Italian company Indena looking for technology to automate manufacturing of its taxane-based anti-cancer compound chooses Emerson’s PlantWeb® architecture with DeltaV™ system for automation.
With its expertise in pharmaceutical processes Emerson Process Management embarked on the project to automate Indena’s plant in Settala, near Milan.
Indena is a world leader in identifying, developing, and producing active ingredients from plants for use in the pharmaceutical and healthcare industry and one of the main suppliers of a potential new anti-cancer compound that has been approved by the FDA for Phase I clinical trials.
As a leader in engineering and implementing pharmaceutical automation solutions including conformance to FDA code of practice, 21CFR Part 11, Emerson was a prime candidate.
The Settala facility extracts the anti-cancer compound from the leaves of a plant, then supplies the extracted product to a major pharmaceutical company for processing into the finished drug.
Indena wished to work with a large company that was able to guarantee continuous support as well as a company that was offering a technically advanced solution based on open protocols. The company asked Emerson to supply a flexible, open system based on fieldbus technology that could be used to control the process as well as managing the instrumentation assets.
Ing Piotti of Indena considered it was essential for modern systems to do both: "If companies are to be competitive in the future they will have to adopt a total plant vision and architecture that supports both the process control aspect and instrumentation maintenance."
Emerson implemented the automation solution for Indena based on its PlantWeb digital plant architecture, including a DeltaV digital automation system, using Foundation fieldbus technology.
The supplied automation system had to have an easy and effective programming interface as well as software tools that were easy to learn. Indena specified that the digital information from the field instruments had to be used so as to optimise the production process as well as providing predictive maintenance."
"The PlantWeb architecture from Emerson is the best solution for complete automation," Piotti said. "Moreover, Emerson is able to give not only high quality automation solutions, but also loyalty - a new trust relationship between client and supplier."
In order to control and manage this process, Emerson worked with Indena staff to install and configure the DeltaV digital automation system. The DeltaV system and DeltaV Batch software are built for batch control solutions. They provide powerful functionality, and easy, cost-effective engineering and operations interface.
AMS predictive maintenance software within DeltaV provides functionality that adily reproduces the device calibration certificates for past calibrations, documentation of test scheme changes, and AMS system administrator events.
Indena calculated that during the installation phase of the project alone they saved 50% of the cost as compared to a more traditional approach to plant architecture. These savings flowed from reduced wiring and installation costs as well as a reduction in time spent commissioning by utilising the digital communication capabilities of the field instruments.
Beyond initial savings, Indena expects to see savings across the entire lifecycle of their plant. The PlantWeb architecture is modular and scalable and can be expanded at low cost should future requirements demand. Savings can be made in engineering and programming time through the use of easy graphic tools, such as block program language (IEC 1131). The PlantWeb architecture is based around open protocols so that should they wish, Indena can use instrumentation from various suppliers.
The use of AMS software can help to reduce the need for programmed maintenance. AMS monitors device status and alerts and can present the information on the DeltaV workstation, enabling a predictive approach to maintenance to be adopted. AMS can also be used to configure the field instruments as well as managing their calibration; it stores historical data allowing graphical trends to be produced that help to identify potential problem devices.
The streamlined maintenance activities that are possible as a result of utilising the capabilities of AMS can help to reduce unnecessary costs as well as minimising unplanned failures. The result is increased profitability and an improved plant lifecycle.The equipment that has been installed consists of 4 DeltaV controllers, with redundancy, handling 1400 I/O.
They are supervised by one engineering workstation and four field operator stations.Plant expansions or upgrades are simplified by the DeltaV plug and play approach that not only means reduced installation time for new plants, but also minimised shutdowns for upgrades.
Indena staff received operation training and became fully competent with the system in a very short time.
In future, Emerson could provide technical support by means of remote connection should the extensive on-line help facility not provide the answer to any problem.
