GSK trials wireless at Irish plant

Cork, Republic of Ireland – GlaxoSmithKline is trialling wireless technology at its pharmaceutical ingredients plant in Cork to see if it can cut costs by providing a better understanding of water usage at the facility.

The Emerson Smart Wireless system, with Rosemount wireless flow and pressure transmitters, is part of plans to create a network for adding new process instrumentation, such as, in the near-term, level monitoring devices. The technology has initially been installed on two new storage tanks.

“GlaxoSmithKline is continuously looking to improve plant performance by increasing the number of parameters measured,” explained Emmett Martin, services & automation manager at the site.

“Water is a considerable overhead to the plant so it is important that we monitor flow rates to manage consumption, and to help identify any usage trends.”

The Cork site produces a range of bulk active ingredients for use in the formulation of prescription drugs. The existing water storage facility was too small and had no measurement instrumentation in place.

Two new storage tanks were installed along with a new pipework infrastructure. The tanks are located around 300 metres from the main control room and there was no existing cabling in place. A wired installation would have required new power and data cables to be buried in trenches, at significant cost.

Ten Smart Wireless devices were installed including six Rosemount pressure transmitters, two Rosemount flow transmitters and two Rosemount level transmitters. The technology integrates with the existing automation equipment.

Flow data is transmitted every 30 seconds and pressure and level data every 300 seconds to a wireless gateway positioned on the control room roof. This is connected using a serial connection to the existing DeltaV digital automation system that controls the plant utilities. From here the flow and pressure measurements are sent to a data historian and are available to plant operators for regular monitoring and reporting.

The new data obtained has enabled GSK to clearly identify water usage for different areas of the plant, providing a far better understanding of the costs. GlaxoSmithKline is now in a position to identify changes.

“We regard the installation of wireless very much as a two-stage process,” explained Martin. “The first step is to establish a wireless network and let it prove itself over a period of time. The next step is to expand the network and use wireless whenever it is more cost effective than a wired alternative.”

“We are more than satisfied with the solution, which is proving to be reliable with no signal loss,” said Martin. “Based on a successful implementation, at some point in the future we are perhaps, looking towards a plant with no wires.”