DSM Fine Chemicals Austria operates a multipurpose and multi-product plant with a Honeywell control system in Unit 430 at its Linz location. DSM decided to upgrade to Honeywell’s Experion® Process Knowledge System (PKS) with C300 controllers to meet growing market requirements and associated product changes. Experion Batch Manager, which facilitates integration in process-related C300 components, represented an important reason for this migration, due to its scalable architecture and redundancy.
The following benefits were successfully realized with the implementation of Experion Batch Manager:
DSM produces up to seven chemical products simultaneously in Unit 430, with an average of two products per month being changed with a complete conversion of the plant.
In addition to increasing plant productivity to meet growing market demand, the project needed to be completed with as little impairment to current production as possible.
Upgrading the existing Honeywell TDC 3000 control system was realized gradually during ongoing production with 13 GUS engineering and operator stations, seven High Performance Process Managers (HPM) with about 4,000 digital and 2,000 analog inputs/outputs, and a Fail Safe Controller (FSC) with 13 Flex engineering and operator stations, seven redundant C300 controllers (utilizing the existing HPM input/output level) and Honeywell’s Safety Manager system.
The new automation concept was based on the consistent realization of modular recipe control relative to plant structuring and the recipes. The primary consideration was the fact that several products are produced in the plant while engineering for a product change is realized in the control system. The scalability of Experion Batch Manager relative to design and online changeability is an excellent functionality with complete system integration for this purpose.
Only those plant components associated with a particular product were converted in each case during extremely small time windows without disturbing the remaining operation. A total shutdown of all plant components was not required, and detailed planning of the process ensured that no serious limitations on operations were experienced during the entire migration. A particular challenge was posed by communication between production and the safety-related control that requires information on current products from both process control systems. The Experion PKS architecture, with its granularity ranging from the individual control level to recipe level, supports this project approach in an excellent manner.
Replacement of the user interface meant that operators needed to be provided with as identical a representation and operating philosophy as possible, while simultaneously minimizing the outlay for user training and enhancing efficiency and safety.
A few units were also expanded during the course of the conversion involving the integration of an additional redundant C300 and adaptation of parts of the configuration.
The plant was subdivided into 10 plant components with 70 units. Each unit contains around 20 of its own equipment modules (EQM) and a few shared EQMs with each EQM consisting of 5 to 30 control modules depending on the complexity involved. Shared EQMs were integrated in recipe generation via user-friendly text dialling to rule out operator errors. These shared EQMs can be occupied and used by different units. Communication between both systems and to the safety-related control was realized temporarily via modbus during conversion to exchange current data between the current products.
The greatest of attention was paid to administration of the data pool as it had to be modified and newly organized from TDC 3000 to Experion with each product change. Data is exchanged uniformly and directly in Experion PKS via a transparent peer-to-peer communication without any administrative outlay.
SAT and FAT tests were conducted without any problems as the HPM bus to the inputs/outputs was also integrated in the C300 controller by Honeywell. Neither modification of the wiring nor addressing of the inputs/outputs was necessary as a result.
The market situation demands a high degree of flexibility so a rapid equipment change must be ensured during production. "For example, in the summer of 2009, we were obliged to remove a device completely from one production process and integrate it in another process to realize this additional production at short notice. This was accomplished both rapidly and successfully,” said Berthold Winkler, production manager, Unit 430.
Process graphics were created by trained shift supervisors in order to create as identical a user interface as possible. Graphics were created without any programming based on the standard Experion static and dynamic symbol library. The Experion PKS system was realized free of errors via Honeywell’s Fault Tolerant Ethernet. Servers, switches and C300 controllers are redundant designs. This ensures a maximum level of breakdown security, and each release change can be realized without difficulty during operation. An on-process migration of this nature was also successfully completed in February 2009.
“As a result of the modular structure of the software and the associated expansion of the instrumentation, less manual interventions are now required and automated step sequences are employed to a higher extent than previously. Both factors accelerate the production process, and the recipe operation mode equalizes batch production and ensures that the required uniform quality is achieved. The benefit of this is that the analysis outlay for in-process inspection can be reduced,” said the engineering manager at Unit 430. “The fact that product recipes can now be saved in C300 also facilitates product conversion, as the recipes only need to be activated and not reloaded from old data backups. Moreover, product startups can now be realized much quicker.”
Experion® is a registered trademark of Honeywell International Inc.