Driving Improvements at a Fermentation Facility with Siemens DCS
Driving Improvements at a Fermentation Facility with Siemens DCS
Chemicals
Envera
West Chester, PA, United States of America
Envera is a biosciences company dedicated to helping clients achieve their business goals through the discovery, isolation and industrial application of bacteria. Since 2004, they have worked to create biological solutions to replace harsh chemicals, and are expanding rapidly. However, their earlier efforts to increase capacity initially resulted in "islands of automation," with processes operating independently of each other and no unified operator interface.
Envera engaged with Applied Control Engineering (a Siemens Solution Partner) to commission, upgrade and integrate every piece of equipment in their fermentation facility into a single unified process automation system with a Siemens DCS. The project scope included:
Development of a central control room, providing operators with a complete view into the process
Improvements to the fermentation process, including CIP, spray dryers and utilities on dual-screen OS clients with redundant servers for high availability
Converting the original panel for the spray dryer to an integrated Siemens DCS solution using a local HMI client
Locally integrated HMIs on CIP and other processes where local interaction is important, providing operators with valuable support
Particularly in the biological fermentation process, the custom-built automation has improved operator control, including better visibility into DCS sequences with the help of Siemens DCS sequence visualization. It has also decreased the time from R&D to production and greatly improved product yield. According to Envera, "The level of control, insight, flexibility and reliability we have over our process is a world apart from where we started four years ago."
