Learn about the Arrival of an Intelligent Valve System

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Pörner Ingenieurgesellschaft mbH

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Avoiding Error Sources during Maintenance

For plant operators, Conexo offers not only simplification of process and documentation — but also avoidance of errors via the supporting functions. Although all process sequences are technically optimised, defined and validated in pharma production, the frequently still analogue world of maintenance often encounters potential sources of error: Errors may occur during manual transfer, spare parts may be mixed up, the maintenance plans and logs can be damaged and sullied, the technician can commit a mistake in the resource centre or carry out maintenance twice or not at all. Even if the manual maintenance log is filled in properly, it may not be possible to further process or evaluate it electronically.

All these problems can be overcome with the new option of traceability, unique identification in the field and maintenance support. Moreover, there is the option of calling up and viewing installation guides and installation videos of appropriate valves on-site. This option can reduce the possibility of maintenance errors. Maintenance will become safer, more transparent as well as electronically recordable through these functions in the future, so that plant availability and process safety will be enhanced.

Use in the Pilot Plant

Not only plant operators but also plant manufacturers will benefit from this overarching system if FAT, SAT and IQ are involved: Expenditures will be reduced considerably, because all the required documents of the valve — qualification logs, works certificates and other relevant documents — will be available digitally and can be managed; valves can be identified easily in the field and information can be called up on-site.

When looking for a plant manufacturer for one of the first pilot plants, the Swiss company Bioengineering offered itself as an ideal and reliable partner. Gemü manages an intensive and very good collaboration with this partner. As a manufacturer of plants in Hygienic Design, the company specialises in the planning, design and construction of bio-reactors and fermentation plants of all sizes. With an eye on the age of Industry 4.0, one of the biggest concerns of Bioengineering is to offer to its customers new options of digital management and intelligent networking, especially in this area in the future, so that surplus value may be generated.

Bioengineering planned and produced a bio-reactor in laboratory size with 30 litre total volume, in which all stainless steel-diaphragm valves and multiport valve blocks of Gemü are equipped with Conexo. Andreas Strehler, CTO at Bioengineering sees a strong trend in this cluster of future-oriented subjects: “Innovative and holistic solutions to support our customers as best as possible and to incorporate thereby the total life-cycle of a plant — is our top-most service idea.”

The biggest advantage of such a system according to Strehler lies in the traceability and documentation of components and the planning as well as documentation of service instances. The combination of process data from the process guidance system Bioscada with Conexo in particular, offers many options in the area of preventive maintenance and increases plant availability. He emphasises in this connection: “The documentation of maintenances and the planning or control of maintenance jobs can be saved electronically in the future.” The decisive factor for ­Strehler is that other components of a plant like agitators, probes, motors, pumps, hoses and manometers can be integrated in the system.

Intelligent and Variable Even in the Future

Conexo was designed as an open system. Therefore, not just valves, even other components and wear and tear parts of a system which are provided with a RFID chip can be managed in it. In addition, interfaces with all common ERP-, Scada and maintenance systems can be created. This way processes involved in maintenance management, status-oriented maintenance and spare parts management as well as procurement can be interlocked effectively. As plant components are becoming more and more intelligent and they communicate with one another more intensively, among other things, influence factors affecting the shelf-life of spare parts can be determined more accurately. This gives rise to new perspectives of guiding plants to their optimum operation.

Read on the next page an interview with Marcus Ripsam, Product Manager Conexo at Gemü

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