Product category:
Engineering Conferences
News Release from: WBF: World Batch Forum
Edited by the Engineeringtalk Editorial
Team on 31 January 2007
European conference debates industry
standards
The biannual European conference of WBF heard a great deal of debate on the application of the ISA88 and ISA95 standards.
The bi-annual European conference of WBF took place from 13th to 15th November 2006 WBF provides an open forum for the exchange of information related to the management, operation and automation of manufacturing processes
This article was originally published on Engineeringtalk on 28 Sep 2004 at 8.00am (UK)
Related stories
CAE technology conference attracts big guns
This year's Altair Technology Conference will take place on 2nd November at the Heritage Motor Centre, Gaydon.
Jargon buster cuts through the ATEX jungle
ABB has published an "ATEX jargon buster" that helps motor users cut through the jungle of terms and definitions that make up the new ATEX Directives.
Created in 1994, members of the non-profit, professional organisation include end-users, vendors, consultants and academics.
WBF provides organisation, management and structure to facilitate networking among its members and sharing of knowledge and information related to manufacturing processes.
The European conference was open to anyone interested and provided an excellent occasion to learn from practical experiences from other professionals.
During the three-day conference more than twenty professionals, mostly from Europe and the USA, gave presentations with a focus on their experience with applying the ISA88 and the ISA95 standard.
The ISA88 standard has been available for about ten years now, and many companies all over the world have applied it.
Further reading
New general manager for drives, motors, machines
Steve Ruddell is the new general manager of ABB's drives, motors and machines division in the UK.
Government needs to support vocational training
The Government needs to be more supportive of firms willing to participate in vocational qualifications and training schemes, a West Midlands' engineering company has warned
Learn all about orbital welding
Arc Machines UK has published dates for its training courses during 2004.
During batch automation projects they encounter challenges in applying this standard.
Several presenters gave examples of their experiences and what they would like to see changed, either in the standard itself or in the way that people apply ISA88.
Francis Lovering of Control Draw, for example, made clear that many control system engineers do not apply ISA88 in the most suitable way.
Latest job opportunities
Multi Skilled Maintenance Engineer, Maintenance Engineer
Maintenance Engineer (FOOD/FMCG)
Job Title: Multi Skilled Maintenance Engineer, Maintenance Engineer
Area: Buckinghamshire, Bedfordshire, London, Middlesex, Hertfordshire, Buckinghamshire, Berkshire, Essex, Kent, Surrey, South East
Salary: ...
Maintenance Engineer, Multi-skilled Engineer, Shift Engineer, Production engineer
Maintenance Fitter, Technicians X 5
Job Title: Maintenance Engineer, Multi-skilled Engineer, Shift Engineer, Production engineer
Area: Essex, Middlesex, Hertfordshire, Bedfordshire, Buckinghamshire, London, Home Counties, Surrey, South...
(Embedded) Electronics Design Engineers - Graduates to Senior
(Embedded) Electronics Design Engineers - Avon Ongoing business growth at this worl leading company has created a number of challenging and rewarding career opportunities to appeal to exceptional Electronics Design Engineers with varying levels of...
"Based on ISA88 a chemist should be able to faster develop recipes, using the building blocks made by control engineers".
"But in reality many control system engineers develop so many building blocks that procedures become very complex".
"They develop a whole phase for starting an agitator or for prompting the operator, for example".
Lovering recommends taking care of these kinds of things in the basic control and to keep in mind when designing building blocks that these are meant to be used by chemists for developing recipes.
All functionality that is meant for controlling physical devices should be handled on a lower level, without confronting the chemist with the complexity of this functionality.
Frede Vinther of NNE has got a lot of experience with batch software packages and has come to the conclusion that they put unnecessary restrictions to the application of ISA88.
For example according to ISA88 one can handle the control linking between recipes and equipment on every level (phase, operation, unit procedure and procedure) but in batch software packages this is only possible on a phase level.
Another issue is that it can take a very long time for the system to end one phase and start the next phase.
When an equipment phase in a PLC sends a Ready to Complete signal, the batch server takes this information from the PLC.
It then sends a message to the PLC to end the phase.
After that the PLC stops the phase and the batch server is going to look for the next recipe phase.
It then downloads the information from the next recipe phase to the equipment phase in the PLC and verifies if this has been done correctly.
Only after that does the next equipment phase start.
In some cases this can take 120 seconds, and - even worse- in one situation the exchange of exactly the same information takes a different amount of time in another situation.
Vinther not only mentioned shortcomings of batch control software, but also of the ISA88 standard itself.
According to ISA88 it is only possible to do the control linking on one specific level of the procedural model.
But in specific cases it can be handy to couple parts of the recipe at the operation level and other parts at the phase level.
Clark Case from Rockwell gave a presentation about how to apply ISA88 on small, simple processes.
He recommends a bottom up approach.
He presented a case of a process that completely takes place in one unit.
The first step would be implementing the control modules, like the valves, the agitator motor and the pump.
When that has been realised, the operator can intervene on the control module level through an interface on the control modules.
Clark Case made clear that after this, you can stop the automation project.
Then you take time to learn from experience and only later do you start automating the next layer.
Then the equipment modules are designed and implemented.
After that, there is a time interval again, to learn from your experiences.
Clark Case lists the advantages and disadvantages of every level of automation.
"The highest level is using batch sequencers, which are available on the market".
"A high level of automation is not always an advantage", states David Cools from Janssen Pharmaceutica.
"Especially in pilot production plants a high level of flexibility is required".
"In that case a process can be 'overautomated'".
Within Janssen Pharmaceutica, Cools is a defender of the application of the ISA-88 standard.
But in reality this is not easy to accomplish, because the company is using a large number of control systems, all of which were developed in different automation eras.
These systems are a reflection of the technologies and theories of those eras and that's why in some of them it is hard or even impossible to apply ISA88.
Martin Zeller explained to the audience how Bayer developed software for collecting and analysing data, based on the ISA88 recipe structure.
The data in the archive are organised according to the recipe layers phase, operation, unit procedure and procedure.
On this basis the system collects, among other things, trend data, batch events, start and stop times of phases and operations.
Several systems are the source of these data, like PLC, SCADA, DCS, Batch control systems, LIMS, WMS and ERP.
Zeller makes clear that collecting the data is not just done for regulatory purposes, but also from a viewpoint of quality control, cost accounting, customer complaints and process improvement.
During the production process, the operators can access the historical data through a touch screen.
This way they can take knowledge based decisions.
They can zoom in on lower levels of the recipe by browsing through the recipe levels.
The system has led to optimisation possibilities during the process, but is has also led to more insight in batch throughput times, OEE, interruptions and golden batches.
Bernard Cubisolles of GE Fanuc gave a presentation about the use of ISA88 Part 4 (Batch Production Records) for product traceability.
The SP88 and SP95 committee members have had discussions about which automation level is responsible for tracking and tracing.
"In fact both the MES layer and the supply chain layer are responsible", says Cubisoles.
"Production is the easy part, but also the critical part of tracking and tracing", according to Cubisoles.
He recommends ISA88 as a tool for the development of production records that form the basis for tracking and tracing.
Eelco van der Wal from PLC Open started his presentation by stating that many batch-oriented companies also have to automate their packaging processes, which are not batch processes but discrete processes.
How can a company go from batch automation to the automation of discrete processes? The PackML standard specifies a state model.
Machines that are based on this standard provide the data that this standard specifies, like how much was produced, how many hours was the machine active, the amount of downtime, the cause of the downtime, etc.
In version 3.0 of PackML this standard is better aligned with ISA88.
The State Transition model is changed.
The Make2Pack working group aims at a fluent connection of batch processes and packaging processes and uses ISA88 in combination with OMAC PackML.
This way packaging lines are, like batch processes, controlled based on the concept of equipment modules and control modules.
PLC Open develops, among other things, standard function blocks for control modules and safety blocks across everything.
Van der Wals' presentation made clear that, across the world, there are several initiatives for standardisation and that standardisation working groups collaborate more and more.
Willy Lotz from SABMiller also paid attention to the Make2Pack initiative in his presentation.
"In these breweries Make2Pack is used for continuous processes" Lotz said.
"Thanks to the standardised approach on the level of control modules ( standard naming conventions and standard functional specifications) the company saved 20% to 25% of the cost of control projects".
"That's why Lotz recommends one automation approach within a company, both for batch processes as well as for continuous processes".
"Lotz presents the State Model of ISA88 extended with handy substatuses".
"This framework is used in all their breweries".
"Lotz invites the audience to become member of the Make2Pack working group and help further development in this area".
Key note speaker Dennis Brandl stressed the importance of knowledge management within enterprises like Pfizer and explained how the ISA88 concepts and models can be a basis for knowledge management.
"Knowledge goes with every phase of a product's life cycle".
"By better management of this knowledge, companies can faster comply to FDA regulations and therefore faster introduce their new products on the market".
"But they can also use this knowledge to improve their processes and to realise a higher product quality".
"Some questions arise when discussing knowledge management: how is knowledge discovered, how is knowledge shared and how is knowledge applied?".
"For example, knowledge can come from an RandD department but also from a production department".
"More and more tools are available for knowledge discovery, like PAT tools".
"But when new technologies become available, we have to take care that existing knowledge is not lost (just think of the example of knowledge saved on a floppy disc)".
"When sharing knowledge, media like the phone, e-mail and internet play an important role".
"By creating knowledge communities sharing of knowledge can be formalised".
"It is important to pay attention to the access to the knowledge by authorisations".
"Not everybody may change, add or read the knowledge".
"This is not only important because of intellectual property, but also because saved knowledge has to be and remain valid".
"Wikipedia is a good example of knowledge that has not been validated" according to Brandl.
"Anyone can add knowledge to Wikipedia".
"It is a very open knowledge management system, but be aware that the information may not be true".
"It is a good idea to provide knowledge management solutions for different knowledge levels within the organisation", states Brandl.
"For example a company can have a best practices community for experts and an innovation community for new, wild ideas".
"Such communities of practices need to be open, they need to be hospitable".
"The models in the ISA88 and ISA95 standard form a good basis for knowledge management systems", according to Dennis Brandl.
"They provide standard terminology and data structures for management of recipes and of information about production resources like materials and equipment".
"Knowledge has to be collected from different sources, among which automation systems".
"ISA88 and ISA95 provide a standard language, which greatly helps to deal with the differences between these systems".
The CD Rom with these, and all the other presentations and white papers, can be downloaded from the WBF website.
• WBF: World Batch Forum: contact details and other news
• Email this article to a colleague
• Register for the free Engineeringtalk email newsletter
• Engineeringtalk Home Page
Search the Pro-Talk network of sites
