Irish upgrade delivers benefits galore
2 Jun 2008
Irish Distillers Group's Midleton distillery in east Cork produces some of the world's best-known Irish whiskeys. Combining a number of distilleries in one, Midleton is a complex plant that relies on a sophisticated industrial Ethernet control network.
The Midleton distillery was opened in 1975 as further expansion of the Jameson, Paddy and Powers original distilleries, on a new site next to the Old Midleton Distillery in east Cork. The Midleton distillery occupies a 45-hectare site, and is unique in that both grain and pot whiskeys are produced there. It is the special blends of these two whiskeys that give the unique character to many of IDG's whiskey brands.
Effectively combining a number of distilleries into one, the Midleton plant is a complex and sophisticated operation. Indeed, the increasing complexity of the operations at Midleton meant that the existing fibre-optic based network became too slow and cumbersome to suit its production requirements.
Forming the heart of the control system at the distillery, the fibre-optic SCADA network extends through all the production areas, including the grain intake area, the brewhouse, the fermentation plant, the stillhouse, the boilerhouse, the feeds recovery area, the vathouse, and the wastewater treatment plant.
"We had used a fibre-optic star topology to network the various SCADA PCs in the different production area control centres, but although it was state-of-the-art when it went in, the network was quickly becoming a limiting factor," says Michael Tracey, engineering manager at the Midleton distillery.
"Even at 100Mbps we were finding the fibre connections too slow, whilst the star topology and the use of unmanaged switches meant that it was difficult to expand the system and diagnose faults," he explained.
Tracey wanted a system that would prove faster, simpler to manage and more tolerant of faults to ensure high availability of the network. He opted for high speed, industrially hardened, managed Ethernet switches from GarrettCom Europe, which are now used throughout the SCADA network, linking all the production areas on a fibre-optic ring at gigabit speeds using RS-Ring Technology.
Designed to meet requirements of high performance and increased configuration flexibility, the GarrettCom managed switches combine gigabit fibre ports with choices of both 100Mb and 10Mb fibre or copper ports. These units can all be mixed and matched within any given switch to meet the needs of the application.
"We chose the GarrettCom switches for a number of reasons," says Michael Tracey. "Perhaps the most important was GarrettCom's RS-Ring redundancy technology, which provides fast fault recovery in Ethernet LANs, even over the long distances that are typical in a large plant such as the Midleton distillery. Also important were the facts that the switches are both managed products and genuine industrial products.
The distillery is an extremely challenging environment for control components, so we needed products that were industrially hardened, continued Tracey.
"The main challenge is that many of the control components can be exposed to either dust or ethanol. Therefore they must have the correct ATEX classification for the hazardous area they are located in. Fibre-optic cable must be considered when installing a control network in an environment with large motors, ie. electrical noise," he explained.
According to Tracey, the enhanced Ethernet capabilities means the Midleton operation is in shape to meet continuing growth in demand and have also opened up new opportunities to upgrade the control systems across the production facilities:
"We are investigating the opportunity to upgrade the SCADA PC/PLC peer-to-peer control protocol between the different plant areas to avail of the high speed and availability provided by the GarrettCom network. The larger bandwidth provided by the GarrettCom network also gives us the opportunity to expand our Data Historian for the plant," he said.
In terms of building on the success of the project at Midleton Distillery, Tracey would like Ethernet technology suppliers to provide network interface components that are more flexible and 'plug and play'. It would be useful, he added, to have "a device that would support different protocols, such as Modbus and Arcnet, over TCP/IP to utilise the Ethernet physical network".
The Midleton distillery was opened in 1975 as further expansion of the Jameson, Paddy and Powers original distilleries, on a new site next to the Old Midleton Distillery in east Cork. The Midleton distillery occupies a 45-hectare site, and is unique in that both grain and pot whiskeys are produced there. It is the special blends of these two whiskeys that give the unique character to many of IDG's whiskey brands.
Effectively combining a number of distilleries into one, the Midleton plant is a complex and sophisticated operation. Indeed, the increasing complexity of the operations at Midleton meant that the existing fibre-optic based network became too slow and cumbersome to suit its production requirements.
Forming the heart of the control system at the distillery, the fibre-optic SCADA network extends through all the production areas, including the grain intake area, the brewhouse, the fermentation plant, the stillhouse, the boilerhouse, the feeds recovery area, the vathouse, and the wastewater treatment plant.
"We had used a fibre-optic star topology to network the various SCADA PCs in the different production area control centres, but although it was state-of-the-art when it went in, the network was quickly becoming a limiting factor," says Michael Tracey, engineering manager at the Midleton distillery.
"Even at 100Mbps we were finding the fibre connections too slow, whilst the star topology and the use of unmanaged switches meant that it was difficult to expand the system and diagnose faults," he explained.
Tracey wanted a system that would prove faster, simpler to manage and more tolerant of faults to ensure high availability of the network. He opted for high speed, industrially hardened, managed Ethernet switches from GarrettCom Europe, which are now used throughout the SCADA network, linking all the production areas on a fibre-optic ring at gigabit speeds using RS-Ring Technology.
Designed to meet requirements of high performance and increased configuration flexibility, the GarrettCom managed switches combine gigabit fibre ports with choices of both 100Mb and 10Mb fibre or copper ports. These units can all be mixed and matched within any given switch to meet the needs of the application.
"We chose the GarrettCom switches for a number of reasons," says Michael Tracey. "Perhaps the most important was GarrettCom's RS-Ring redundancy technology, which provides fast fault recovery in Ethernet LANs, even over the long distances that are typical in a large plant such as the Midleton distillery. Also important were the facts that the switches are both managed products and genuine industrial products.
The distillery is an extremely challenging environment for control components, so we needed products that were industrially hardened, continued Tracey.
"The main challenge is that many of the control components can be exposed to either dust or ethanol. Therefore they must have the correct ATEX classification for the hazardous area they are located in. Fibre-optic cable must be considered when installing a control network in an environment with large motors, ie. electrical noise," he explained.
According to Tracey, the enhanced Ethernet capabilities means the Midleton operation is in shape to meet continuing growth in demand and have also opened up new opportunities to upgrade the control systems across the production facilities:
"We are investigating the opportunity to upgrade the SCADA PC/PLC peer-to-peer control protocol between the different plant areas to avail of the high speed and availability provided by the GarrettCom network. The larger bandwidth provided by the GarrettCom network also gives us the opportunity to expand our Data Historian for the plant," he said.
In terms of building on the success of the project at Midleton Distillery, Tracey would like Ethernet technology suppliers to provide network interface components that are more flexible and 'plug and play'. It would be useful, he added, to have "a device that would support different protocols, such as Modbus and Arcnet, over TCP/IP to utilise the Ethernet physical network".
