Goals

• Mitigate the risk posed by unsupported legacy systems
• Modernise and streamline the manufacturing process
• Consolidate the various server platforms required for the manufacturing process

Solutions and Products

• System Platform
• Historian
• InTouch
• InBatch

Challenges

• Reverse engineering the existing InControl system
• Transporting the well-designed S88 standards to the new PLC

Results

• Business risk was reduced
• Production information is available to more people
• System design and reliability was improved
• Reduced hardware support through the virtualisation of the manufacturing servers

Midrand, Gauteng, South Africa

Quality, innovation and, above all, consistency, are the hallmarks of L’Oréal products – and that’s why accurate batch management is of such importance to the company that has led the cosmetics industry for more than a century. But there’s more to quality production than excellent batch management.

Background

Production at L’Oréal’s Midrand manufacturing plant depends on the operation of two “skids”. A skid is an assembly of a group of modular pieces into a single unit. This includes mixing tanks, storage tanks and CIP systems among others. All tanks, pumps, valves, heat exchangers, instrumentation and controls are factory-assembled and tested prior to shipment.

Simply put, a skid is an entire “process system in a box.” It arrives at the processing facility ready to be plugged into the power and utilities with little on-site construction required. There is very little production downtime and unforeseen start-up delays can be discovered and corrected before the equipment ever leaves the manufacturing facility.

Prior to this project, each skid had software and hardware. There were different standards for each skid, the software was past its end-of-life cycle, the hardware was obsolete and overloaded and there was no disaster-recovery plan.

So the project goals focused on mitigating the risk posed by unsupported legacy systems, modernising and streamlining the manufacturing process and consolidating the various server platforms required for production.

Implementation
For L’Oréal, the way forward consisted of selecting an AVEVA systems integrator and implementing some important upgrade initiatives. The chosen system integrator was Control Systems Integration (CSI) and the upgrade initiatives included:

Assigning dedicated server roles after a strategic decision was made to implement virtual servers. Virtualisation was acknowledged to reduce infrastructure costs while increasing maintainability and flexibility.

L’Oréal already had an investment in Wonderware (now AVEVA) solutions including InTouch, InControl, InBatch (including extensive training) and InSQL (old Historian) so it made sense to continue building on these assets.

“ArchestrA is a good integration platform and AVEVA System Platform enables future integration of other [IS³] solutions like MES,” says CSI System Engineer Rikus Wouda. “Also, ArchestrA and InBatch are proven technologies with a huge support base and InBatch (now AVEVA Batch Management), as well as simplifying the configuration of complex batch processes, integrates well with System Platform.”

InControl (a PC-based software version of a PLC), however, had been discontinued and one of the first tasks was to reverse-engineer its functionality in order to transfer the well-designed S88 standards to the new PLC.

The rest of the software was upgraded to their latest versions where AVEVA Batch Management was used for operations management and InTouch continued its role as HMI and supervisory controller. The ArchestrA-based System Platform was introduced as the integration layer while Historian and Information Server were used for information management.

“For the sake of better efficiency and control and the fact that operators can switch between manual control and [AVEVA Batch Management], we wanted to communicate with the PLC through one ArchestrA object,” says CSI Senior Systems Engineer Nkhensani Mbanyele. “So we configured a single master ArchestrA object that receives the [AVEVA Batch Management] model as well as inputs from InTouch and which then communicates these to the PLC.”

Conclusion
With this virtualisation project, L’Oréal was able to mitigate the risk associated with overloaded and obsolete hardware and by upgrading their MES/MOM and HMI capabilities to the latest technologies the company reduced the business risk associated with legacy systems that had exceeded their life cycles.

The result was better-informed personnel, improved system design and reliability as well as reduced hardware support effort and cost through virtualisation of the manufacturing servers.

Benefits

• AVEVA Batch Management simplifies recipe management and batch tracking
• The end-user can maintain the recipe database without outside help
• Built-in version control
• More consistent quality and batch duration
• Improved availability, reliability and sustainability of the process environment thanks to hardware independence
• System integrators can replicate the production environment easily for development and testing purposes
• Streamlined disaster recovery process means that there is now minimal downtime

Goals

• Mitigate the effect of power outages from the national grid
• Centralised engineering
• Implementation of standards
• Stable, scalable and flexible operational information and control software platform
• Increased security
• Operational safety
• User-defined reporting facilities
• Traceable cause-and-effect scenarios

Solutions and Products

• AVEVA System Platform
• AVEVA InTouch
• AVEVA Historian
• Software Toolbox’s TOP Server I/O suite

Challenges

• Multiple contractors
• Resistance to change
• Limited time for full functional test

Results

• Power outages reduced from hours to minutes
• Secure remote access and switching of MV switchgear
• Reduced solution deployment time and costs
• Scalable solution will cater with port expansion
• Rapid data analysis through real-time reporting
• Fault finding down to the device level
• Early involvement of relevant personnel for the resolution of issues
• Remote VPN for faster service provider support.
• Fail-safe operation through extensive redundancy measure

Background

Production at L’Oréal’s Midrand manufacturing plant depends on the operation of two “skids”. A skid is an assembly of a group of modular pieces into a single unit. This includes mixing tanks, storage tanks and CIP systems among others. All tanks, pumps, valves, heat exchangers, instrumentation and controls are factory-assembled and tested prior to shipment.

Simply put, a skid is an entire “process system in a box.” It arrives at the processing facility ready to be plugged into the power and utilities with little on-site construction required. There is very little production downtime and unforeseen start-up delays can be discovered and corrected before the equipment ever leaves the manufacturing facility.

Prior to this project, each skid had software and hardware. There were different standards for each skid, the software was past its end-of-life cycle, the hardware was obsolete and overloaded and there was no disaster-recovery plan.

So the project goals focused on mitigating the risk posed by unsupported legacy systems, modernising and streamlining the manufacturing process and consolidating the various server platforms required for production.

Implementation
For L’Oréal, the way forward consisted of selecting an AVEVA systems integrator and implementing some important upgrade initiatives. The chosen system integrator was Control Systems Integration (CSI) and the upgrade initiatives included:

Assigning dedicated server roles after a strategic decision was made to implement virtual servers. Virtualisation was acknowledged to reduce infrastructure costs while increasing maintainability and flexibility.

L’Oréal already had an investment in Wonderware (now AVEVA) solutions including InTouch, InControl, InBatch (including extensive training) and InSQL (old Historian) so it made sense to continue building on these assets.

“ArchestrA is a good integration platform and AVEVA System Platform enables future integration of other [IS³] solutions like MES,” says CSI System Engineer Rikus Wouda. “Also, ArchestrA and InBatch are proven technologies with a huge support base and InBatch (now AVEVA Batch Management), as well as simplifying the configuration of complex batch processes, integrates well with System Platform.”

InControl (a PC-based software version of a PLC), however, had been discontinued and one of the first tasks was to reverse-engineer its functionality in order to transfer the well-designed S88 standards to the new PLC.

The rest of the software was upgraded to their latest versions where AVEVA Batch Management was used for operations management and InTouch continued its role as HMI and supervisory controller. The ArchestrA-based System Platform was introduced as the integration layer while Historian and Information Server were used for information management.

“For the sake of better efficiency and control and the fact that operators can switch between manual control and [AVEVA Batch Management], we wanted to communicate with the PLC through one ArchestrA object,” says CSI Senior Systems Engineer Nkhensani Mbanyele. “So we configured a single master ArchestrA object that receives the [AVEVA Batch Management] model as well as inputs from InTouch and which then communicates these to the PLC.”

Conclusion
With this virtualisation project, L’Oréal was able to mitigate the risk associated with overloaded and obsolete hardware and by upgrading their MES/MOM and HMI capabilities to the latest technologies the company reduced the business risk associated with legacy systems that had exceeded their life cycles.

The result was better-informed personnel, improved system design and reliability as well as reduced hardware support effort and cost through virtualisation of the manufacturing servers.

Benefits

• AVEVA Batch Management simplifies recipe management and batch tracking
• The end-user can maintain the recipe database without outside help
• Built-in version control
• More consistent quality and batch duration
• Improved availability, reliability and sustainability of the process environment thanks to hardware independence
• System integrators can replicate the production environment easily for development and testing purposes
• Streamlined disaster recovery process means that there is now minimal downtime

Implementation

The port’s complex electrical system uses medium voltage (MV) circuit breakers from a variety of manufacturers, various power monitoring meters and protection relays, as well as synchronising relays and engine management controls. It is comprised of:

• Two separately located primary 33kV supply feeds from the municipality
• One 33kV ring main unit link as backup
• 33kV to 11kV transformers
• 33kV to 6.6kV transformers
• Four 2.5MVA diesel generators
• Ten power factor correction banks
• Feeders, bus couplers, regenerative cranes at the berths and more

TNPA chose systems integrator Convenient Software Solutions (CSS) to implement the extensive upgrade project because of the company’s experience and knowledge of the AVEVA ArchestrA technology, provided by IS³, and their local presence, which meant good support and access to professional services when needed.

CSS chose to continue with the IS³ | AVEVA solution set by adding System Platform based on ArchestrA technology and the real-time AVEVA Historian. This would not only integrate seamlessly with the existing InTouch systems but also ticked all the boxes of flexibility, scalability, centralised software engineering, redundancy and the enforcement of standards in TNPA’s list of system requirements.

Bearing in mind the key system requirements, the design phase included numerous meetings to establish and finalise the software structure, the network and communication layout, tag naming convention, the HMI and its navigation facilities, documentation requirements, security provisions, data logging and trending needs as well as alarm management.

“Using the agreed operational criteria, CSS then developed a thin-slice implementation as proof of concept,” says Transnet electrical engineer Johan Sauerman. “This helped to confirm that we were on the right track with respect to our overall design philosophy and that the inherent flexibility of the chosen solutions could meet our current control and information needs. Equally important was that the same solutions would meet our changing needs in the future with regard to the port’s planned expansions and increased complexity.”

“The system as it stands today is quite extensive,” says CSS systems engineer Warren Hofland. “It comprises 13 PLCs, 8 remote I/O drops, 3 servers, 13 SCADA control stations with local Application Object Server (AOS), 5 Historian Client stations, over 2000 physical I/Os and 65 SCADA/HMI screens.”

Software Toolbox’s TOP Server I/O suite is used to communicate with various equipment such as Schneider PLCs, deep-sea controllers, CAT engine control panels, GE protection relays, Landis and Gyr power meters, IFM vibration monitoring instrumentation and a Cogent OPC Datahub.

“We paid particular attention to redundancy as this was a critical requirement,” says Hofland. “40 km of redundant fibre optic network now links the key elements of the system such as the hot standby controllers and the redundant AOS peer network to 13 local stations which will fail over to the centralised AOS server in case of problems. ‘Store and forward’ functionality protects the data while a wireless VPN is used for the remote control and operation of MV switchgear and generators.”

The wealth of organised information available in the real-time Historian is designed to support operational decisions and in this regard, Transnet personnel were able to diagnose the past and plan for the future. “We have found immense value in using the historian client to access historical trend information for investigative and diagnostic purposes,” says Sauerman.

A project of this scale will naturally involve many players and this was clear from the start. So the goal was to keep one’s eye on the objective and to ensure that all the various contractors did the same while respecting one another’s contributions. “Change is always a challenge,” says Hofland. “The trick is to make it exciting rather than threatening by showing that end-user needs are truly being addressed through everybody’s collaborative contributions.”

Conclusion
Perhaps the most significant benefit of all for the TNPA is the peace of mind that the Port of Durban, the most important international import/export hub in the country, is now master of its own fate with respect to the reliability of its electrical supply. But, while the effect of power interruptions by the national grid has been reduced from hours to minutes, perhaps the wisest decision the TNPA took was to review their operational information and control infrastructure in its entirety and adopt a solution with the flexibility and scalability to deal with the port’s ambitious expansion plans.

Benefits

• Far more secure and controllable power supply to the port
• Secure remote access and switching of MV switchgear
• Centralised development environment greatly reduces solution deployment time and costs
• System capability to easily handle future port expansions
• Rapid data analysis through real-time reporting
• Fault finding down to the device level from any InTouch view station
• Accurate diagnostics enable operators to involve the right people the first time
• Remote VPN for faster service provider support
• Redundancy on historian SQL server using ‘Store and Forward’ function – provides guarantee of data trail

Goals

• Mitigate the risk posed by unsupported legacy systems
• Modernise and streamline the manufacturing process
• Consolidate the various server platforms required for the manufacturing process

Solutions and Products

• System Platform
• Historian
• InTouch
• InBatch

Challenges

• Reverse engineering the existing InControl system
• Transporting the well-designed S88 standards to the new PLC

Results

• Business risk was reduced
• Production information is available to more people
• System design and reliability was improved
• Reduced hardware support through the virtualisation of the manufacturing servers

Midrand, Gauteng, South Africa

Quality, innovation and, above all, consistency, are the hallmarks of L’Oréal products – and that’s why accurate batch management is of such importance to the company that has led the cosmetics industry for more than a century. But there’s more to quality production than excellent batch management.

Background

Production at L’Oréal’s Midrand manufacturing plant depends on the operation of two “skids”. A skid is an assembly of a group of modular pieces into a single unit. This includes mixing tanks, storage tanks and CIP systems among others. All tanks, pumps, valves, heat exchangers, instrumentation and controls are factory-assembled and tested prior to shipment.

Simply put, a skid is an entire “process system in a box.” It arrives at the processing facility ready to be plugged into the power and utilities with little on-site construction required. There is very little production downtime and unforeseen start-up delays can be discovered and corrected before the equipment ever leaves the manufacturing facility.

Prior to this project, each skid had software and hardware. There were different standards for each skid, the software was past its end-of-life cycle, the hardware was obsolete and overloaded and there was no disaster-recovery plan.

So the project goals focused on mitigating the risk posed by unsupported legacy systems, modernising and streamlining the manufacturing process and consolidating the various server platforms required for production.

Implementation
For L’Oréal, the way forward consisted of selecting an AVEVA systems integrator and implementing some important upgrade initiatives. The chosen system integrator was Control Systems Integration (CSI) and the upgrade initiatives included:

Assigning dedicated server roles after a strategic decision was made to implement virtual servers. Virtualisation was acknowledged to reduce infrastructure costs while increasing maintainability and flexibility.

L’Oréal already had an investment in Wonderware (now AVEVA) solutions including InTouch, InControl, InBatch (including extensive training) and InSQL (old Historian) so it made sense to continue building on these assets.

“ArchestrA is a good integration platform and AVEVA System Platform enables future integration of other [IS³] solutions like MES,” says CSI System Engineer Rikus Wouda. “Also, ArchestrA and InBatch are proven technologies with a huge support base and InBatch (now AVEVA Batch Management), as well as simplifying the configuration of complex batch processes, integrates well with System Platform.”

InControl (a PC-based software version of a PLC), however, had been discontinued and one of the first tasks was to reverse-engineer its functionality in order to transfer the well-designed S88 standards to the new PLC.

The rest of the software was upgraded to their latest versions where AVEVA Batch Management was used for operations management and InTouch continued its role as HMI and supervisory controller. The ArchestrA-based System Platform was introduced as the integration layer while Historian and Information Server were used for information management.

“For the sake of better efficiency and control and the fact that operators can switch between manual control and [AVEVA Batch Management], we wanted to communicate with the PLC through one ArchestrA object,” says CSI Senior Systems Engineer Nkhensani Mbanyele. “So we configured a single master ArchestrA object that receives the [AVEVA Batch Management] model as well as inputs from InTouch and which then communicates these to the PLC.”

Conclusion
With this virtualisation project, L’Oréal was able to mitigate the risk associated with overloaded and obsolete hardware and by upgrading their MES/MOM and HMI capabilities to the latest technologies the company reduced the business risk associated with legacy systems that had exceeded their life cycles.

The result was better-informed personnel, improved system design and reliability as well as reduced hardware support effort and cost through virtualisation of the manufacturing servers.

Benefits

• AVEVA Batch Management simplifies recipe management and batch tracking
• The end-user can maintain the recipe database without outside help
• Built-in version control
• More consistent quality and batch duration
• Improved availability, reliability and sustainability of the process environment thanks to hardware independence
• System integrators can replicate the production environment easily for development and testing purposes
• Streamlined disaster recovery process means that there is now minimal downtime

Implementation

The port’s complex electrical system uses medium voltage (MV) circuit breakers from a variety of manufacturers, various power monitoring meters and protection relays, as well as synchronising relays and engine management controls. It is comprised of:

• Two separately located primary 33kV supply feeds from the municipality
• One 33kV ring main unit link as backup
• 33kV to 11kV transformers
• 33kV to 6.6kV transformers
• Four 2.5MVA diesel generators
• Ten power factor correction banks
• Feeders, bus couplers, regenerative cranes at the berths and more

TNPA chose systems integrator Convenient Software Solutions (CSS) to implement the extensive upgrade project because of the company’s experience and knowledge of the AVEVA ArchestrA technology, provided by IS³, and their local presence, which meant good support and access to professional services when needed.

CSS chose to continue with the IS³ | AVEVA solution set by adding System Platform based on ArchestrA technology and the real-time AVEVA Historian. This would not only integrate seamlessly with the existing InTouch systems but also ticked all the boxes of flexibility, scalability, centralised software engineering, redundancy and the enforcement of standards in TNPA’s list of system requirements.

Bearing in mind the key system requirements, the design phase included numerous meetings to establish and finalise the software structure, the network and communication layout, tag naming convention, the HMI and its navigation facilities, documentation requirements, security provisions, data logging and trending needs as well as alarm management.

“Using the agreed operational criteria, CSS then developed a thin-slice implementation as proof of concept,” says Transnet electrical engineer Johan Sauerman. “This helped to confirm that we were on the right track with respect to our overall design philosophy and that the inherent flexibility of the chosen solutions could meet our current control and information needs. Equally important was that the same solutions would meet our changing needs in the future with regard to the port’s planned expansions and increased complexity.”

“The system as it stands today is quite extensive,” says CSS systems engineer Warren Hofland. “It comprises 13 PLCs, 8 remote I/O drops, 3 servers, 13 SCADA control stations with local Application Object Server (AOS), 5 Historian Client stations, over 2000 physical I/Os and 65 SCADA/HMI screens.”

Software Toolbox’s TOP Server I/O suite is used to communicate with various equipment such as Schneider PLCs, deep-sea controllers, CAT engine control panels, GE protection relays, Landis and Gyr power meters, IFM vibration monitoring instrumentation and a Cogent OPC Datahub.

“We paid particular attention to redundancy as this was a critical requirement,” says Hofland. “40 km of redundant fibre optic network now links the key elements of the system such as the hot standby controllers and the redundant AOS peer network to 13 local stations which will fail over to the centralised AOS server in case of problems. ‘Store and forward’ functionality protects the data while a wireless VPN is used for the remote control and operation of MV switchgear and generators.”

The wealth of organised information available in the real-time Historian is designed to support operational decisions and in this regard, Transnet personnel were able to diagnose the past and plan for the future. “We have found immense value in using the historian client to access historical trend information for investigative and diagnostic purposes,” says Sauerman.

A project of this scale will naturally involve many players and this was clear from the start. So the goal was to keep one’s eye on the objective and to ensure that all the various contractors did the same while respecting one another’s contributions. “Change is always a challenge,” says Hofland. “The trick is to make it exciting rather than threatening by showing that end-user needs are truly being addressed through everybody’s collaborative contributions.”

Conclusion
Perhaps the most significant benefit of all for the TNPA is the peace of mind that the Port of Durban, the most important international import/export hub in the country, is now master of its own fate with respect to the reliability of its electrical supply. But, while the effect of power interruptions by the national grid has been reduced from hours to minutes, perhaps the wisest decision the TNPA took was to review their operational information and control infrastructure in its entirety and adopt a solution with the flexibility and scalability to deal with the port’s ambitious expansion plans.

Benefits

• Far more secure and controllable power supply to the port
• Secure remote access and switching of MV switchgear
• Centralised development environment greatly reduces solution deployment time and costs
• System capability to easily handle future port expansions
• Rapid data analysis through real-time reporting
• Fault finding down to the device level from any InTouch view station
• Accurate diagnostics enable operators to involve the right people the first time
• Remote VPN for faster service provider support
• Redundancy on historian SQL server using ‘Store and Forward’ function – provides guarantee of data trail

Goals

• Mitigate the risk posed by unsupported legacy systems
• Modernise and streamline the manufacturing process
• Consolidate the various server platforms required for the manufacturing process

Solutions and Products

• System Platform
• Historian
• InTouch
• InBatch

Challenges

• Reverse engineering the existing InControl system
• Transporting the well-designed S88 standards to the new PLC

Results

• Business risk was reduced
• Production information is available to more people
• System design and reliability was improved
• Reduced hardware support through the virtualisation of the manufacturing servers

Midrand, Gauteng, South Africa

Quality, innovation and, above all, consistency, are the hallmarks of L’Oréal products – and that’s why accurate batch management is of such importance to the company that has led the cosmetics industry for more than a century. But there’s more to quality production than excellent batch management.

Background

Production at L’Oréal’s Midrand manufacturing plant depends on the operation of two “skids”. A skid is an assembly of a group of modular pieces into a single unit. This includes mixing tanks, storage tanks and CIP systems among others. All tanks, pumps, valves, heat exchangers, instrumentation and controls are factory-assembled and tested prior to shipment.

Simply put, a skid is an entire “process system in a box.” It arrives at the processing facility ready to be plugged into the power and utilities with little on-site construction required. There is very little production downtime and unforeseen start-up delays can be discovered and corrected before the equipment ever leaves the manufacturing facility.

Prior to this project, each skid had software and hardware. There were different standards for each skid, the software was past its end-of-life cycle, the hardware was obsolete and overloaded and there was no disaster-recovery plan.

So the project goals focused on mitigating the risk posed by unsupported legacy systems, modernising and streamlining the manufacturing process and consolidating the various server platforms required for production.

Implementation
For L’Oréal, the way forward consisted of selecting an AVEVA systems integrator and implementing some important upgrade initiatives. The chosen system integrator was Control Systems Integration (CSI) and the upgrade initiatives included:

Assigning dedicated server roles after a strategic decision was made to implement virtual servers. Virtualisation was acknowledged to reduce infrastructure costs while increasing maintainability and flexibility.

L’Oréal already had an investment in Wonderware (now AVEVA) solutions including InTouch, InControl, InBatch (including extensive training) and InSQL (old Historian) so it made sense to continue building on these assets.

“ArchestrA is a good integration platform and AVEVA System Platform enables future integration of other [IS³] solutions like MES,” says CSI System Engineer Rikus Wouda. “Also, ArchestrA and InBatch are proven technologies with a huge support base and InBatch (now AVEVA Batch Management), as well as simplifying the configuration of complex batch processes, integrates well with System Platform.”

InControl (a PC-based software version of a PLC), however, had been discontinued and one of the first tasks was to reverse-engineer its functionality in order to transfer the well-designed S88 standards to the new PLC.

The rest of the software was upgraded to their latest versions where AVEVA Batch Management was used for operations management and InTouch continued its role as HMI and supervisory controller. The ArchestrA-based System Platform was introduced as the integration layer while Historian and Information Server were used for information management.

“For the sake of better efficiency and control and the fact that operators can switch between manual control and [AVEVA Batch Management], we wanted to communicate with the PLC through one ArchestrA object,” says CSI Senior Systems Engineer Nkhensani Mbanyele. “So we configured a single master ArchestrA object that receives the [AVEVA Batch Management] model as well as inputs from InTouch and which then communicates these to the PLC.”

Conclusion
With this virtualisation project, L’Oréal was able to mitigate the risk associated with overloaded and obsolete hardware and by upgrading their MES/MOM and HMI capabilities to the latest technologies the company reduced the business risk associated with legacy systems that had exceeded their life cycles.

The result was better-informed personnel, improved system design and reliability as well as reduced hardware support effort and cost through virtualisation of the manufacturing servers.

Benefits

• AVEVA Batch Management simplifies recipe management and batch tracking
• The end-user can maintain the recipe database without outside help
• Built-in version control
• More consistent quality and batch duration
• Improved availability, reliability and sustainability of the process environment thanks to hardware independence
• System integrators can replicate the production environment easily for development and testing purposes
• Streamlined disaster recovery process means that there is now minimal downtime

Implementation

The port’s complex electrical system uses medium voltage (MV) circuit breakers from a variety of manufacturers, various power monitoring meters and protection relays, as well as synchronising relays and engine management controls. It is comprised of:

• Two separately located primary 33kV supply feeds from the municipality
• One 33kV ring main unit link as backup
• 33kV to 11kV transformers
• 33kV to 6.6kV transformers
• Four 2.5MVA diesel generators
• Ten power factor correction banks
• Feeders, bus couplers, regenerative cranes at the berths and more

TNPA chose systems integrator Convenient Software Solutions (CSS) to implement the extensive upgrade project because of the company’s experience and knowledge of the AVEVA ArchestrA technology, provided by IS³, and their local presence, which meant good support and access to professional services when needed.

CSS chose to continue with the IS³ | AVEVA solution set by adding System Platform based on ArchestrA technology and the real-time AVEVA Historian. This would not only integrate seamlessly with the existing InTouch systems but also ticked all the boxes of flexibility, scalability, centralised software engineering, redundancy and the enforcement of standards in TNPA’s list of system requirements.

Bearing in mind the key system requirements, the design phase included numerous meetings to establish and finalise the software structure, the network and communication layout, tag naming convention, the HMI and its navigation facilities, documentation requirements, security provisions, data logging and trending needs as well as alarm management.

“Using the agreed operational criteria, CSS then developed a thin-slice implementation as proof of concept,” says Transnet electrical engineer Johan Sauerman. “This helped to confirm that we were on the right track with respect to our overall design philosophy and that the inherent flexibility of the chosen solutions could meet our current control and information needs. Equally important was that the same solutions would meet our changing needs in the future with regard to the port’s planned expansions and increased complexity.”

“The system as it stands today is quite extensive,” says CSS systems engineer Warren Hofland. “It comprises 13 PLCs, 8 remote I/O drops, 3 servers, 13 SCADA control stations with local Application Object Server (AOS), 5 Historian Client stations, over 2000 physical I/Os and 65 SCADA/HMI screens.”

Software Toolbox’s TOP Server I/O suite is used to communicate with various equipment such as Schneider PLCs, deep-sea controllers, CAT engine control panels, GE protection relays, Landis and Gyr power meters, IFM vibration monitoring instrumentation and a Cogent OPC Datahub.

“We paid particular attention to redundancy as this was a critical requirement,” says Hofland. “40 km of redundant fibre optic network now links the key elements of the system such as the hot standby controllers and the redundant AOS peer network to 13 local stations which will fail over to the centralised AOS server in case of problems. ‘Store and forward’ functionality protects the data while a wireless VPN is used for the remote control and operation of MV switchgear and generators.”

The wealth of organised information available in the real-time Historian is designed to support operational decisions and in this regard, Transnet personnel were able to diagnose the past and plan for the future. “We have found immense value in using the historian client to access historical trend information for investigative and diagnostic purposes,” says Sauerman.

A project of this scale will naturally involve many players and this was clear from the start. So the goal was to keep one’s eye on the objective and to ensure that all the various contractors did the same while respecting one another’s contributions. “Change is always a challenge,” says Hofland. “The trick is to make it exciting rather than threatening by showing that end-user needs are truly being addressed through everybody’s collaborative contributions.”

Conclusion
Perhaps the most significant benefit of all for the TNPA is the peace of mind that the Port of Durban, the most important international import/export hub in the country, is now master of its own fate with respect to the reliability of its electrical supply. But, while the effect of power interruptions by the national grid has been reduced from hours to minutes, perhaps the wisest decision the TNPA took was to review their operational information and control infrastructure in its entirety and adopt a solution with the flexibility and scalability to deal with the port’s ambitious expansion plans.

Benefits

• Far more secure and controllable power supply to the port
• Secure remote access and switching of MV switchgear
• Centralised development environment greatly reduces solution deployment time and costs
• System capability to easily handle future port expansions
• Rapid data analysis through real-time reporting
• Fault finding down to the device level from any InTouch view station
• Accurate diagnostics enable operators to involve the right people the first time
• Remote VPN for faster service provider support
• Redundancy on historian SQL server using ‘Store and Forward’ function – provides guarantee of data trail

Goals

• Mitigate the risk posed by unsupported legacy systems
• Modernise and streamline the manufacturing process
• Consolidate the various server platforms required for the manufacturing process

Solutions and Products

• System Platform
• Historian
• InTouch
• InBatch

Challenges

• Reverse engineering the existing InControl system
• Transporting the well-designed S88 standards to the new PLC

Results

• Business risk was reduced
• Production information is available to more people
• System design and reliability was improved
• Reduced hardware support through the virtualisation of the manufacturing servers

Midrand, Gauteng, South Africa

Quality, innovation and, above all, consistency, are the hallmarks of L’Oréal products – and that’s why accurate batch management is of such importance to the company that has led the cosmetics industry for more than a century. But there’s more to quality production than excellent batch management.

Background

At the Initiating Systems Automated Plant (ISAP), AECI Mining Explosives manufactures detonator assemblies consisting of raw materials, delay powders, delay elements, tubes and shock tubes. Previously, the batch tracking of raw materials and products used in the manufacture of detonators was done with a paper-based system which was prone to human error. It was time for a change and with the business objectives of improving customer relations and AECI Mining Explosives’s competitiveness, as well as consolidating the use of raw materials, the company decided that a greater degree of automation was desirable. Any chosen solution would also have to meet the operational requirements of improving product quality (stop faulty products in their tracks), tracking back from the customer into the batch process to determine the cause of any product failure, decrease human error and assist in the evaluation of the properties and performance of raw materials used in production.

Solution Selection

AECI Mining Explosives chose system integrator Advansys for the implementation because of previous experience and their wide knowledge of the AVEVA (formerly Wonderware) product range. AECI Mining Explosives had previously selected Wonderware’s Production Events Module (today part of the Equipment Operations Module of AVEVA System Platform) to capture real-time process data, link the batch process to execution and to provide detailed batch data reports for analysis. The Production Events Module would track what material was consumed and produced by the process and would work in conjunction with Historian, AVEVA System Platform (Galaxy Repository, Industrial Application Server) and dual-redundant Application Object Servers.

Implementation

“In my opinion, the ability to develop templates which suit most of the tracking functions needed as well as their reusability are two of the most outstanding features of the underlying ArchestrA technology,” says Braam Venter, Megatronics Engineer, Advansys (Pty) Ltd. “Another highlight was the ease of use and the ability to integrate with the Historian .NET components.”

Advansys used a top-down approach which included addressing the operator interfaces which consisted of existing WinCC Flexible touch panels that could only communicate with the PLC. This meant that all the operator instructions had to be routed through the PLC, which led to the development of standard screens with text fields to view messages from the Industrial Application Server. The ability to manage text messages and HMI data from within the Industrial Application Server reduced implementation and commissioning times.

Real-time process data is captured at each production event and this can then be used to analyse if a certain batch is faulty. A production database was implemented for raw material inputs for the production personnel as well as formula management for the various Delay Powder recipes. This database is used as a scanner interface between the Industrial Application Server and the scanners at various production screens.

“The Industrial Application Server is used to drive the production processes via a PLC and WinCC Flexible touch panels,” explains Venter. “The relevant data is then logged in a ProdDB (PEM database). Formulae and raw material data are stored in a production database. A production website has been developed for raw material and formula inputs as well as tracking information. An SAP interface table had to be designed for communicating product quantity produced and consumed.”

A database connection .net object was developed by Advansys to ease the integration with the production database. A scanner driver was written to read UDP packets from the scanner RS232 to UDP converters. This scanner driver then updates the production database with the scanned data.

Benefits

• AECI Mining Explosives now has an accurate tracking system on which the company and its customers can rely
• Improved competitive positioning
• No more paperwork means less human error and improved operator confidence

Conclusion

The new raw material and product tracking system at AECI Mining Explosives’s Initiating Systems Automated Plant is helping the company maintain its century-old formula of agility in dealing with market and technological developments. Accurate and rapid backtracking is helping to pinpoint and isolate problem areas faster than ever before and to continuously improve on product quality while minimising waste and evaluating raw material specifications. As such, the new tracking system is helping to keep the wheels of the mining industry moving more effectively at a time when it needs it most.