At this year's Achema show, held from 15-19 May in Frankfurt, Germany, Siemens Automation and Drives (A&D) set out to address the demands of plants in the chemical and pharmaceutical industries for increased throughput, safety, and availability, and faster time-to-market.
Visitors to the show learned how they can use innovative Siemens technology to increase plant availability, boost plant throughput and simultaneously take account of the ever-growing relevance of plant safety. Centre stage was taken by integrated sector solutions alongside Siemens products and systems - from the field level, through analysis, automation and process control technology, right up to the plant control level and MES (manufacturing execution systems).
For the pharmaceutical industry, Siemens aimed to provide answers for improving manufacturing performance, quality and supply chain. For the chemical industry, the focus was on reducing total cost of ownership as well as protecting investments over the entire life cycle of a chemical plant.
Along with the comprehensive portfolio of totally integrated automation (TIA) and totally integrated power (TIP), Siemens also presented its entire engineering and service range, such as the asset management system that promises to transcend automation boundaries, improved plant performance with advanced process control, and increased plant safety with safety-related applications for chemicals and petrochemicals.
New simulation tools that enable high-speed engineering right up to the plant's factory acceptance test (FAT) were demonstrated. Another innovation was the energy management software Simatic Powercontrol for a fast overview of the energy balance of a plant and for predicting potential savings. New IT security solutions protect plants against the unauthorised access to which today's networked and open architectures are exposed.
There were also innovations for the safety of plants, such as self-diagnostics of valves by means of the partial stroke test in accordance with Namur recommendation NE 106 (draft). This permits significantly longer maintenance intervals. The following two expansions have been made to the Simatic PCS 7 process control system:
The configuration tool Safety Matrix with which safety functions can now be created in accordance with cause and effect procedures. Safety logic is generated automatically, thus avoiding potential programming errors.
The plant key performance indicators (KPIs) such as detailed production data of individual devices.
These are integrated into Simatic PCS 7 and make it possible to improve the management of field devices or complete plant sections, or to increase the performance of the plant.
A special innovation at this year's Achema was Siprocess, an open, modular microprocessor system with integral automation that significantly simplifies and speeds up the use of microprocessor technology. Siprocess has been designed for the chemical-pharmaceutical industry where it is especially intended for use in developing new or optimising existing processes and for producing initial product batches.
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