SABMiller has deployed Wonderware's ArchestrA industrial automation framework at Prospecton, Rosslyn and Polokwane breweries. SABMiller's automation initiatives face a number of challenges that include catering for a number of different PLC platforms and architectures. The company needed a solution that could do so while safeguarding past investments and opening the door to a more dynamic future.
One of the first early adopters of the ArchestrA framework, SABMiller regarded this technology as a way to implement production systems with the optimum level of flexibility and speed of implementation necessary to fit the worldwide geographical markets in which it operates.
"We saw ArchestrA not only as an excellent framework for our scada initiatives but also as a solid foundation for the MES (manufacturing execution systems) layer," says Graeme Welton, automation engineer for SABMiller. "ArchestrA is highlighting the importance of standards that are implemented by the careful design of master templates. Additionally, master templates have allowed full use of the inheritance feature of object instances (change propagation) and the increased re-usability of objects over a number of projects - which all helps to reduce engineering costs and deployment time. ArchestrA's object-oriented modelling functionality provides structure for our plant model implementations. It is also important to note that the ArchestrA plant models are independent of the deployment architecture (eg, Prospecton's client-server vs Chamdor's Peer-to-Peer).
Prospecton
"The Prospecton project started with the need to replace an ageing scada system that was no longer being supported," says Shannon Castle, manufacturing systems manager at Prospecton. "This required a complete PLC software rewrite, the implementation of a batch execution software system and the replacement of the existing scada installation with one that could handle an estimated 110 000 tags. We were looking at InTouch from Wonderware and a question of timing brought about the realisation that InTouch, being part of the FactorySuite offering, could work in a broader environment called ArchestrA. This infrastructure would allow us to cope with diverse systems while its flexibility, scalability and the ability to structure and implement our standards was more or less what the doctor ordered at the time."
What also appealed to Prospecton was the tight integration that ArchestrA offered between InTouch and SABMiller's standard historian, IndustrialSQL (also from Wonderware). "Reliability and up-time was one of the most important considerations," adds Castle. "We were looking for a farm of servers with redundancy between them and ArchestrA's ability to allocate and distribute functionality to a galaxy of servers using click-and-drop methods in realtime and on-line was appealing. As to the implementation, being the first, we went through the usual learning curve but things went exceptionally well largely because of the backup we received and the expertise of our system integrator, CSS (Convenient Software Solutions). Our work subsequently saved Rosslyn and Polokwane breweries a huge amount of engineering effort because they used our standards and templates as a base for their implementations."
With respect to operational benefits, Prospecton is experiencing much easier system administration and improved security. "Plant personnel are also able to get far better realtime and more comprehensive trend reports than before," says Castle. "As to business benefits, we are experiencing improved up-time and the ability to quickly detect the source of potential problems in realtime through more thorough and customised trending analyses using Active Factory."
Castle believes that key ArchestrA features include a single repository for control, development and deployment and the ability to easily balance computing load between servers.
Rosslyn
"Our plants require systems that can handle more than 100 000 tags," says Rosslyn manufacturing systems specialist Vinesh Baran. "So, when it came to upgrading our InTouch installation, scalability was naturally a prime requirement." Other considerations included ease of diagnosis and troubleshooting as well as simplified system maintenance. One of the design goals for ArchestrA was that it should reduce engineering costs by 35%. This was borne out when Rosslyn inherited Prospecton's automation objects.
"The implementation was done entirely in-house, took about two months and proved that the SAB standards can easily be propagated to other breweries," says Baran. "We had to reconfigure some of the objects since we use a different DAS server to Prospecton, but these modified objects are now available to anyone who can use them. We also found that integration with legacy systems and system maintenance have now become much easier."
With regard to operational benefits, that part of the plant under ArchestrA's control is now more reliable and is experiencing less downtime due to improved fault visibility. "This and the fact that we did the implementation in-house resulted in direct business benefits," says Baran.
Baran says that ArchestrA has also helped to reconcile the incompatibilities that exist between different makes of PLCs. "We use PLCs from two different vendors and ArchestrA allows them to talk to one another, which makes our life that much easier. Eventually, we will have one big galaxy called Rosslyn. This will allow for rationalisation of hardware and servers. For example, we could have four application object servers and one could serve as the standby for the entire site whereas currently we need two servers for the brew house, two servers for packaging, etc."
Polokwane
Polokwane brewery came on-line with ArchestrA at about the same time or even before Rosslyn. "Our initial plan was to look at the Cellars part of the plant only," says Jan Barnard, systems controller at Polokwane. "The operator interface for controlling batches and recipe management at Polokwane Cellars is done via a monitor and keyboard that are connected directly to I/O cards on the PLC rack. Since the monitor and keyboard units have become unavailable and obsolete, we started the search for an alternative solution.
"The first idea was to upgrade the PLC and replace the old monitor/keyboard system and all its functionality with InTouch 8.0, but the high cost of upgrading the PLC forced us to look for a different solution. In the end, we decided to keep the existing PLC and upgrade to the S88 and SAB EIS Standards by investing in Wonderware's ArchestrA architecture with In Touch 8.0 as the front end and IndustrialSQL for trending. The total cost of all software, training, travelling and other expenses amounted to just a third of the PLC upgrade cost and with many more long-term benefits. We can always upgrade our PLCs but they will need to work in an environment that will give us the operational and business benefits we are looking for."
The existing PLC control blocks were to remain the same in order to maintain PLC cycle time and because of timer and data block limitations. However, these control blocks differed from the SAB Standard and so SAB EIS Standards Object Templates from Prospecton were altered and new user-defined templates were created to cater for the shortage of signals required for populating the templates. This will be revisited once the PLCs are replaced to bring things in line with the overall SAB standard.
"The implementation, which took about four weeks, was done with the help of system integrator Process Dynamics," says Barnard. "However, development never really stops. For example, the ability to add attributes at will to object templates can contribute to a far greater level of understanding of what devices are doing (eg, valve operations) and determining their weak and strong points. This level of troubleshooting, when combined with the trending facilities of Active Factory, gives us the information we need to minimise downtimes at the operator level. Working with such templates also allows for easier and faster deployment of projects.
Polokwane is also experiencing improved security and security tracking of plant operations (eg, batch starts, auto/manual operation) while the new system can run in parallel with the old system, making training and commissioning easier. "ArchestrA provides a structure for applications that allows for better grouping of realtime and historical information," concludes Barnard.
About SABMiller
In July 2002, the Miller Brewing Company became a wholly owned subsidiary of South African Breweries plc and SAB was renamed SABMiller plc.
From its South African origins, SABMiller has become one of the world's largest brewing companies. With operations in over 40 countries, it has more beer brands in the world's top 50 than any other brewer and it ranks among the top three brewers in more than 30 countries. Every minute of every day, consumers the world over drink an average of over 46 000 pints of SABMiller beer. SABMiller is the world's largest bottler and distributor of Coca-Cola products outside the US.
About ArchestrA
ArchestrA technology is a comprehensive plant automation and information architecture designed from the outset to extend the life of legacy systems by being developed from the ground up using the latest software technologies like Microsoft.NET. Offerings built upon this architecture empower decision-makers to achieve their business goals, without abandoning prior investments in automation systems, production processes or intellectual property. In the ArchestrA environment, software applications can be rapidly assembled rather than programmed. New applications also can be created simply through the reassembly of existing applications.
For more information contact Mike le Plastrier, Futuristix, 011 723 9900, mike@futuristix.co.za, www.futuristix.co.za
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