wonderware solutions were selected for the batch
implementation project because of the diverse range of
products available and the ease with which they can be
integrated,” says Zaine Domingo, National Automation
Project Engineer at Plascon. “The standards created using
the Wonderware Application Server mean that the
different plants on site can be amalgamated into a single
Galaxy with huge savings in engineering cost and time.”
For batch control, InBatch was retained since it has been in
use at Plascon for many years and not just at the Mobeni site. “InBatch
has proved itself to be reliable and extremely stable,” says Gus Krüger of
CSS. “It has highly-configurable plant modelling capabilities, which
makes it possible to model the plant according to its logical production
units, while allowing for the physical and production constraints that are
imposed on the plant. This is exactly what was required by a plant
needing to draw maximum utilisation of its production facility. For the
operator interface, Wonderware InTouch 10 was used in conjunction
with System Platform 3.”
This choice of solutions would also allow for flexible expansion – a vital
attribute as this project was not only seen as a stand-alone
implementation, but also as the first phase of many. The entire Mobeni
site will eventually be integrated into a central architecture, the
standards for which would be created during this project.
To summarise, the selected Wonderware solutions included: InBatch
Server and Development Client, Information Server, Historian, System
Platform (based on ArchestrA technology) and an InTouch View Client.
Implementation
Implementation was started in January 2008 and finished in November
of the same year. “Due to the solution and production requirements,
the scope of work on this project included a complete PLC and InBatch
reengineering,” says Krüger.
The production methodologies of the General Paints plant were built
into the InBatch model. This was done by explicitly placing limitations on
which finishing tanks can be used for the batching of any one particular
raw material. “The physical layout of the plant makes it possible for raw
materials to be transferred to many different tanks,” says Krüger.
“However, with the InBatch model, it is now possible to have particular
finishing tanks dedicated to particular types of products. InBatch now
arbitrates the usages of finishing tanks and this eliminates the possibility
of product contamination and helps improve quality control.”
One InTouch view station is provided that functions as a SCADA system
for the plant as well as a client for batch control through the InBatch
server. Storage tank levels are displayed for daily stock-taking purposes
and batching statuses are indicated by means of interlock displays.
The tag naming conventions were based on ISA standards and the first
phase of the project was the development of these standards.
Thereafter they were rolled out to the Application Server Galaxy in the
form of object and graphic templates. All automation objects in the
plant model were derived from these standards.
Two Automation Object Servers (AOSs) were installed. A fail-over
partnership was configured between the AOSs, as well as a store-and-
forward capability should connection to the plant Historian be lost or
the Historian server ever be taken down for maintenance.
The development of the InBatch plant model was based on ISA-88
standards. This was done in accordance with a batching philosophy that
was clearly defined at the outset of the project. The InBatch recipes
control the selection of material storage units for each batching phase,
as well as the amount of material to be batched. Recipe editing and
additions are done by the plant chemist using an InBatch client.
Customised reports from Crystal Reporting can be incorporated into any
of InBatch’s extensive range of pre-defined reports and published to the
Wonderware Information Server for access by personnel who can make
best use of the valuable information they contain.
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“This first phase implementation has paved the way for all sections of the plant to be integrated into one system. Future upgrades will be more cost effective, not only from a Rands and cents perspective, but also from an implementation time and downtime point of view.” Andrew Alexander, National Engineering Manager at Plascon
Figure 3: InTouch view of the plant
Plascon Mobeni - Batch implementation WONDERWARE SOUTHERN AFRICA
CUSTOMER SUCCESS STORY
For further information contact Jaco Markwat at Wonderware Southern Africa
tel: +27 11 607 8303 | e-mail: [email protected]
“Insofar as I’m concerned, the system has three main outstanding
features,” says Domingo. “The first is the enforcement of standards by
the Application Server which considerably reduces engineering time in
the long run. The second is that InBatch has a highly configurable plant
modelling capability. No matter how unique a plant or how specialised a
batching operation, an operationally-accurate plant model can be
created. This ensures that plant resources, both equipment and
materials, will be managed reliably during batching phases. Lastly, the
comprehensive reporting facilities provided by InBatch ensure that the
right information is available to the people who need it.”
Plant shutdowns were scheduled in order to do I/O testing. The
commissioning itself was a hot swap with the new PLC, the new SCADA
system and the new InBatch model going live immediately.
“Commissioning a live plant extended the overall commissioning longer
than anticipated,” says Krüger. “It was not a viable option to
commission the new batching system in parallel to the existing one. A
hot swap approach was planned, and because of this, plant availability
played a large role, as well as the all-important production schedules
that had to be adhered to.”
“By clearly defining and adhering to standards, any additions or
modifications to automation objects in the plant model was a simple
and painless process,” adds Domingo. “Following Wonderware
recommended best practices in the development stages resulted in
seamless upgrades to new patch versions for Application Server and
InTouch.”
Benefits
High quality product – this is now par for the course. The reliable
batching system has minimised the negative effects that the
unpredictable human factor can have on quality.
Optimised recipes - with a reliable batch server, recipes can now be
optimised to work to the strengths of the plant and increase
production and cost efficiencies.
Scalability and flexibility – the ground work (e.g. standards, naming
conventions, etc) has been done for the integration of the various
sections of the plant into one cohesive system.
Conclusion
This implementation is an excellent example of successful
upgradeability while protecting existing investments. Increasingly,
manufacturers are looking to unifying their production and business
information assets for improved control and decision support at all
levels of their organisations. That’s why industrial software technology
that builds a solid application foundation, helps integrate solutions and
enforces standards is today at the top of many shopping lists.
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“The standards created using the Wonderware Application Server mean that the different plants on site can be amalgamated into a singly Galaxy with huge savings in engineering cost and time.” Zaine Domingo, National Automation Project Engineer at Plascon