Paragon software at heart of automation upgrade

Nematron's Paragon software is the driving force behind a major project to upgrade automation at leading diagnostic manufacturer Oxoid.

Nematron's Paragon software is the driving force behind a major project to upgrade automation at leading diagnostic manufacturer Oxoid.

The company uses batch processes in different production areas to manufacture a range of cultures, growth mediums and supplements used as diagnostic tools by both industrial and clinical customers.

Among its strong product list are microbiological tests for food poisons such as Salmonella.

"The original concept was to install Paragon nodes in one of these production areas while it was being upgraded.

That gave us access to about 90 analogue instruments which were mainly concerned with production and quality control," explained Project Manager Mark Walker.

"It was a great success and as the system is expandable we decided to implement a major project taking in the whole site," he added.

The new project is in two phases, one covering alarm monitoring and the other overall system expansion.

Oxoid uses alarm monitoring on its critical manufacturing processes to record how they are performing.

It is also crucial to the company's storage facilities such as fridges and freezers which can contain expensive, temperature-sensitive materials such as antibiotics.

As the site is not manned 24 hours a day, out-of-hours alarm generation is also another important consideration.

The first phase of the project involves installation of four new Paragon nodes.

One is based in the engineering department and is for general-purpose use, including monitoring of all alarm information.

The second is in the company's gatehouse so that in the event of an out-of-hours problem such as a total power failure key staff can be alerted.

The third node is used to monitor the smaller-scale laboratory equipment on-site, including freezers and incubators which contain temperature-sensitive materials.

Finally, there is also a node supplied to company process engineers to give them local access for process monitoring and quality control.

All are running the latest version, Paragon 5.4.

As part of the first phase, a second server has been added to the control room.

One is in charge of field communications, while the other records historical data on a PC.

11 Profibus nodes have also been added.

"As there are different production areas rather than a continuous line, we have a huge mix of plant and equipment of different types and ages.

We opted for Profibus because it was the most broadly-acceptable protocol both to the equipment which we already had and to our latest acquisitions," explained Mark.

Once the first phase is complete, the physical architecture will be in place to expand the system quickly and easily.

So the second phase involves installing a second Profibus network.

Each will be 400 metres long and each will cover half of the factory.

Eventually there will be a powerful shopfloor information system with Paragon nodes at key points around the site.

"At the moment we are picking up information on all of the critical production equipment, but there is plenty more, for example in packaging and bottling.

We want to look more closely at the performance of these lines too," noted Mark.

One of his other initiatives is an 'alarm tree'.

As Paragon allows users to direct alarms at various levels of priority to different nodes, Mark will be able to program the system so that only the most important messages go to the gatehouse while others can be dealt with by the engineering department.

"For the future, we also have the opportunity to link the Paragon system to our own business system (SAP) which would allow the analysis of different trends, perhaps even over our own intranet," he concluded.

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