 From
cod-liver oil to DNA with PlantWeb at Maritex
User friendliness and the capability to handle fast changes
were central criteria, when Maritex selected PlantWeb digital plant
architecture to automate its process equipment.
Maritex was established 1994 beyond the Artic Circle at Sortland
in Vesterålen, Norway, by parent company Aarhus Olie AS, Denmark,
to get access to fresh raw materials in the North Norwegian
fish realm. At the factory, fresh raw material, consisting of
fish internal organs, are processed into marine oils. The oils
are then used as ingredients in health foods. One example is
Omega-3 margarine. In addition, advanced products are extracted,
like DNA salts from cod milt, enzymes from cod stomach, and
peptone, which is one of the building blocks in proteins. Research
to establish new products is ongoing, so the production process
must be flexible to adjust to these continuous changes.
Maritex chose the PlantWeb field-based architecture to control
a new process, which included an evaporator. The solution included
the DeltaV digital automation system, which uses FOUNDATION
fieldbus to communicate with Micro Motion coriolis mass flow
meters, and Rosemount pressure-, temperature- and pH-transmitters.
In addition, existing field equipment, based on traditional
4-20 mA technology, was connected to the DeltaV system.
Fast adaption to changes important
"We found the solution very user-friendly and have in fact been
able to do the configuration of the second evaporator ourselves,"
said Maritex Plant Manager Viktor Johnsen. "This attests to
the system's ease of use, while handling everything from monitoring
the tank farm to advanced processes control, which was the impression
I got the first time I saw the system at our parent company
Aarhus Olie. Continuous changes are taking place in our process
equipment and for that reason it is important that we can quickly
adapt the automation system to them. Our experience so far has
also shown that the production has become smoother. Now we are
able to document our production better, based on the features
built into DeltaV."
Johnsen continued, "In the long run, DeltaV will take over the
control of all our existing process equipment, and we will continue
to use PlantWeb with FOUNDATION fieldbus
technology where ever we can. We are presently installing a
new alcohol-based process module, which will use fieldbus. There
are so many possibilities with this new technology, that we
want our employees to learn as much as possible about it through
training courses, with the goal of mastering this important
tool as well as possible."
Proven solutions
It's easy to understand how there could be skeptics to using
new technology based on FOUNDATION fieldbus in a plant located
so far away from the supplier, and with few engineers working
with traditional automation in the neighboring area. Maritex
did not even have its own electro- or automation department.
"The long distances have not been any problem," says Erik Skov,
Emerson Process Management Denmark, who together with Aarhus Olie, configured
the first evaporator. Using PCAnyWhere, I have been able to
do remote configuration modifications, of the DeltaV system
on-line. Furthermore the integrated program for Asset Management
Control, AMS Inside, was very beneficial during commissioning,
when we got error messages from the field-based multivariable
3244 temperature transmitter. The diagnostic screens showed
that the transmitter had been set up with the wrong sensor input.
By changing the configuration from 1 pc 4-wire, to 2 pcs 3-wire
pt-100 elements, we eliminated the error. The PlantWeb solution
has now been well proven, with more than 1000 systems delivered
world wide, and with more than 8 million operational hours so
far."
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