SIMCOA Operations

SIMCOA System Platform

Looking Forward, Looking Back

Mike Chivers

Electrical Engineer

Simcoa Operations

Only Silicon Smelter in Australia

Commissioned 1989

Owned by Shin-Etsu Chemical (Japan)

160km south from Perth

Simcoa Operations - Site

Silicon Process

Simcoa Operations

24h 7d Operation

10h 5d Maintenance + Shift Roster

1 Process Engineer

1.5 Electrical Engineers

1 Mechanical Engineer

Plant Control System (2005)

7 x GE Series 6 PLCs

11 x ABB MOD300 Controllers

6 x ABB MOD 300 Consoles

1 x Citect HMI

3 x GE Series 6 Programmers

1 x MOD300 Configuration Node

1 x MOD300 History Node

1 x Serial DDE Link to Laptop (Hist Data)

Plant Control System (2005) - Issues

Reliability

Spares

Technical Support

Troubleshooting (Double Handling)

Engineering Efficiency

Expandability

Many HMI Pages / Colours

Plant Control System (2005) - Arch

Plant Control System (2005) - Scale

610 Analog I/O

3,100 Digital I/O

12,255 Rungs PLC Ladder

2,890 DCS Loops

1,550 DCS Devices

40,000 DCS TCL Lines

121 Graphic Pages

2005 Upgrade Project Assessment

Many One-One Between DCS and

System Platform

System Platform Customisable

Single Controller Architecture Advantage

Capital Cost vs Risk & Efficiency

2005 Upgrade Design - Philosophy

Redundancy

Combined DCS HMI/Controller Upgrade

Terminal Services

Redesign HMI Graphics

2005 Upgrade Design - Software

MS Windows Server 2003 (+ CALs)

Wonderware Application Server (25K I/O, 5

platform)

Wonderware InTouch TS View (10 user,

redundancy)

Wonderware Historian (5K tags)

Wonderware ActiveFactory (10 user)

GE GES OPC Server

Moxa SNMP OPC Server

GE Proficy Machine Edition – Logic Developer

2005 Upgrade Design – Plant Model

Hierarchical Function-Based Model

Plant / Area

Process / Line

Function

Sequence / Loop

Std Logic

2005 Upgrade Design – Plant Model

2005 Upgrade Design - HMI

Tag-Based PLC Access (OPC/Symbolic)

Review / Apply HMI Standards (also

Consider Colour Blindness)

Consolidation of Graphics

2005 Upgrade - Design

2005 Upgrade – System Platform

I/O Point Count: 9,107

Instanced Object Count: 3,119

Object Templates: 117

Historian Tag Count: 3,725

Implementation – Issues

Alarm Descriptions

Fetch Alarm Functionality

Priority Based Alarm Sound

Didn’t Leverage Containment

Alarm Management vs User/Logon

Too Many Templates

Furnace 3 Expansion (completed 2013)

Additional (3rd) Furnace & Grinding Plant

1 x New PLC, 1 x Expanded PLC

1 x Safety PLC (Triconex TriGP)

5 x New Operator Stations

2 x Server Upgrades (Win 2008 Svr)

Historian Upgrade (5K to 12K Tags)

NAS for 10y+ History Online

Widescreen Conversion (1920x1200)

Archestra Graphics (new Symbols)

2013 Expansion – System Platform

I/O Point Count: 13,714 (9,107)

Object Count: 4,894 (3,119)

Object Templates: 176 (117)

Historian Tag Count: 5,698 (3,725)

Wonderware Upgrades

Various Upgrades (in-house)

Beware Hidden Functionality Changes

Migrating SmartSymbols (on-going)

Various Continuous Improvements

Performance – System Platform

Engine Scan Period: 0.5s

Readback of Write: <1.0s

HMI Page Change: <2.0s

HMI Page Update: 0.5s

Retrieve 24h Trend <4.0s

Utilisation (Typical)

Ethernet Network: 2%

App Server CPU: 30% (2005)

5% (2012)

Terminal Server CPU: 10%

Historian CPU: 20%

Engineering Efficiency

Substantial Improvement in Engineering

Efficiency

Reliability

Downtime:

1 x Network Failure (config error)

2 x PLC Failure (prog, h/w fail)

No Significant Impact:

3 x Historian Failure (mem leak)

2 x PLC Hardware

5 x Operator Console Hardware

Numerous Operator Console Software

Lessons – System Platform

Adaptability – Painless Correction

Invest Time in the Model!

Set Standards

Experience Adds Value

Full Benefit Not Realised (Brownfields)

Lessons – Other

HMI Pages:

Many & Simple to Few & Busy

ActiveFactory Web and Excel

Tools in Hands of Users

Eliminated Old Data Bottlenecks

Support Tips

System Architecture Diagram

Servers & Roles

Network Connections (VLANs)

Clients

Controllers

Serial Comm Links

Locations

Network Addresses

Support Tips

Software Record

Server Specs (CPU, RAM)

Installed Software per Server

Versions

Licence Install Locations

Archive on Update (History)

Future Plans

Improved Alarm Descriptions

Alarm Inhibiting

Rollout Generic Object Alarm Status

Migrate $AnalogDevice to $UserDefined

Migrate to Archestra Graphics

Online Version Upgrades

Wishlist

Historian Summary Config in IDE

Log Operator Actions by RDP Client

Better Alarm&Event DB Performance

Enumerated UDAs

Hist Client Display Enum Label (not Int)

Method to Integrate IDE Security with Alarm Query (Ack Permission)

Optional Contained Name for Object in Area & Alarm Properties for Containers

The End

Thanks!