Product category:
Plantwide control
News Release from: Honeywell Industry Solutions
Edited by the Engineeringtalk Editorial
Team on 06 May 2004
Alba opts for manufacturing execution
system
Honeywell Process Solutions has received a multi-million-dollar order from Aluminium Bahrain to provide a manufacturing execution system for the company's Potline-5 expansion project.
Honeywell Process Solutions has received a multi-million-dollar order from Aluminium Bahrain (Alba) to provide a manufacturing execution system (MES) for the company's Potline-5 expansion project Alba was impressed with Honeywell's message, which focused on Alba business processes and people - and how Honeywell's integrated information technology could complement those two elements and unlock substantial economic benefits
Honeywell focused on the customer need to solve "business problems" at the facilities (ie improve production efficiency, optimise business operations, track progress).
Honeywell was recognised as understanding Alba's business processes, or workflows, and demonstrating an objective of not just installing applications but optimising these business processes.
Alba is currently undergoing a plant expansion to increase production from 530,000 to 840,000 tonnes per annum with the construction of a new Potline-5.
The MES will provide the new plant with state-of-the-art information technology to streamline data handling and enhance decision-making processes across the supply chain for three Line 5 plants being Carbon, Reduction and Casthouse, as well as two upstream supply sectors being Power and Calciner.
"The combination of Honeywell's state-of-the-art technology and aluminium smelter focused implementation team was the most cost effective solution to help Alba achieve its business vision.
We firmly believe that this project will lead to productivity improvements at our site and help us realise our goal of being one of the lowest cost producers", said Peter Cowie, Alba's General Manager Line 5 Operations.
Anton Rossouw, Project Manager of the MES implementation said: "The integrated standard products offers Alba a lowest total cost of ownership when set against the classic bespoke solutions of the past.
Our challenge now is to meet the business expectations within a very tight schedule set by the Line 5 commissioning program.
To achieve this we have assembled a strong team and merged the Alba team with the Honeywell/AST team.
The Alba team members are directly linked to the business managers to ensure that two-way communications take place throughout the project.
We recognise the critical need for user participation as they will become the owners".
The Manager BMS for Alba said: "The implementation of the new MES systems fills the gap between our control systems and SAP systems and establishes a fully integrated system that will provide management with reliable information and support the KPI management approach.
I am confident that the team will deliver an outcome that will exceed expectations and establish a system foundation that we could roll back to the existing Alba organisation in due course".
Alba joins a growing number of mining and metals customers that use Honeywell Business.Flex PKS solutions to effectively manage their businesses.
In order to provide a fully integrated and functional solution for Alba, the project includes the implementation and integration of the Business.Flex PKS solution suite to SAP.
"This is a key project win for Honeywell, representing another milestone in our chain of successes in the metals, minerals and mining sector", said Jerry Walker, Vice President and General Manager of Honeywell Process Solutions EMEA.
"We see this as a rapidly developing and high investment sector and this project will reinforce Honeywell's reputation and leadership in delivering information technology solutions to the process industries".
To better serve Alba, Honeywell has partnered with the AST Group of South Africa, who will provide domain expertise in aluminium smelting and consulting services for the SAP scope of the project.
AST is the market leader for such services in South Africa and has worked with Honeywell in the past.
The project is expected to be completed in March 2005.
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