Gerd Kielburger

Monolithic structures in process automation will soon be outdated. This will lead to even more competition, Jürgen Brandes, CEO of Siemens Division Process Industries and Drives, says in a double interview with his colleague and CTO Jörn Oprzynski. What role will be left for Distributed Control Systems (DCS) in the future? What can assistance systems already do today, and is autonomous plant operation really going to happen? Our exclusive interview offers up answers to all of these and a lot more questions.

Tomorrow's automation technology starts today. From field device daily routine through the chances of modularization up to data mining. Suspense and excitement continued on the second day of the Namur Annual General Meeting. Here, it was clearly palpable: The modernization tempo that users and operators in the process automation have jointly unleashed has increased significantly.

Faster, more flexible and customer oriented – this is how the Japanese process automation company Yokogawa wants to position itself in the market in the future. The new business slogan ‘Co-innovating tomorrow’ describes the change – it is supposed to show new products and services.

The race for the competitive advantages through Internet of Things, Industry 4.0 and digitalization has begun. Siemens Division Head Dr. Jürgen Brandes gives insights on how Siemens will optimally support the challenges in the process industries with more speed, innovation, shortening of the Time to Market, flexibility and efficiency. This can happen only through more industry expertise, open interfaces and Coopetition. No doubt: The Siemens world is becoming more open.

Tomorrow's automation technology starts today. From field device daily routine through the chances of modularization up to data mining. Suspense and excitement continued on the second day of the Namur Annual General Meeting. Here, it was clearly palpable: The modernization tempo that users and operators in the process automation have jointly unleashed has increased significantly.

China's government takes safety and environmental protection seriously and closes a number of chemical parks in Jiangsu Province. This affects a total of 1,431 chemical companies, some of which are considered major environmental polluters. A huge wave of production closures, modernizations and relocations is imminent.

With MTP (Module Type Package) and NOA (Namur Open Architecture), Namur has launched important game changers in process automation. While the complexity of the topics in the context of the digitization challenges continues to increase, the users need simple solutions. Are sensors the key or the driver for successful digitization? This was discussed under the motto “Field Instruments Supporting Digital Transformation” at the annual users meeting of process automation technology.

A company that operates and manages a chemical park needs to be involved in a broad range of activities, from networking to infrastucture via innovation. Currenta CEO Günter Hilken is nevertheless certain that the Chempark in Germany, located in the Rhine area, is excellently positioned.

High growth rates coupled with attractive relocation packages are the best incentives for enticing international chemicals companies to develop production sites in India. Lanxess is responding to the invitation with significant investment. The latest step is the opening of an ultramodern plant for ion exchangers in Jhagadia.

The process of choosing appropriate compressed air systems for pharmaceutical applications comprises a number of selection criteria, all of which contribute immensely to air quality and equipment performance.

Anyone planning investment projects in China must follow the clearly-specified rules of the game, otherwise he is pre-programmed to fail. Without support from Chinese Design Institutes, nothing gets off the ground at all in China. The reason for this was illuminated at a DECHEMA information day.

Monolithic structures in process automation will soon be outdated. This will lead to even more competition, Jürgen Brandes, CEO of Siemens Division Process Industries and Drives, says in a double interview with his colleague and CTO Jörn Oprzynski. What role will be left for Distributed Control Systems (DCS) in the future? What can assistance systems already do today, and is autonomous plant operation really going to happen? Our exclusive interview offers up answers to all of these and a lot more questions.

On 1 October, Siemens started for the first time with their own division for the process industry–Germany's biggest industrial group has restructured. "Yet again?", critics asked. But this time the group came up with concrete action in keeping with their Vision 2020 and formed their own "Process Industries and Drives" division. Division head Peter Herweck speaks in the PROCESS interview about his strategies, aims and opportunities in the new structure.

How does a user know that degradation is taking place in a pump and that it will eventually lead to a major fault? Manufacturers are working hard to develop intelligent diagnostic systems. The goal is to develop simple solutions which are cost-effective even on small pumps. Suppliers are developing early fault detection strategies which are designed to enhance pump availability. PROCESS takes a look at the latest developments.

“Napoleon Bonaparte used to sleep on his horse. Generals must be visible at all time,” says Dr KH Gharda - Chairman and Managing Director of Gharda Chemicals Ltd (GCL), in a tête-à-tête with PROCESS India. This 81-year-old stalwart — who believes in silently fulfilling his role of a front liner, maintains a low profile and lets his work speak for him — has made far-reaching contributions to the Indian chemical industry.

The race for the competitive advantages through Internet of Things, Industry 4.0 and digitalization has begun. Siemens Division Head Dr. Jürgen Brandes gives insights on how Siemens will optimally support the challenges in the process industries with more speed, innovation, shortening of the Time to Market, flexibility and efficiency. This can happen only through more industry expertise, open interfaces and Coopetition. No doubt: The Siemens world is becoming more open.

Emerson wants to score points with more consultation — The global economy is booming, and after the years of crisis the oil and gas industries also seem to be back in play. This is the time when digital transformation is bringing companies in the process industry to new challenges that should lead to further reductions in costs and complexity — the perfect framework for this year’s Emerson User Exchange Meeting in The Hague, which attracted 1,600 participants this time.

The digital factory, which in this context refers to the convergence of process and facilities infrastructure planning in an integrated 3D model, is not exactly a new issue for the big players in the process industry. However, many small and medium-size companies do not yet have seamless data management. A comprehensive 3D model can be extremely useful during the design of pharmaceutical production lines.

Faster, more flexible and customer oriented – this is how the Japanese process automation company Yokogawa wants to position itself in the market in the future. The new business slogan ‘Co-innovating tomorrow’ describes the change – it is supposed to show new products and services.

Energy costs have now become a long-term issue in the chemicals sector and are becoming an important efficiency factor. Process versions which only a few years ago laid abandoned and disregarded in the drawer due to their high investment costs are benefiting from this sea change. This also includes mechanical compression of vapors in evaporators which remained in the long grass for a long time and is now enjoying a renaissance.

KSB received the “2008 Best Innovator” award in the “Complexity Management” category. What exactly was it that so impressed the judges from A.T. Kearney and WirtschaftsWoche business magazine? PROCESS went to find out.

The new Lanxess butyl rubber plant, which recently commenced operations on Jurong Island in Singapore, represents the largest investment in the history of this relatively young company. Lanxess has invested around € 400 million in the plant which will have an annual production capacity of 100,000 tonnes.

The leading trade fair worldwide in Hannover is again focussed on digitisation and networked industries this year. For a week about 5,000 exhibitors shall display the latest technologies for production plants and energy systems of today and the future. This year's partner country USA is represented by about 250 companies including the automation company Honeywell. But its not just the latest technologies that are on the agenda, American president Barack Obama is also using the fair to promote Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP).

Mogilevkhimvolokno, a subsidiary of the state-owned oil and chemicals company Belneftekhim, has announced its plans to expand its PET business with a new bottlegrade PET polymer plant.

China’s pharmaceutical industry wants to increase its GMP and production expertise drastically. This is also reflected by the record number of participants at the 9th Vogel Pharmaceutical Engineering International Forum (VPEIF) organized by PROCESS PharmaTEC China. More than 570 participants met in mid-June during the expert meeting at the industrial city of Changzhou.

Technip has agreed to provide PTT Global Company subsidiary PTTGC America with technology licensing and expertise for an ethylene plant in Ohio, USA. The facility, with an expected capacity of 1,000 KTA, will be part of PTTGCA’s first world-scale petrochemical complex outside of Thailand.

From the device level to the Cloud, customers are finding efficiencies — When Honeywell Process Solutions (HPS) announced in April this year that the company had established a new business unit, its formation was to help manufacturers harness the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT). This will allow them to more efficiently gather and analyze a broader range of data across multiple operations and plants to use data to transform entire enterprises.

—Hundreds of pump suppliers are showing up at Achema again this year. Besides the handful of big players in the industry, a large number of SMEs will be at the show, including some highly-specialized market leaders. The list of hidden champions includes companies like Lewa which exports roughly 90 % of its production output and has in-depth expertise in providing solutions.

Hidden champion and pump manufacturer Lewa is operating in almost all parts of the world—Nikkiso of Japan acquired the German company in 2009. Lewa has in-depth expertise in metering systems. Its innovative strengths and willingness to continually evolve lay the foundation for sustained business excellence. The company operates under the direction of a three-man German/Japanese senior management team. Chief Marketing Officer Stefan Glasmeyer provided an insight into the underlying strategy.

Total officially inaugurates the production of the company’s new high-purity special fluids facility in Bayport, Texas. The ribbon-cutting was the completion of a $100M investment by the global integrated energy producer and leading international oil and gas organization.

Wireless measurement systems have long been more than just a vision even in the process industry. Emerson Process Management will be bringing its 2.4 GHz In-plant Smart Wireless solutions onto the market this spring. This technology should bring about a quantum leap for users in the reliability of their plants and in the efficiency of their operations.

Industrial IT Reloaded —With Version 6 of their System 800xA process control system, ABB are seeking to conquer a new peak in process automation. What these process automation specialists are offering must be called, strictly speaking, Industrial IT Reloaded, says Tobias Becker, director of the global ABB business unit “Control Technologies”. Fundamentally, the 800xA is not a pure control system, but an integration platform for various systems — a platform that simultaneously serves as an information hub. PROCESS wanted to go deeper.

Basel/Switzerland and Nanjing/PR China – Lonza announced the building of a performance chemicals plant in Nanjing. The facility will come on stream in the second half of 2008.

“The scope of our solution is expanding,” said Takashi Nishijima, president and CEO of Yokagawa Electric Corp. during an afternoon interview with Achema Daily.

Uhde has been commissioned by the Hungarian fertiliser company Nitrogénmüvek Zrt. to engineer and supply a tail gas treatment unit based on the EnviNOx technology. The EnviNOx unit

“Where ideas become solutions”—the theme of this year’s Global User Exchange for Emerson Process Management. Around 2,600 participants came together to share their experience covering all aspects of process automation in the US capital, Washington DC. One of the main topics was wireless. PROCESS reports to you from the
conference.

DuPont shows its commitment to the cellulosic ethanol sector with the opening of its newest biorefinery in Iowa. With an annual production capacity of 30 million gallons of cellulosic ethanol, the facility tops the sector for output and makes strides towards meeting US government biofuel initiatives.

Japanese Companies Toray Industries and Mitsui Sugar are going to establish in Thailand a joint venture for seeking business opportunities for manufacturing system of cellulosic sugar, a raw material used for producing various biochemical products, from the surplus bagasse generated at sugar mills.

India has the potential to become a global chemical manufacturing hub if the government and domestic players rise up to the challenge.

The jumbo merger of the gas giants is imminent: After tough negotiations, Linde and the US competitor Praxair have agreed on the conditions of the fusion. The merger will see the creation of a new Number One of global gas companies…

Moscow/Russia – Sibur Holding has chosen Fluor Company as the project management company for construction of a new propylene and polypropylene plant in Tobolsk/Russia. In accordance

BASF started the construction of a new plant for the production of the base material DHDPS (dihydroxy diphenyl sulfone) in Ludwigshafen, Germany in mid January this year.

Beijing/PR China – BASF and China Petroleum & Chemical Corporation (Sinopec) have submitted the technical and commercial feasibility study for the approval of the planned $ 900 million expansion of their joint chemical Verbund site in Nanjing to the Chinese government.

A couple of major events kept the team at Honeywell Process Solutions very busy during last year’s autumn. The company acted as sponsor for the general meeting at Namur in Germany, and only one week later it staged the annual EMEA Users’ Group Conference in Berlin. More than 450 external guests from EMEA accepted an invitation to travel to Germany’s Capitol Berlin to share thoughts, ideas and best practices and ultimately improve performance.

Heerle/The Netherlands, Greenville/USA – DSM has decided to invest in capacity expansion and modernization of the caprolactam plant at the Chemelot Industrial Park in Geleen/The Netherlands.

Traditionally, Honeywell Process Solutions (HPS) extends an invitation in autumn to attend the major EMEA (Europe, Middle East, Africa) user conference. Last November was no different, and around 400 attendees took up the invitation, this time coming to Salzburg/Austria to find out about innovations in process automation and to share experiences.

Adapting to change was the theme of the event which Honeywell Process Solutions staged last November in Seville, Spain. Customers from Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA) gathered at the user meeting in the Andalusian city to share thoughts, ideas and best practice which can help improve the operation of Honeywell products and systems.

A widespread issue in manufacturing plants is alarm overload. As formerly independent systems are integrated for more effective operation by fewer operators, each operator has to monitor an increasingly wider area and consequently deal with more alarms. Without rigorous alarm rationalization efforts, alarm flooding becomes a serious problem and increases the risk of safety and environmental incidents.

Osos Petrochemicals Company (which is in formation) choosed Foster Wheeler Energy Limited for front-end engineering design (FEED) and project management consultancy (PMC) services for a planned new petrochemicals complex to produce polybutylene terephthalate at Yanbu, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

DSM Anti-Infectives, a Netherlands-based business group of Royal DSM N.V., and Mumbai-based Arch Pharmalabs Ltd, a pharmaceutical company manufacturing active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs), have recently signed a partnership agreement.

The green transition and increasingly intense competition between regions as they try to attract and retain business investment are putting significantly more pressure on Europe and Germany to find additional ways of reducing energy and resource consumption. At a time when industry is trying to make more intelligent and efficient use of energy, the Process Energy Summit 2013 will provide a platform for sharing information on developments, prospects and solutions which may point the way forward.

How do you live up to the promise of Operational Excellence? That was the theme for Yokogawa’s fourth EMEA user conference, which took place in Barcelona/Spain in September this year.

The water industry trade association, British Water, will be highlighting the opportunities currently available for water technology in the oil and gas sector at a one-day conference at Coventry University on 2 December 2015.