A leading manufacturer of aluminium aerosol cans, is successfully using a SCADA system with Web navigator option to monitor critical process equipment and maintain local regulations compliance.
Envases (UK), a leading manufacturer of aluminium aerosol cans, is successfully using its Simatic WinCC SCADA system with Web Navigator option from Siemens Automation and Drives, among many other things, to monitor mission critical process equipment and maintain compliance with local government regulations for atmospheric pollution. Envases is a Spanish, family-owned business that has been making cans for the past fifty years. The UK site at Port Talbot was established 10 years ago where today some one hundred and twenty employees help ensure the company's products satisfy the needs of its prestigious list of blue chip clients, including Unilever, Procter and Gamble, Colgate and Reckitt Benckiser.

Approximately five years ago, Envases began to investigate methods of improving company productivity.

To do so, the firm realised that it must first be capable of measuring its own OEE (Overall Equipment Effectiveness), an established way of measuring and improving overall business performance.

'We examined the market but at first could not find anything that could do this for us automatically,' stated project engineer, Owen Davies.

'As a result we wrote our own software but it wasn't overly successful, largely because the connectivity to our hardware was unreliable.

It was subsequently pointed out to us that SCADA systems inherently exhibit extremely robust hardware connectivity, so this became our next port of call.' Again Envases 'dipped its toe' into the market, this time investigating available SCADA systems - and eventually creating a shortlist of three.

'We selected WinCC because it offered the best application, both in terms of flexibility and power,' said Davies, explaining the principal reasons behind the company's decision to select Simatic WinCC from Siemens.

WinCC, part of Siemens' 'Totally Integrated Automation' concept, includes a high performance database ideal for collection and analysis of OEE orientated data.

At the same time, when linked with open communications, it makes it easier to present the analysed OEE data and other key performance indicators to the people who need to act on it, in a form in that they can use.

This might be at machine level on HMIs or mobile web pads (at work or home), at management level in the form of trend analysis data, or even on large displays on the plant floor giving a performance overview.

Installed in 2002 at Envases UK, WinCC is being used to measure the company's OEE and to deliver an indication of performance.

Furthermore the system is being deployed to monitor mission critical processes.

One such example involves the disposal of VOCs (Volatile Organic Compounds) produced by the company's aerosol can printing processes.

Until recently this task was carried out by several incinerators at a cost running into hundreds of thousands of pounds a year.

To combat this cost Envases replaced its incinerators with a recuperative thermal oxidiser (RTO), which uses far less energy.

However, as there is only one RTO, the process is now 'mission critical'.

With this in mind, Envases uses WinCC to monitor its RTO, which is located outside the manufacturing centre.

WinCC not only e-mails alarm messages to relevant personnel in the event of any abnormality, it also bring RTO visualisation inside the Envases plant at Port Talbot, where data can be analysed and trends published using the integrated Microsoft SQL server.

Such has been the success of this strategy that Envases is shortly to do the same for other aspects of the plant, such as energy monitoring equipment, optimising the use of compressed air and scrap monitoring.

'All of these will shortly be integrated with WinCC, helping to drive down the costs of manufacturing,' said Davies.

'The beauty of WinCC is that it has allowed us to take on application development ourselves,' he continued.

'Since 2002 this company has grown and evolved considerably and we have used WinCC to help overcome the new challenges that have arisen along the way.

If we had not selected such a flexible/capable platform we would be continually adding further layers of data acquisition.' Envases also installed the Web Navigator option when it purchased WinCC, which allows the company to visualise and operate its plant via the internet or any available intranet or LAN - without necessitating changes in WinCC.

This means that the Web Navigator offers the same archive display, operator input and access options as the local operator stations.

It also means that: the displayed process pictures can contain Visual Basic scripts for dynamic sequences; it is possible to access WinCC User Archive data records; the system now supports operator messages on the web client; and that the operator stations on the web are integrated into the local user management.

'The potential of WinCC is vast,' concluded Davies.

'And we have yet to take full advantage of what the system can offer.

Although it is hard to make an accurate comparison with the period before WinCC was brought in, as we have had several type changes, it is safe to say that the system has definitely paid for itself, and our productivity is up since it has been installed.