Overview
The small Ontario town of Elmira, population 7,500, is the
original site of Naugatuck Chemicals, which was established
as part of the war effort to produce synthetic rubber.
Today, this facility is part of specialty chemical maker
Uniroyal Chemical Ltd., whose products include crop protectants,
rubber additives, oil additives, and synthetic oils. This
site produces more than 50 million pounds of specialty products
annually.
Using the DeltaV digital automation system, Uniroyal Chemical and Emerson
Process Management won the prestigious Technical Innovations in Manufacturing
award presented by Microsoft to companies and Microsoft Solution
Providers that demonstrate progressive solutions using Microsoft technology.
Uniroyal Chemical continues to innovate and find creative,
cost-saving solutions with their DeltaV system.
Profile
The Process. Uniroyal Chemical is producing Delac MOR, an additive for
the rubber industry. It is primarily used in tire treads,
carcass, mechanicals, and wire jackets.
Pictured above: Uniroyal Chemical's MOR processing area.
The process is a semi-automatic batch sequence. Toluene and
water are mixed together and react in the MOR reactor. Controlling
the temperature and pressure is critical in this highly exothermic
reaction.
By-products from this reaction are further processed to reclaim
the Toluene and water.
The DeltaV system controls the sequence of the flow of water
and Toluene coming into the reactor, as well as regulating
the reactor temperature by controlling the flow of cooling
water to the reactor's jacket.
The end product, Delac MOR, available in flake and pellet
form, is used by tire and rubber manufacturers to increase
the longevity of today's car tires.
Situation
Easy to Grow. Uniroyal Chemical required a system
that could easily grow. The project team needed to manage
the implementation of the automation project in logical pieces
working within the available project budgets.
Easy to Learn. It was important for the Uniroyal operators
to become immediately familiar with the new system without
a great deal of costly training.
Local Operator Panels. Given the physical separation
between the processing facility and the operator room, it
was important to Uniroyal Chemical to have local operator
panels inside the processing facilities. This took on even
greater importance during the cold Canadian winters.
Precise Control. Uniroyal needed a control system
that provided consistent, accurate control over their process.
Solution
The DeltaV automation system allowed Uniroyal Chemical's
engineering team to grow its system without shutting down,
while expanding the plant in manageable chunks. The DeltaV
hardware can be added while the system is running, and components
like the I/O cards are automatically recognized and configured
into the system.
Pictured above: A Uniroyal DeltaV operator workstation.
The DeltaV system's library, pre-engineered alarm management,
and operating faceplates not only made the up-front system
engineering easier, they also gave operators an intuitive
user interface they could quickly learn and comfortably operate.
Mark Garnett, an instrumentation and control superintendent
for Uniroyal Chemical, decided to use the DeltaV system's
MODBUS connectivity capability to locate a local operator
panel next to the processing equipment.
The goal of the local panel was to replace the functionality
of local setpoint adjustment previously provided by the pneumatic
controller. Also, the local panel needed to display temperature
trends to replace a circular chart temperature recorder.
Mark selected a Total Control Products QuickPanel 9"
Monochrome EL with a MODBUS slave driver, which was suitably
rated for the Class I Div. 2 area.
Using the ease and simplicity of the DeltaV
system and his creativity, Mark set up the local operator
panel to perform four key functions:
- Adjusting the setpoints of two critical temperature loops
- Providing trending information on several pressure and
temperature loops
- Displaying any active process alarm in the DeltaV system
locally
- Silencing the alarm horn locally
Overall, Mark is pleased with the performance of the DeltaV
system and is planning the next phases of expansion, which
will include the transfer step once the reaction cycle has
completed.
Benefits
Reduced Engineering and Installation Costs. Uniroyal
Chemical estimates overall implementation saved up to 30 percent
over comparable system implementations.
Local Operations. By using commercially available
technology, Uniroyal easily integrated local operator panels
in the rubber additive processing area. "We see our future
success to be largely dependant on the management and interpretation
of data," said Mark Garnett. With easily integratable
technologies like OLE for Process Control (OPC) and MODBUS,
Uniroyal Chemical is able to deliver the right information,
when and where it's needed. "DeltaV and the Internet/intranet
will assist us in our quest for information, and will allow
us to make the data readily available to anyone in our company
-- wherever they may be," said Mark. "We especially
see the ability to use intranets as an important technology
that will offer easy, low-cost information access."
Pictured above: Mark Garnett, center-right, of Uniroyal Chemical
and Herb Lade, center-left, of Emerson, and the Uniroyal
Chemical project team accepting the Leonardo medal for the
Technical Innovations in Manufacturing award.
Reduced Training Costs. Uniroyal experienced a 60-percent
reduction in operation training time, with eight operators
trained on the new system in just eight hours.
Improved Operations. By implementing the DeltaV system,
Uniroyal enabled faster response to product demand, improved
process quality controls, and improved analysis of the product
in real-time.
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