Rockwell Automation and EZSoft
Tidy Up Data for Cleaner Water
Manufacturing Intelligence Reduces
Water Discharge Challenges
Background
The right software tools can help operations managers monitor data and
respond to change more easily and e ciently. A U.S.-based excipient
(non-active tablet ingredients) manufacturer with international operations
recently saw this rsthand in its water discharge treatment process.
When the company’s township upgraded its treatment facility, it also
changed the manufacturer’s permit and requirements for its wastewater
discharge, forcing the business to re-examine its water discharge practices.
Under the new provisions, the company is required to provide monthly
reports of daily discharge levels, in addition to CL and pH averages and
minimums. Levels reported must be within township limits to meet
compliance. The company could be ned for noncompliance if levels did
not meet the new limits, so the factory needed to upgrade its systems.
Now managers can see at a glance what is being discharged to the township. Live data allows them
to reduce potential water discharge issues that could result in nes.
Challenge
Metered data was di cult for control
engineers to access or respond to.
Data storage was not strategic, taking
up too much space and not easily
interpretable by managers.
Solutions
Manufacturing Intelligence
• FactoryTalk® AssetCentre software
secures access to the control system,
tracks users’ actions and provides
backup and recovery of operating
asset con gurations
• FactoryTalk Historian software
gathers historical information
across di erent levels and tiers
of the enterprise
• FactoryTalk VantagePoint EMI
software provides a comprehensive
picture of the factors contributing to
operational performance
Rockwell Automation Recognized
System Integrator
• EZSoft provided assessment
consulting and documentation,
integration, reporting including
startup/commissioning
Results
Provided Remote Visibility
of Pre-treatment Processes
• Created simple screens in
VantagePoint EMI accessing live data
Increased Accessibility to Data
• Operators complete less data entry
and can diagnose conditions with
more accurate metering
• Reduced water discharge issues
from a few each year to zero
Challenge
The company faced two challenges: a lack of intelligence
in one area, and adequate data but no analysis in another.
The water was monitored at the edge of the property
though metering installed with chart recorders. The
metering captured the necessary data for the monthly
reports, but it was not easily accessible from the control
room. This left managers unable to respond proactively
to changing pH and CL levels in the pre-treatment process
from remote locations.
Additionally, the existing monitoring systems acquired
data using trends and recorded that data every two to ve
minutes. This added up to about 7MB per day, which gave
the operators enough data but was not easily accessible
or interpretable by the managers.
Solutions
The company took several steps to evaluate potential
system upgrades that would ensure compliance with
the new limits. After speaking with a number of software
providers the company selected FactoryTalk applications
from Rockwell Automation and contracted with system
integrator EZSoft, a member of the Rockwell Automation
PartnerNetwork™ program, to install the manufacturing
intelligence solution.
EZSoft installed three FactoryTalk applications and
integrated them with the existing system: FactoryTalk
AssetCentre asset management software, FactoryTalk
Historian data management software, and FactoryTalk
VantagePoint EMI for data aggregation, analysis, remote
visualization and reporting.
FactoryTalk AssetCentre provides one directory for
managing enterprise system security from a single
location. Set parameters provide personnel access by
prede ned credentials. This redundant architecture
provides the company with greater exibility to expand
the system in the future.
FactoryTalk Historian collects and archives process
variables within the pre-treatment process. This
information is fed into FactoryTalk VantagePoint EMI,
which provides greater accessibility to correlated data in
real-time tabular reports and time-series trending. This
manufacturing intelligence solution enables the company
to analyze its data more immediately and e ciently to
create the connections that help them make the decisions
important to its production process.
Results
This new insight has helped several people who work
with the company’s water discharge treatment process.
For example, the manager of the pre-treatment process
now has access to live plant data anytime from any
Internet-enabled device. He can see tank levels, in
addition to the past and current pH and CL statuses
with simple graphical screens.
The environmental engineer can create monthly reports
for the township more easily and e ciently with auto-
populated data. She also has the ability to run discharge
reports for past months and can complete all of her work
at her desk. In addition, operators can reduce data entry
time and diagnose upset conditions faster with automatic
and more accurate metering.
The newly-integrated infrastructure can grow within
the factory and across the company’s global system of
factories and technical service laboratories. At this factory,
the water discharge issues have already gone from a few
each year to zero.
Going forward, the company plans to continue
automating its data collection and expand deployments
into other production facilities.
The results mentioned above are speci c to EZSoft’s use of Rockwell Automation products
and services in conjunction with other products. Speci c results may vary for other customers.