AstraZeneca cuts instrumentation costs at Devon facility

Devon, UK - AstraZeneca has installed instrumentation from Georg Fischer alongside the pipelines, valves and fittings at the water treatment plant for a newly completed husbandry facility (Block M) at its Brixham Environmental Laboratory site in Devon.

The Brixham Environmental Laboratory was first-established in 1948 as a testing facility and provides a multi-disciplinary service to AstraZeneca and other pharmaceutical and chemical industries for the investigation and resolution of environmental issues and regulatory testing. Experienced laboratory teams investigate whether pharmaceuticals, other everyday products and wastes remain in the environment and what their effects may be in air, water and soil.

The primary objective for the project was to provide a good stable water supply while the instrumentation had to be simple and intuitive for the user. AstraZeneca Engineering put the contract to design and build the water treatment plant out to tender. The contract was won by Boultings, the solutions group that provides design, project management, installation and maintenance services.

Having won the contract Boultings specified Georg Fischer ABS pipe work and GF Type 134 electrically actuated ball valves and Type 546 ball valves, which were the main controlling valves. However, it was only at this point that Boultings became aware that Georg Fischer (GF) could offer a highly cost effective instrumentation solution also.

Sanjay Patel, key account manager at GF spoke to the engineers and designers at Boultings and was able to help them specify the equipment they needed. The team at Boultings were surprised at how cost-effective the SIGNET instrumentation was compared to the other, more traditional suppliers they had been looking at.

This was, in part, because the range is manufactured from plastic while other suppliers continue to offer metal instruments, as Patel explained: “The cost of metal around the world is increasing rapidly and we have seen this in our pipeline business with people happy to replace carbon steel or other metals with ABS, PVC etc. The same is now true of instrumentation.”


Of great interest is the diversity of instrumentation that has been specified from the SIGNET range to monitor such elements within the system as flow, level, temperature, pressure, pH and salinity. The fact that all of the pipe work, valves, fittings and instrumentation could be sourced from the one supplier obviously leads to benefits in terms of ease of integration and value for money.

SIGNET instruments used in the installation include: the Type 2551 Magmeter that can be installed into pipes ranging in size from 0.5 to 12 inches and is able to measure flow within the range of 0.05 to 10m/s with a maximum pressure rating of 10.3bar at 25C and a 4 to 20mA power source; the Type 8450 integral level/ pressure transmitter operating with the Type 2450 pressure sensor offers a 15 to 85C operating temperature, a 0 to 17bar operating pressure and a level range from 0 to 170m; the Type 5900 Salinity Monitor which has a backlit alphanumeric LCD and analogue dial.


The water’s conductivity and pH is monitored using SIGNET instruments before any salts, which are needed to bring the water up to the exact specification, are added. Controlling the movement of water around the plant are around 30 GF actuated valves whilst waste water from the laboratory area is sterilised using ozone and UV. The husbandry facility inside the laboratory itself accesses the treated water through a GF piping system.

The area engineer, Block M summarised the project saying, “The basic requirements of the water treatment plant were fairly straightforward but it was crucial that the system was robust and reliable. The pipe work was simple to install and the instrumentation has proved to be accurate and easy to use. The increased automation will allow us to look at how we operate as an engineering team in our quest for continuous improvement.”