Emerson Exchange 365

In the pharmaceutical and especially the biotech industries it is common to have “islands of automation.” These are a result of the implementation of new equipment, each with their own automation system. These individual automation systems are required because equipment is very specific to the process. This creates complexity when having to integrate this equipment into the overall process control architecture. Torbjörn Blank from GE Healthcare described how they worked with Emerson to help remove an automation island at a major pharmaceutical manufacturer in the US.

GE Healthcare, the world leaders in biotech process chromatography, implemented a skid-based solution that leveraged the existing DeltaV automation solution at the customer’s facility. The skid was integrated into the existing control architecture and was implemented, in conjunction with Emerson Sweden, using Emerson’s DeltaV standards library.

GE Healthcare has a standard hardware solution together with a specific automation platform – Unicorn - for down-stream purification. GE worked closely with Emerson to develop a solution that would reduce the total cost of ownership for GE Healthcare’s customer. The aim was to help the customer achieve faster start-up, and also make it easier for operations with simpler validation and pre-testing.

GE believe that it is important to avoid “reinventing the wheel” each time a customer wants a new chromatography skid and created a standard solution that is industry-proven and fits the plant’s existing automation architecture.

The project involved migration from GE Healthcare’s Unicorn solution to Emerson’s DeltaV. The solution required a re-engineering of the existing GE solution into a DeltaV platform using the DeltaV standards library. This enabled GE to provide the customer with common displays, batch architecture and a simpler and easier solution for upgrades. Additionally the configuration was engineered as a template solution that can now be used for all versions of GE chromatography systems.

The off-the-shelf solution provided by GE Healthcare and Emerson met both the customer’s cost and delivery requirements and importantly is also flexible enough for the skid to be used for different manufacturing processes. It offered a familiar look and feel for operators for alarming, trending and training and for engineers for troubleshooting, support, improvements and maintenance.

Six skids were delivered to the customer in just 24 weeks. Because there was no available production downtime the skids had to be integrated into a running plant. This was achieved through thorough and careful analysis of software components, import testing, and procedures, enabling the entirely new equipment libraries to be flawlessly implemented with low risk.