Paper mill uses Emerson smart wireless for safety

Emerson Process Management has supplied a smart wireless network to improve safety at Boise paper mill.

Boise has enhanced its safety response capability at its paper mill in St Helens, Oregon, US, by implementing smart wireless products from Emerson Process Management to monitor its eye wash and safety shower stations.

When one of the eight eye wash or safety shower stations at the mill is turned on, Emerson Rosemount wireless discrete transmitters in the self-organising smart wireless field network immediately communicate with the mill operating system to activate an alarm in the facility control room.

This allows operators to quickly dispatch assistance to the station and investigate for possible injuries.

Prior to using Emerson's smart wireless device, the plant did not have a monitoring network for its safety stations and instead relied upon individual radio communications to alert the control room.

'We have numerous people at our mill, including drivers who are unloading chemicals who don't have an avenue to directly communicate with the operators,' said Jeff Taylor of Boise.

'Although we use lots of radios at the plant, none of the contractors and only some of the employees have them.

The estimated cost to use hard-wired monitors at the stations was EUR30,000.

'We had looked into installing a wired network monitoring system, but it was cost-prohibitive to do so,' Taylor said.

'By installing a wireless network instead of a traditional wired network, we were able to save about 60 per cent in installation costs.

The switches and smart wireless gateway were easy to install and commission.

Some of the switches are as far as 60m from the gateway.

The gateway interfaces with an OPC server, which delivers reliable data to the mill's operating system.

The robust wireless network monitors the switches every 15 seconds.

'Because we have established this wireless network infrastructure, we anticipate that for low cost we can easily add additional transmitters at our mill for use with other applications,' Taylor said.

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