Paladin Resources is a mineral resource exploration and development company whose focus is acquiring, evaluating and developing uranium prospects. In August 2002 it acquired Langer Heinrich Uranium and in May 2005 its board decided to proceed with a greenfield project to produce 1180 tpa of yellowcake (aka uranium oxide).
With a project construction period of only 15 months Paladin needed an organisation that could fast-track a highly scalable automation solution, including hardware, scada and reporting software.
Citect Professional Services met the challenge and deployed a complete automation solution utilising Siemens S7-400 PLCs with Citect's scada and reporting products to provide realtime information to operators for effective decision making.
The C&I project approach
Paladin chose Citect scada and reporting products for their high level of scalability that facilitates engineering being completed in a small prototype environment before being rolled out to the entire plant. This 'prototype and scale' approach was integral to meeting the tight project deadline.
Continuing changes to process design while control engineering was in progress created an environment of constant change. This mandated using an experienced team to take responsibility for the design, implementation, training, support, change management strategies, risk management, budget and schedule for the entire automation control system.
To expedite the engineering phase of the project, Citect Professional Services drew on its global knowledge base and AdvantageOne methodology to create customised device function blocks based on those successfully implemented and proven in a number of previous projects.
Citect AdvantageOne is a proven delivery process that takes a strategic and comprehensive approach to implementing solutions. Using industry best practices combined with Citect's extensive experience, the method employs key disciplines around project management, change management, quality management and technical and design standards. This process focuses on maximising solution acceptance and business return and is founded on the four core elements of:
* Business objectives alignment.
* Strategies and metrics definition.
* Organisational process improvement.
* Technology enablement.
Project development cycle
The project development cycle comprised:
* Client process brief.
* PLC Functional design specification (FDS) generation and approval.
* PLC coding.
In parallel with:
* Scada FDS generation and approval.
* Static mimic generation from P&IDs and approval.
* Animation and database work.
Once PLC and matching scada development for a defined area or process were completed:
* In-house integration test with PLC and scada.
* Factory acceptance test.
* Site release.
Training and simulation
To ensure that Paladin achieved the best possible return on its investment, Citect also provided an on-site three-day operator training course. Each operator received a tailored manual and could replicate all plant control system functionality in simulation mode on Citect scada operator workstations without physically starting or stopping any equipment onsite. Citect also supplied maintenance training, manuals and procedures to allow staff to support the system after commissioning.
For more information contact Niconette du Toit, Citect, +27 (0)11 699 6600, niconette.dutoit@citect.com, www.citect.com
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