Paperless production using Opcenter reduces batch production time by 5 to 10 percent/ BASF
Paperless production using Opcenter reduces batch production time by 5 to 10 percent/ BASF
Chemicals
BASF SE
Ludwigshafen Germany
As a leading company in the crop protection industry, BASF has a track record of being a reliable partner to farmers for more than 100 years. The BASF portfolio is comprised of seeds and specifically selected plant traits, chemical and biological crop protection, solutions for soil management, plant health, pest control and digital farming. BASF is headquartered in Ludwigshafen,Germany, where it operates more than 200 of its global production sites, producing thousands of commercial products for different applications. The objective for their new project was to close the digital gap between their automation systems and therefore MOM / MES systems have been implemented by Siemens.
Siemens helped coordinate a BASF project team to provide technical and process knowledge and to implement the Siemens Opcenter. Using
Opcenter allows BASF to increase
manufacturing efficiency, flexibility and
deliver excellent quality, all based on a
state-of-the-art platform and app
approach. Siemens developed a
comprehensive integrated solution that
helped the team link operational technologies (OT) with information technology (IT) to build a comprehensive
digital twin of the production plant. It helped the team create an information hub
that turns process orders it receives from
the ERP software into control recipes it
transfers to the process automation system. They also leveraged the software to
send material or status acknowledgment
messages to the ERP software. Using Opcenter, they created an MES that
autonomously creates and sends sampling
requests to the laboratory information
management system (LIMS) and feeds
analysis results from the LIMS back to the
batch processing system. Using handheld
scanners with a custom graphical user
interface (GUI) supports processes requiring manual data acquisition, such as taking
samples or recording expendables
consumption. Using Opcenter Execution Process helped the team achieve digital coverage of the entire production process including packaging at the end of the lines. Workers
there use handheld scanners to process
filling checklists. Based on these entries,
the MES also triggers the shipping processes in the ERP system, including label
printing for the containers.The solution elimiates all manual data entry, which eliminates errors and delays. The resulting data consistency provides full production transparency and facilitates faster plant control reactions, improving process stability and product quality.
Using Opcenter Execution Process allowed us to weave a digital thread across the entire production process for this fungicide designed to promote sustainable high-yield farming.”
Dr. Moritz Hofherr, Automation Engineer, BASF
The vertical process integration at BASF has several benefits:
reduced batch production time by 5 to 10 percent
eliminated five days of manual paperwork per month