Migration to automation vision for Kimberly-Clark

Emerson has collaborated with Kimberly-Clark to develop and implement the first step of an efficient migration strategy from their current DCS to PlantWeb digital plant architecture

Emerson has collaborated with Kimberly-Clark (K-C) to develop and implement the first step of an efficient migration strategy from their current DCS to PlantWeb digital plant architecture.

Implementing a changeover to DeltaV system I/O on tissue machine 1 of three has enabled K-C to move toward implementation of Foundation fieldbus.

The other machines will be upgraded next, on the path towards long term maintenance practice upgrade that will integrate the advanced predictive maintenance practices enabled by PlantWeb architecture, with condition based monitoring of mechanical and electrical equipment at the mill.

This has been achieved without interruption or reduction of production.

Approximately twenty years ago, the mill at Northfleet, UK, where Andrex bathroom tissues are being manufactured, purchased one of the first Rosemount System 3 (RS3) distributed control systems to be installed in Europe.

The system has proved itself to be both powerful and reliable; however K-C knew that the existing architecture would not easily support their vision of utilising the data from the intelligent field to improve plant performance and reduce maintenance costs.

In addition the system had almost reached its full capacity, restricting the ability to modify the plant or the control strategy.

The implementation of a staged change out of the system enabled field instrumentation to be reconnected without disruption to the existing wiring and termination panels.

The DeltaV system I/O communicates directly with upgraded RS3 controllers via a virtual I/O driver that mimics the RS3 I/O.

A DeltaV ProfessionalPLUS station is used to configure the I/O and the supervising DeltaV controller.

Emerson engineers managed the project, provided all the necessary documentation and configured the new software.

The installation was led by K-C engineers, supported by Emerson.

In-depth planning beforehand, as well as lots of interaction between the two teams, helped to assure a smooth changeover.

The change-out at site was scheduled to last six days and it was completed within that timescale.

"There were many benefits to us in adopting this approach", said Steve Thomas the K-C Project Engineer.

"Because we have maintained the existing high level architecture we have minimised the effect on production.

Our operators do not need to be retrained and we were not shut down for extended periods while the I/O hardware was changed out and controllers were upgraded.

Installing DeltaV digital automation system components is the first stage in achieving our vision whereby we can utilise the power contained within the intelligent field to change the way we perform maintenance.

This will lead to improvements in plant performance as well as reductions in our maintenance costs".

Further, the new DeltaV I/O system uses less power than the old and has enhanced redundancy capabilities.

The DeltaV I/O system led to a 15% increase in system capacity, and the upgraded controllers led to an additional 50% increase, all within the same cabinet space.

Approaching the project in this way allows the engineering staff to gain experience on the new technologies, through the engineering workstation, without imposing radical changes on other systems users.

The next step for K-C is to change the I/O on the other tissue machines and the utilities area.

The longer term plan is to migrate the remaining RS3 components over to DeltaV as well as installing Asset Management Solutions (AMS) predictive maintenance software.

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