Achieving Operational Excellence - WONDERWARE - #3

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PURAC, the world's largest producer of natural lac­tic acid, was at an automation crossroads. At its bio­chemical plant located in the town of Montmelo, Spain, just outside of Barcelona, the company had outgrown its existing automation system, and needed to modernize and upgrade operations.

The plant—which runs 24 hours a day, seven days a week—produces pure lactic acid and lactic acid by­products for use in foods, pharmaceuticals, cosmetics and chemicals.The production of lactic acid begins with the natural fermentation of sugar combined with bacteria. Through a series of machine-driven process­es, such as water filtering, waste elimination, evapora­tion and distillation, pure lactic acid is produced. Some of the pure product is processed even further, to pro­duce lactic acid by-products such as salts and esters.

To control each phase of production with precise measurement and timing, PURAC implemented—in the late 1980s—a programmable logic controller (PLC)-based system that ran in-house-developed supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) monitoring software. By the year 2000, it was clear that the automation system needed to be upgraded, to improve efficiency, gain better access to plant information, and link every area of production in an integrated system.

Notes Narcis Sirvent, PURAC process automation manager, "We started with the fact that we had the plant automated with a proprietary system we devel­oped ourselves. An industrial computer carried out control with an operating system called OS9. So we decided to look for standard software, which could make the integration job easier for us."

With a strong commitment to modernizing and integrating its technology, PURAC enlisted the help of a certified systems integrator from Enginyeria i Control S.L. (ENCO), an industrial engineering company, also located in Montmelo, Spain. The sys­tem integrator helped PURAC identify its goals to find the most appropriate software solution.

Biochemical plant modernizes its automation systems with Wonderware's production and performance management software solutions, to improve information flow and

plant efficiency.

October 2006 3