Engineering and Mining Journal - Whether the market is copper, gold, nickel, iron ore, lead/zinc, PGM, diamonds or other commodities, E&MJ takes the lead in projecting trends, following development and reporting on the most efficient operating pr
Issue link: https://emj.epubxp.com/i/981569
56 E&MJ; • MAY 2018 www.e-mj.com PROCESSING SOLUTIONS The Mosaic Co. is the world's leading in- tegrated producer and marketer of con- centrated phosphate and potash, two key ingredients in plant fertilizer. Much of Mosaic's phosphate mining production is located in Florida, USA, where phosphate rock is uncovered from beneath sandy overburden by draglines, slurrifi ed and sent through pipelines to a processing facility. The facility employs a series of washing, vibrating, and fl otation stations to separate the phosphate from the sand and clay. Mining for Information To meet growing demands for increased crop yields, Mosaic needed to add a pre- mium fertilizer product line to its New Wales, Florida, facility. In order to accom- modate the new process, the company had to drastically expand the existing dis- tributed control system (DCS). The legacy HMI system furnished limited to no visibility into key produc- tion data. The system only provided big- picture elements of the facility and very few data insights. Without contextualized information, operators were not able to make the best informed decisions. Ex- isting HMI screens were also overly com- plex and colorful, making it diffi cult to quickly interpret abnormal conditions and quickly respond. Additionally, the legacy system was programmed with more than 4,000 alarms that notifi ed operators of oper- ational changes more frequently than needed. These nuisance alarms required operators to unproductively respond to hundreds of active alarms to identify and respond to those signifi cant to the oper- ation. This made it nearly impossible to quickly recognize and respond to legiti- mate issues in the process that needed to be fi xed. Limited visibility combined with too many alarm notifi cations resulted in extra work and lost productivity. "Once the company decided to expand the facility, we made the business case to upgrade our process automation software, too," said Josh Johansen, project engi- neer, The Mosaic Co. "We needed contex- tualized information intuitive enough for any employee to use, and a resolution for our over-alarming issues. This large-scale expansion was an excellent opportunity to fi nally move forward with a full visualiza- tion solution." Enhancing the View Automated Controls of Tampa Inc. de- signed and implemented Mosaic's new high-performance HMI utilizing the PlantPAx Library of Process Objects from Rockwell Automation. The New Wales facility already had an installed base of Rockwell Automation hardware and software, so making the upgrade was a smooth transition. The Plant- PAx distributed control system is based on open communication standards to streamline control and information fl ow across the plant. It also provides a com- prehensive and accurate picture of a fa- cility's operations, providing operators optimal and easy-to-understand insights, trends and alarms. As part of the DCS modernization, the facility's control base was expanded by 250%, making it a massive overhaul. The project took two years to fi nish with a sig- nifi cant hardware and software upgrade. Installation included a number of new controllers, motor control centers, vari- able frequency drives, I/O racks, servers, HMI clients and monitors. The facility installed 100 new high-performance HMI graphics screens, and customized 30% of the PlantPAx graphics library to better suit its needs. Data Revealed, Decisions Made Easy The upgrade, complemented by an ef- fective startup with minimal opera- tional delays, got the facility's alarm system under control. Now opera- tors can view, fi lter and disable un- necessary alarms. Better alarm de- sign reduced the facility's alarms by 50%, from more than 4,000 alarm tags to under 2,000. Plant-operators are now able to see legitimate threats without the distraction of nuisance alarms. With the new, integrated, high-per- formance HMI graphics, data is put into context. Operators now have clear- Fertilizer Producer Enhances Plant Effi ciency With Upgraded DCS During the DCS modernization project at Mosaic's New Wales, Florida, plant, the facility's control base was expanded by 250%. The project took two years to fi nish and included new controllers, motor control centers, variable frequency drives, I/O racks, servers, HMI clients and monitors, along with 100 high-performance HMI graphics screens.