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| Christ Water Technology Group; Aesch (Suisse) | | Platform sought and found | Quality for the pharmaceuticals industry with Simatic Panel PC 477 embedded and Windows XP embedded
Being able to use one automation system for different tasks is usually a potential saving: Know-how only needs to be built up once, software can be re-used, spare parts stocks are manageable. Goema, subsidiary of the Christ Water Technology Group, has chosen Simatic PC 477 embedded with Windows XP embedded and WinCC flexible for the operation and monitoring of different water treatment processes. There are good arguments in favor of this choice.
Goema is one of the leading providers of customized solutions in system manufacture and services in the field of pure and ultrapure water treatment as well as drinking water and waste water treatment. The headquarters of the Christ Water Technology Group is in Aesch, in the Swiss county of Baselland. The service scope of the Christ Group is divided into the divisions of semiconductor industry, pharmaceuticals and life science, power stations, industrial process and waste water, food & beverages and communal drinking and waste water.As a measure for increasing productivity throughout the company, Christ is currently in the progress of centralizing the electrical construction as far as possible and placing it above all on a common platform technically. This common platform must be suitable for solving different tasks and automate small compact systems just as reliably as large scale systems.Company-wide system platformThey have relied for a long time on Simatic on the control side. Depending on the requirements, the implemented controllers range from the CPU 315 to the CPU 414 H for large scale systems.The aim of the further standardization is to define a uniform user interface and a suitable hardware platform for all applications. The Simatic Panel PC 477 embedded with Windows XP embedded and WinCC flexible was first choice."There are a number of arguments in favor of this combination," says Thorsten Suess, Technical Manager in the Electrical Engineering department at Goema. "With Simatic we find worldwide acceptance. We have found WinCC flexible to be a mature visualization system. Decisive for our applications is that Windows XP embedded enables own software modules to be added. We use the Open Development Kit to integrate components which contain our know-how and increase the ease of operation of our systems. We introduce additional branch-specific functions for this which a neutral standard product like WinCC cannot have. Also in Windows XP embedded's favor is that the operating system supports a wide range of standard IOs such as printers, recorders etc. The price-performance ratio of the PC 477 embedded is ideal for us. The electronics accounts for up to 20 % of our systems so we are grateful for any saving potential."Quality for the pharmaceuticals industryOne field in which the Christ Group is very successful is the ultrapure water treatment which is used especially in the pharmaceuticals industry. Companies all over the world rely on Christ's know-how. Quality management is a key factor in the pharmaceuticals industry. The aim is to ensure maximum transparency of all processes and record process data and operating steps in forgery-proof operating logs and archives. Strict legal specifications and injunctions must be observed.The WinCC flexible options WinCC flexible/Archives and WinCC flexible/Audit are used here. Archives serves to enter and edit process data of a system or machine. The process run can be documented, the capacity or quality of productions inspected or proof of recurrent error states provided. In process operation, Audit records all GMO-relevant changes of variables and any operating actions as Audit Trails. The WinCC flexible/Audit option covers the basic requirements of GMP (Good Manufacturing Practice) and FDA (Food and Drug Administration) for applications with mandatory validation in accordance with 21 CFR Part 11.Thorsten Suess explains: "We use these options as a basis. Operating logs which contain the relevant information for process technicians and qualifiers can easily be created from the generated lists by adding comments and are, above all, easy to read. Convenience both in the operation and in the evaluation of logs is an essential quality feature of our systems. This convenience benefits not only our customers but also ourselves in the commissioning of our systems on site. As a rule it suffices to send one process technician to the customer. An additional programmer only usually accompanies him to large scale systems. Process technicians are perfectly familiar with the system functions, speak the same language as the user and are therefore greatly appreciated by the customer. The WinCC flexible interfaces of our systems are designed so that it is possible to access all the relevant parameters in the software and make software changes in the visualization system without programming knowledge but with the experience of a process technician. We achieve this by structuring all our systems modularly from software standards. Every technological unit is assigned a software module which is always represented identically on the user interface - regardless of which system it appears in."These libraries are based on WinCC flexible, individual modules are called from the standard program as ActiveX elements based on .net. The Windows XP embedded in the Panel PC 477 embedded with its openness makes this possible.Robustness and increased ease of operationAnother property of the chosen system comes to the fore in waste water treatment, another field of competence of Goema. Windows XP embedded runs on the Panel PC 477 as an operating system. This has no moving parts such as hard disks or fans and therefore meets another important customer requirement: It has an extremely high availability. "Our customers in the waste water industry appreciate this property because aggressive ambient conditions are often encountered here which may be a problem for the mechanics," says Thorsten Suess.In the waste water industry, the ease of operation is more important than quality management. Here, the degree of automation is not usually that high. The operator is constantly changing the program for further purification of the waste water depending on repeated laboratory tests. The challenge here is to give him as much freedom without the user interface becoming too complicated. "Here too, we have had very positive experience with WinCC flexible," Thorsten Suess confirms and is convinced that the chosen platform was the right decision for the future.
Advance 4 / 2006 | |
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