Foxboro, MA—Invensys Foxboro reported Sept. 8 that the world's leading producer of bleached eucalyptus pulp, Aracruz Celulose, recently set a new industry record by completing the physical switchover of more than 1,000 I/O points from a legacy Fisher-Provox control system to a modern I/A Series automation system in just three hours and seven minutes.
Foxboro, MA— Invensys Foxboro reported Sept. 8 that the world’s leading producer of bleached eucalyptus pulp, Aracruz Celulose, recently set a new industry record by completing the physical switchover of more than 1,000 I/O points from a legacy Fisher-Provox control system to a modern I/A Series automation system in just three hours and seven minutes. This control system migration was performed with the assistance of Invensys’ migration experts at Aracruz Celulose’s Fiberline B evaporation unit at the company’s world-scale pulp mill (Espirito Santo state, Brazil). Foxboro is a unit of Invensys plc (London, UK).
‘This sets a clear record for Foxboro, and, to the best of our knowledge, for any controls vendor at any customer site anywhere in the world,’ says Mike Caliel, Invensys Process Systems’ president.
‘The success of this modernization project is the result of a partnership with Foxboro and Invensys that began seven years ago,’ adds Luiz Renato Figueiredo, Aracruz’s engineering manager. ‘During this period, we have worked together to continuously fine-tune the manner in which we plan and execute system modifications and improvements. With each new project, we have set new records of accomplishment.’
This record-setting automation upgrade was performed using Foxboro’s unique system migration approach. This method uses special I/O modules that are functionally identical to ordinary I/A Series modules, but are repackaged to plug right into the existing Fisher-Provox, or other vendors,’ I/O racks. These I/O modules enable the physical switchover to be accomplished without moving any field wiring, which dramatically minimizes production downtime.
Prior to shutting down the existing Fiberline B evaporation unit control system on the scheduled system switchover date, the joint Aracruz and Invensys migration team prepared all I/A Series screens, defined the control strategies, converted the database and thoroughly tested all elements. The same migration approach was previously used to replace the Fisher-Provox boiler controls on Fiberline B.
Floreal Puig, Aracruz’s recovery and utility manager, adds that, based on the success of these two upgrades, the approach is being considered for other mill areas as well. Fiberlines A and C at the Espirito Santo State mill are already under I/A Series control.
Control Engineering Daily News Desk
Jim Montague, news editor
[email protected]
