Article

COR uses Profibus to control and supervise their own security lines.

By the Editorial Team

The pharmaceutical sector is a complex and hard understanding one because it needs to be aware of the numerous factors that typically determine the return on each economical environment , rules and requirements regarding the security and health of operators and end-users.
Being in a competitive environment means having a high profile and long expertise, and investing in new technologies in order to improve the products and process securities.
However, the intrinsic complexity of the continous process and the severe regulations of the pharmaceutical sector often lead the companies to maintain a cautious attitude against technological innovations and the use of field buses.
However, the intrinsic complexity of the continous process and the severe regulations of the pharmaceutical sector often lead the companies to maintain a cautious attitude against technological innovations and the use of field buses.

Osmosis plant

COR's expertise is shown through the complete line of water clearing plants that can be automized with high reliability due to a secure and simple control.

Water automation
The company appears among the most competitive ones in this sector thanks to its ability to supply "turnkey" systems with lines in a complete continous cycle.
It has the ability to do the planning, production, installation, testing and to validate the entire water clearing line. In the process, the feeding water is inserted in the plant where is submitted to a pre-treatment first phase with pre-filtering. Then it is passed to a reverse osmosis process in a single or double phase and to the electrodeionizators that are producing clear water. After this, the water is carried out to a storage tank and is ready to be distributed or to pass through distillers in order to become ultraclear water. From here, the water is passed to a second storage tank, and then to the distribution loops or to clear vapour generators, and to prepared tanks.
Thanks to the investments done in Research and Development (Ricerca & Sviluppo), Cor was able to improve a new technology that increases once more the level of security in the water clearing lines. This new technology consists in the construction of a plant with an external condenser away from the distiller columns. It helps to increase the costs of production, but is assuring an elevated security level in case of condenser tubes loss.

Distiller screen

In the end, the line management is simplified and completely automized.
The supervision and control of clear and ultraclear water production and distribution lines are fundamental, first of all, because of the operators workflow management. With the system used by Cor, thanks to the digital signature, each action is being registered in real-time and conserved with its relative information (activity type, date and time, responsable, ecc.). In the real-time process control, the automized management permits to visualize the process variable values and use them to get the production started, interrupted or modified, and to manage the alarms. It also permits to simplify the collection of reliable, authentic, and traceable information.
The entire line is supervised thanks to a single panel control, to a PLC and to a software. The automation system uses Profibus to connect the PLC to the remote input/output modules. This architecture permits to simplify the job, control everything and trace the data from a single workstation.
The development system supplied by Azzali Elettronica and developed by Automa, was choosen for the delicate task of developing the supervision software. Thanks to its reliability and the complete integration with Windows, Automa's Super-Flash simplified the operations allowing to supervise the PLC and all the electric sensors in real-time.
The software architecture is open and flexible and permits to control all water cycle phases simultaneously. If a specified value exceeds the security margin, Super-Flash sends an alarm message thanks to an existent connection to Internet via modem.