Chevron Oronite Company LLC

INDUSTRY: HYDROCARBON PROCESSING
Chevron Oronite Company LLC
www.chevron.com/products/oronite/
“We were looking
for a SCADA system
that would be easy to
connect to our ERP
application and we also
wanted to implement
the ISA-95 standard.
The Wonderware
System Platform met
our expectations.”
Serge Talleux
Industrial IT Director
Making it Easy to Connect to an ERP Application While
Monitoring the Production of Additives for Oil and Gas
Goals
• Implement a SCADA system for a new additive
production unit
• Facilitate information sharing between shop
applications and the SAP ERP application
• Use thin clients to connect to the SCADA servers
• Determine standards that make it easier to reuse
and update applications
Challenges
• Adding different types of equipment to the ERP application
• Standardizing current terminology
• Meeting very short implementation deadlines
• Adopting the ISA-95 standard to define data
sharing between the shop floor and the ERP application
Solutions and Products
• Wonderware InTouch HMI for Terminal Services
• Wonderware Equipment Operations Module
• Wonderware System Platform
Results
• Terminology for different products and
measurement units were standardized
• Information sharing between the ERP
application and production units no longer
requires manual intervention
• Launching a new product and adding new items is handled without jeopardizing the existing product
• Modifications to an object are immediately
transferred to all of the graphic displays,
resulting in significant time savings
Gonfreville l’Orcher (Le Havre), France Chevron Oronite is a subsidiary of the Chevron
Corporation, one of the largest oil companies
in the world. The company specializes in the
production of additives for fuels and lubricants. It
is due in large part to these additives that one can
make it almost the entire way across France on one
tank of gas and drive 40,000 km between oil changes.
A production volume of 300,000 tons per year
makes the Gonfreville l’Orcher factory one of the
company’s largest manufacturing units, along with
Oak Point in the United States and Singapore,
which has four, more modest sites.
However, their primary role is to meet the needs of
the area in which they are located. The Gonfreville
l’Orcher site covers the markets in Europe, Africa,
and the Middle East. Each geographical area also
has its own sales force and significant autonomy.
This autonomy exists even when it comes to
technical choices. However, certain decisions
are made at the corporate level, and can have
a significant local impact. This is precisely what
happened when corporate management decided
to deploy integrated ERP (Entreprise Resource
Planning) management software from SAP on all of
the manufacturing and commercial sites.
The objective, as it always is in this type of
decision, was to improve the management and
control of all of the company’s operations, costs
and deadlines. To do this, the ERP application
sends manufacturing orders to the equipment
concerned with the specifications to be applied. In turn, supervisors provide the ERP application
with manufacturing reports, raw material volumes,
finished product quantities, and inventory status.
Two Simultaneous Operations: Connecting
to an ERP System and Implementing a New
SCADA Application
The announcement about the implementation of
an ERP application was made at a time when the
factory also had to set up a new reactor.
“This was a lot to handle at once. We realized
how beneficial an ERP application would be
for the company and we had studied the entire
situation, both existing applications and the new
one to be put into place. We did this all on our
own. Frankly, we have always developed our own
applications and kept up with the state-of-the-art
in technology,” said Serge Talleux, director of the
industrial IT service.
If the site’s only need had been to connect the
existing systems to the ERP application, the
problem would have been approached differently. In this case, however, a new control application
also had to be implemented, which prompted a
higher, broader approach to the problem.
It was quickly decided that a programmable
logic controller (PLC) should be used because
controllers were already part of the factory’s
environment, which included sixty controllers
managing approximately 15,000 inputs/outputs.
ISA-95 - A Key Advantage for the
Wonderware System Platform
The remaining tasks were to choose the
supervisory control software for the new
equipment and to connect all of the control
systems to the ERP application. This task was
difficult given the factory’s previous experience in
this area. A few years ago, a relatively basic ERP application
was installed and the industrial IT department
developed a program to enable communication
between control systems and this ERP application.
“The connection program that we had developed
had several thousand lines and it only included
a few of our supervisory servers. In addition, it
was a nightmare to maintain, because for any new
item to be manufactured, or an existing item to be
modified, you had to make some sort of change to
the program. It was out of the question to do the
same thing again because we have better things to
do than align program lines,” said Guillaume Labadie.
The SAP ERP application has brought with it
a standard that has changed everything. This
standard, the ISA-95 (known better under its
former name, S95) began in the United States and
is now a widely adopted international standard
(ISO/IEC 62264 and Afnor NF62264, in particular). This standard has the major advantage of
standardizing exchanges between the production
system and the ERP application.
“For the supervision of our new reactor, we
decided to go in a new direction and use the
latest in computer technology. More than
anything, we wanted a software program that was
compatible with ISA-95 because it guaranteed the
simplification of exchanges between the control
system and the ERP application. We were also
looking for a solution that accepts the connection
for thin client workstations. And finally, and this
was a very important aspect, we wanted a software
program that enabled us to design objects,” said Talleux.
A Major Project – Standardizing Terminology
To deploy the Wonderware System Platform, the
Chevron Oronite Gonfreville industrial IT team
began by becoming familiar with the ISA-95 standard. a long history, several different names and labels
that mean the same thing emerge over the years,
and several measurement units may be used to
quantify one parameter. In addition to this standardization work, routines
had to be created to calculate the parameters
required by the ERP application. Thus, new
counters had to be created that would enable the
upload all of the consumption information that
was needed for the ERP application. A previous
decision to reduce the number of control systems
installed on site had already led the industrial IT team to undertake a similar standardization project.
The standard consists of terminology and models
that describe both the structural (products,
materials, production facilities, and human
resources) and operational (capability, production)
aspects of the production systems used to support
information sharing. It also defines data attributes
and structures, production operation management
models, and transactions between management
and the shop floor.
“We knew that it would take time, but not that
much. But once everything is standardized, the
connection between the Wonderware System
Platform and the ERP application is very fast
because the two databases have the same
structure. And if we want to add a new model
or parameter later, it can be done immediately,
nothing is affected,” said Labadie.
“It is well-structured and detailed, but as with many
new standards, it takes a major effort to absorb
it all. To better understand it, and to ‘pick out’
what was most suitable for our situation, our team
attended a two-day training session on site given
by the Control Chain Group (CGC). This help was
very valuable to us,” said Talleux.
Objects and Thin Client Workstations A Bonus for the SCADA System
Implementing the ISA-95 standard involved a
major effort to standardize internal terminology. As is often the case on manufacturing sites with
In choosing the Wonderware System Platform, the
simple connection with the SAP ERP application
was not the only basis for the decision. Being
able to work with thin clients was also one of
the criteria. In particular, this enabled Chevron
Oronite to maintain a certain consistency between
their two systems.
To access information on the supervisory servers
installed up to this point, the Gonfreville site is
working with thin clients. This approach has the
advantage of using more robust (no moving
mechanical parts) and cost-effective workstations,
which do not require updating. Wonderware
already offered this option with Windows workstations.
advised them to attend training session for their
current products and to spend more time creating
standards instead.
“We were delighted that the company expanded
this option and that we can now use Linux
workstations. In terms of update frequency and
anticipated computer security, we will have a lot
less work,” said Talleux.
“Normally, when we develop supervisory
applications, we obtain the first graphic displays
very quickly. For a department director, this
is reassuring because he sees that the work is
progressing. With the object concept, it’s better
not to think about it. You wait impatiently for
months without seeing a single diagram. However,
once the basic objects (valves, regulators,
display devices, pumps, etc.) have been created,
everything goes very quickly,” said Talleux.
Redundancy was also a strong argument for
choosing the Wonderware System Platform. To
ensure high data availability, the data acquisition
system natively integrates a redundancy feature
using simple configuration, which means that
some applications can be put on one server and
others on a second server. If one of the servers
fails, the applications on the failed server are
automatically transferred to the second server.
And in the long run, this saves time. It is very
easy to modify both the graphics and attributes
(variables) of an existing object. Modifications are
immediately made on all of the display diagrams
containing the object in question. In fact, even
a child can create these supervisory displays. Godard remembers a high school student on a
discovery internship that was able to create block
diagrams on the very first day.
Gonfreville’s industrial IT department also wanted
to take the initiative with the supervisory features
of the platform as well.
Normally with SCADA applications, an effort is
made to not interfere with the procedures of the
operators stationed in the control rooms. In this
case, however, operators were directly involved in
the improvements made to their control interfaces. “We monitor technological developments and
we wanted to progress to the object concept.
Acquiring the Wonderware System Platform
enabled us to reach this next level. Here too, we
had to challenge ourselves because the object
concept means a profound change in habits,” said
Oliver Godard, who focuses on supervision (SCADA).
To do this, Chevron Oronite Gonfreville was able
to count on skilled advice from Wonderware
France, who cautioned them against rushing
forward with new software developments, and
The SCADA designers avoided the overuse of
color on the screen displays. Instead, they used
more neutral colors and only used bright colors for
important information so that it stands out better. Major work was also done on alarm displays.
Banners with endless lists of alarms are gone,
and only the alarms used for the operator are
displayed on the screen.
The design of the Wonderware System Platform
supervisory system has enabled Chevron Oronite
Gonfreville to turn a new corner.
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