INDUSTRY: METALS, MINERALS & MINING African Explosives Limited www.explosives.co.za “With Wonderware Equipment Operations Module, improved raw material and product tracking gives African Explosives Limited a far greater degree of quality control, enabling the company to maintain product consistency and process improvements.” Ronald Huggins Control Systems Engineer African Explosives Limited Gives Its Customers More Bang for the Buck with Help from Invensys Goals Solutions and Products • The company needed to accurately track raw • Wonderware Equipment Operations Module materials and finished products through an • Wonderware Historian automated batch tracking system • Wonderware System Platform • With a system featuring the collection of track • Wonderware Industrial Application Server and trace data, African Explosives Limited wanted to ensure product quality and eliminate Results product defects • African Explosives Limited now has an accurate and reliable tracking system Challenges • The Invensys technology solution has improved • The company needed to avoid major production the company’s competitive positioning by disruptions by ensuring a rapid implementation enabling it to deliver high-quality explosives to of the new system the mining and construction industries • Maintaining the company’s high safety standards • Elimination of paperwork has resulted in a and product consistency were the top priorities significant reduction in errors associated with for any technology changeover the prior manual reporting system Johannesburg , South Africa – There are few enhancing the company’s overall competitiveness industries that demand more focused attention as well as consolidating the use of raw materials, than the manufacturing of explosive materials. AEL decided that a greater degree of automation Reliability, accuracy, safety and predictability must was needed to effectively achieve these goals. be top of mind when producing detonators for commercial explosives. Detonators are the most Not only did the potential solution have to meet sensitive components responsible for triggering AEL’s strict operational requirements for improving explosives and require the highest level of product quality, such as eliminating the production precision and accuracy during the of potentially faulty products, it also had to be able manufacturing process. to track back from the customer to the specific batch process to determine the cause of any As an international leader and innovator in product failure. The track and trace production commercial explosives and blasting solutions, solution had to reduce human error and assist African Explosives Limited (AEL) products are in the proper evaluation of the properties and used in operations for mining everything from performance of raw materials used in production coal, nickel and copper to precious metals and of AEL’s triggering systems. gemstones such as gold, platinum and diamonds. AEL must follow strict procedures during the “With Wonderware Equipment Operations critical manufacturing process of its detonators. Module, improved raw material and product tracking gives AEL a far greater degree of quality AEL recognized the need for an automated control enabling the company to maintain product technology solution that could track and trace consistency and process improvements,” said all of the raw materials used in the production Ronald Huggins, Control Systems Engineer at AEL. process as well as final product development. The goal of the new system was to eliminate production variability while providing traceability Invensys Technology Keeps Track of an of components that went into the production of Explosive Process each product batch. After careful evaluation of various batch track and trace technologies, AEL AEL chose system integrator Advansys for the selected the Wonderware Equipment Operations implementation because of the company’s Module from Invensys Operations Management to industry experience in providing technology automate its manufacturing processes. solutions for mining applications, as well as its extensive knowledge of Invensys products. With the assistance of Advansys, AEL selected How Do You Manufacture Explosives? Wonderware’s Equipment Operations Module Carefully. to capture real-time process data and provide detailed batch data reports for analysis. At AEL’s initiating systems production plant, the company manufactures detonator assemblies which require a variety of raw explosive materials, delay powders, delay elements, tubes and shock tubes, which are non-electric explosive fuses or initiators. Previously, the batch tracking of raw materials and products used in the manufacture of detonators was done with a manual, paper-based system which was prone to human error. Because of the critical nature of explosives manufacturing processes, AEL recognized that it was time for a change. With the business objectives of improving customer relations, The Wonderware Equipment Operations Module The Wonderware Equipment Operations Module tracks each raw material that is used during the is used to drive the production processes via a PLC manufacturing process. The software captures and the WinCC Flexible touch panels. The relevant complete “as-built” traceability records for rapid data is then logged in a Wonderware Production response to unforeseen production events such as Event Module database. Formula and raw product recalls. materials data is stored in a production database. A production Web site has been developed for Paired with Wonderware System Platform, a raw material and formula inputs as well as tracking comprehensive industrial software platform for information. An SAP interface table is used to SCADA, HMI and MES applications, Wonderware communicate product quantity produced and the Equipment Operations Module provides raw materials consumed during manufacturing. comprehensive data management and seamless interaction with HMI and other plant floor A database connection via a .NET object was visualization systems. In addition, it works in developed by Advansys to ease integration with conjunction with AEL’s installation of Wonderware the production database. A scanner driver was Historian, a real-time historical database, as well as written to read User Datagram Protocol (UDP) dual-redundant application object servers. packets from the scanner. UDP is a set of network protocols used for the Internet that enables “The ability to develop production templates computer applications to send messages or which address the tracking functions was an datagrams to other IP addresses on the network important component, along with reusability of without having to set up special transmission templates and objects. These were two of the channels or data paths. With this simplified data most outstanding features offered by the Invensys sharing method, scanner drivers are now able to technology,” said Braam Venter, Megatronics update the production data with the scanned data. Engineer at Advansys. “Another highlight is the ease of use and the ability to integrate with Wonderware Historian .NET components.” Production Tracking of Explosives Can Diffuse a Volatile Situation Advansys implemented a top-down approach which included addressing the operator interfaces The new raw material and product tracking consisting of existing WinCC Flexible touch panels system from Invensys has enabled AEL’s initiating which communicate with the PLC. All operator systems automated plant to maintain its reputation instructions can now be routed through the PLC, for appropriately dealing with market and using standard screens with text fields to view technological developments. Accurate and rapid messages from the Invensys technology. The track and trace methods are helping to pinpoint ability to manage text messages and HMI data and isolate problem areas more quickly and allow from within the Wonderware System Platform the company to continuously improve product has significantly reduced implementation and quality, evaluate raw material specifications and commissioning times. minimize waste. Real-time process data is captured at each With the help of Wonderware Equipment production event, which can be used to analyze Operations Module, AEL is able to defuse manufacturing batch data to identify any faulty irregularities quickly and safely, ensuring the production process. In addition, a production manufacture of high quality and extremely reliable database is used to record raw material use and products. The new tracking system from Invensys can be inputted directly by production personnel enables AEL to provide the vital tools necessary to better manage the various delay powder for mining companies to continue to uncover the recipes. This database also is used as an interface earth’s natural resources, as well as its treasures. between the Invensys technology and the scanners at various production screens. Helsinki St. Petersburg Moscow tel. +358 9 540 4940 tel. +7 812 327 3752 tel. +7 495 641 1616 [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] Yekaterinburg Samara Кiev www.wonderware.fi tel. +7 343 287 1919 tel. +7 846 273 95 85 tel. +38 044 495 33 40 [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] Rīga Vilnius Tallinn Мinsk tel. +371 6738 1617 tel. +370 5 215 1646 tel. +372 668 4500 tel. +375 17 200 0876 [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] [email protected].