Bio-pharma plant wireless automation conference

The Pharmatex Exhibition, Conference and Learning Programme in Cork from 11-13 September was a stunning success, particularly with the interest in the wireless applications conference

Eight different tracks, from a 'Head's of Industry Conference', to others covering Wireless Automation, HR and Training, Cleanrooms, Engineering and Analytical Technology were organised to assist bio and pharmaceutical companies meet the challenges of their highly regulated, highly skilled and competitive market.

At the same time up to 130 leading suppliers provided visitors with a hands-on understanding of the latest technology available from the World's leading production technology companies.

Visitors were invited to contact exhibitors in advance with their technical queries.

As a part of the event, Eoin O'Riain of Read-out, the journal and website, was asked by one of the Pharmatex sponsors, the ISA Ireland Section, to organise and present one of the automation tracks on wireless in the pharmaceutical sector.

This section of the programme was aimed at providing enterprise management and senior technical personnel with insights into the current state of wireless technologies for manufacturing and control systems.

The objective was to facilitate understanding of the technology issues and business considerations that underlie effective decisions on when and where wireless solutions in the industrial and particularly pharma environment are appropriate.

In the event a very creditable slate of eight speakers was presented to the large attendance of in excess of sixty participants representing all aspects of the pharma industry, from suppliers, project managers, process engineers and technicians.

Chaired by the eminent commentator Andrew Bond, of Industrial Automation Insider, the sessions were lively with an extraordinary degree of participation by the attendees in the question and answer sessions.

The day started with a presentation by Steven Totada of WINA - the Wireless Industrial Network Alliance, and also VP of Dust Networks.

He spoke on "The promise of Wireless".

The Promise of Wireless! Since the invention of the wireless telegraph in the late 1890s, he pointed out that the evolution of wireless technology has progressed at a strong pace.

"Wireless mesh networking, driven by the advent of standard low-cost, low-power radios, has emerged and ignited tremendous interest in the use of wireless solutions for industrial monitoring and control".

Pharmaceutical manufacturing is at the forefront of this wave, and the introduction of this self-organizing and self-healing wireless networking technology offers tremendous promise for the future of wireless.

After this general presentation, Andy Wallace from Emerson Process Management, where he is Wireless Manager for Britain and Ireland, spoke on more specific use of wireless technology and their philosophy.

"The use of wireless instrument networks need not be limited to external environments, Mesh networks prove reliable and robust even in the most challenging of applications, mobile plant inside pharma buildings".

He focused on the advantages of the self organising and self healing mesh networks and how one mainstream pharma company proved that even on mobile plant: signals continue to get through when locations/positions of the transmitters change - without the need for any user intervention.

He concluded: "Self-organising networks will unlock stranded diagnostics in legacy plants".

Gareth Johnson was a particularly fortuitous speaker as he has been a member of the HCF WirelessHART specification team, which released their wireless standard the previous week.

Not surprisingly he spoke on "Wireless Instrumentation - SP100 and HART".

He maintained that wireless connectivity is not new but it has been proprietary - available from a multiplicity of vendors.

Sometimes it is not realised that process automation has special requirements.

The first applications in the sector for monitoring and control will be available much later - five or ten years time? The main user concerns will be for reliability and security so encryption is important as are Standards (ISA SP100, WirelessHART).

Nick Baker founded the company known as Adaptive Wireless Solutions in 2004, specialising in wireless mesh sensor networking technology.

He spoke on "Wireless sensor network experience in biopharma applications".

He began by discussing the important technical and operational benefits of the new generation of wireless mesh sensor networks and examines in more depth the critically important concerns of wireless performance and reliability.

A review of the complete solution and structure of the system offered by a leading vendor illustrates the practical value of each system element.

Typical applications in pharmaceutical plants were mentioned and he reviewed a number of case studies of recent applications in the pharmaceutical industry.

What are the top considerations when choosing a wireless strategy? This question was addressed by Gary Wedge of Honeywell.

This presentation, delivered after lunch, was very stimulating.

"Wireless technology provides a low-cost solution for unlocking value in the plant and for enabling a mobile and more productive workforce.

The possibilities are endless.

Imagine sensors gathering data where traditional devices cannot reach, providing more real-time data to make knowledgeable decisions.

Imagine a wireless network delivering on the promise of lower installed costs.

Imagine a secure and reliable network that supports multiple types of wireless-enabled applications that will.

* Keep people, plant and the environment safe.

* Improve plant and asset reliability.

* Optimise a plant through efficient employees and processes.

* Comply with industrial and environmental standards".

Basically his message was "Choose a solution that supports an open flexible approach to wireless networking: efficient, simple and universal." Frank Hakemeyer, from Phoenix Contact, gave yet another perspective on wireless pointing out the various frequencies used in everyday life, commercial broadcasting, Wifi, mobile or cellphone applications and then the industrial applications.

For industrial applications, specialised wireless technologies such as Trusted Wireless and standard technologies such as Bluetooth or WLAN have been established at the market.

He demonstrated how wireless technology was developed for the special requirements of the process industry and where customers can use it already today.

The final speaker was Tim Wortley of GE Sensors.

He talked about a recent application in KV Pharmaceuticals.

This company has 6 locations around St Louis in the USA, with three go-to market subsidiaries, ETHEX Corporation (Generics), Ther-Rx Corporation (Branded) specialising in women's health around infection, prenatal supplements and iron supplement, and Particle Dynamics (Specialty Ingredients).

This company wanted to expand monitoring to showcase the facility, with no thermocouples, no steel power conduit (Local Code Regulations) and at the time wireless battery powered technology was just becoming newly available (Jan 2006).

Starting small this company has increased it use of wireless throughout all its facilities.

Tim Wortley also addressed validation issues and wireless with an intensive set of slides discussing the principles involved.

The interest of the attendees was stimulated throughout the day, exemplified by the fact that the "attrition rate" was minimal and most participants and speakers remained for the final question and answer session.

The day which started at nine in the morning ended at 1645.

And everybody expressed satisfaction at the quality both of the content and the speakers.

The presentations from the speakers may be found on the Read-out website at www.read-out.net/phrmtx.

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