Technology

Create More Product at Lower Cost

How do companies with complex manufacturing process improve efficiency and increase productivity without resorting to capital-intensive measures like moving to a low-cost country or revamping an entire plant?

The answer is plant optimization – the use of existing plant assets in the most efficient and cost-effective way possible.

ABB has successfully developed new methods and tools to make that option possible.
They address key issues like improving production scheduling and plant maintenance, ensuring consistent product quality by providing complex and accurate measurement data, making the flow of real time data integral to the entire process, securing data consistency and data quality by integrating the plant’s various automation systems and databases, and using these and other tolls to minimize costs (of assets, energy, materials and labor) and maximize product revenues.

Unique ABB Expertise

ABB has unique expertise in plant optimization based on its leading position in power and automation technology products and systems, and its expertise in industrial processes such as pulp and paper, cement, steel and oil and gas.

For instance, in the cement industry ABB has developed a number of plant improvement tools on behalf of industry leader Holcim at its showcase cement plant in Switzerland.

They include, to give just one example, an energy management tool for kiln optimization that uses real time data to compute the lowest cost fuel mix and simultaneously satisfy business and process variables like heat balance, excess oxygen level, clinker chemistry, volatile concentration, emission limits, fuel consumption, and contractual conditions.

ABB has similar ongoing optimization projects on behalf of Billerud in a pulp and paper mill in Sweden; Alcan, at a cold rolling mill in Switzerland; Shell, at oil production plants in Nigeria and Norway; Norddeutsche Affineric, at a copper production plant in Germany; and at a power generation plants in Germany and the United Kingdom

Fast-curing Epoxy Cuts Production time by 20%

ABB manufactures more high and medium-voltage products than any other company.
Products like dry transformer, embedded poles in medium-voltage breakers and instrument transformers are insulated with epoxy resin, preferred by ABB because of its superior mechanical and electrical properties, low water uptake, chemical and temperature resistance, and comparatively low cost.

There has traditionally been one disadvantage to epoxy resin, however the long post curing process, which takes an average of 15 hours to complete and limits production flexibility. It also requires significant capital investment in ovens and molds, and takes up valuable floor space for component curing.

A Fast Drying Formula

ABB’s new epoxy formula eliminates this time-consuming and costly post curing process, while maintaining the robustness and high quality that make ABB power products renowned worldwide. The new mixture means the over all process of mixing, casting and curing now takes only three hours.

ABB calls this new resin “high-speed epoxy.” The formulation enables curing to take place at much higher temperature, without damaging the components. Normally, higher curing temperatures would cause the epoxy to crack and render it unusable.

The new formulation was initially and successfully tested on medium-voltage breakers poles, and is now used to manufacture insulating components at ABB’s switchgear factory in Brno in the Czech Republic. Rollout continued from 2005 at a second production line at Brno and at ABB factories in Germany and Norway.

The innovation is further example of ABB’s research strategy of strengthening process technology while reducing lead times and production costs.

The World’s First Fully Integrated Automation System

System 800xA is the first automation platform to integrate the core automation system in a plant (the process control system) with all the other applications essential to plant productivity and efficiency – such as engineering, documentation, quality control, safety, smart instrumentation, asset optimization and maintenance management.

The Automation Industry Standard

“Microsoft Office became the de facto industry standard (for office software), and eventually there will be a de facto process automation industry standard; ABB has delivered a strong contender,” writes Walt Boyes, of Control Magazine.

The system gives users access to the full capability of each system from a single interface that has been configured to present information in a context suited to the needs of individual users.

Previously, each system could only be accessed separately, which is a costly time-consuming and inefficient process. With System 800xA, real-time information in these multiple systems can be accessed, modified and reused from a single entry point.

The single-entry design and a copy and paste capability for functional blocks of the automation system means customers can easily transfer their best practices from system to system factory to factory, and country to country. System 800xA is as much an enterprise-wide, as a plant-wide solution.

Evolution through Enhancement

Based on ABB’s patented Aspect Object™ technology and fully compatible with earlier ABB automation systems, System 800xA offers a unique building block approach to system evolution. Customers can add new functionality and migrate to larger configurations without having to “rip and replace” their existing systems.

The marketplace has been quick to respond.

In the first six months of 2004 alone, ABB took orders for more than 300 of these systems in petrochemicals, chemicals pharmaceuticals, biotechnology, pulp and paper, power generation, water metals mining, food and beverage, and others.

Customers include Schering Plough for a pharmaceuticals facility in Ireland, OM Group Inc. for a chemicals plant in the UK, the Swedish State Power Board for hydropower plants in Sweden, Chinese Petroleum Corporation for a petrochemicals plant in Taiwan, and Norsk Hydro for the Ormen Lange gas field in the North Sea.