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Project Overview
Advanced Automation Associates (A3) designed, developed, deployed and currently supports a complete green-field pet food production facility for Hill’s Pet Nutrition, Inc. A3 was responsible for bridging the gap between the process design and the actual needs of the product manufacturing. A3’s expertise in the process of dry extrusion manufacturing and the application of manufacturing automation standards throughout the design and commissioning of the project allowed the customer to meet an aggressive schedule even with major construction delays.
Business Challenge
The challenge was to implement the complete automation info-structure of the new pet food production facility. It required extensive coordination with the plant personnel and the construction company. The automation design was part of a new process design that could not be finalized until production runs began and had to be continuously modified due to construction difficulties. The automation solution required the implementation of a system that would allow for full production visibility of the entire plant.
The Solution
A3 realized that in order for the plant to start up on time and for it’s future to be a success, the use of automation standards would be needed in every facet of the project. These standards would be a foundation to rely upon when the dynamic process design was ultimately finalized and would allow the engineers to change as the process was changed. It would be the structure that would deliver the successful results that the owner demanded. This approach to standardization was reflected in all aspects of the job including the electrical panel design, control systems structure, and human machine interface screen designs.
The core of this standardization and flexibility was in the unique approach to the equipment control sequencing. This approach addressed the risk of unknown equipment functionality from the OEM’s. The electrical panel design standards addressed the question of how to logically accommodate over 2000 I/O points spread across over 20 process areas. The HMI standards focused on consistent use of symbols, colors, screen design, and layout allowing the operators to quickly understand the applications and thereby dramatically reducing training time and operator ownership.
Benefits
The owner’s benefits of this installation were measured in areas both obvious and obscure. First, the aggressive start up schedule was met even with a 50% reduction of A3 scheduled commissioning time. The A3 approach allowed the plant to begin the production of saleable product within the first hours of production. Secondly, the standards and practices implemented on the project have become an overall standard of the plant and have been applied at other locations. This has benefited the plant in the reduction of training and troubleshooting time for the system technicians and operators as well as providing an easy to add to platform for future changes and expansion.
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