Fermentation Expansion
Industry
Food and Beverage
Business Issue
The client received approval from the FDA to market and sell an Omega-3 food additive. This necessitated an expansion of their existing facility to accommodate the increased demand.
The key business driver was the necessity to increase production by 1 million liters within 12 months of ground breaking for the plant expansion.
Project Summary
This project encompassed Design, Development, Installation, and Start-up for a new Biotech facility, adjacent to the existing production facility. The goal was to increase production by 300% using a high level of automation to increase yield with minimal staffing additions.
Automated Batch control was implemented on Media Preparation, Sterilization, Fermentation, CIP and Utility systems. 95% of the I/O was bus based using Fieldbus, ASi and Device Net technologies.
Scope Responsibility
Cornerstone Controls was responsible for the following areas:
- Project management of turnkey automation project.
- Consulting services on overall batch/biotech automation & PID design issues.
- Consultant training of key management staff on S88 model.
- Automation engineering, design, and development of DeltaV control system. Systems
included:
- Media Preparation
- APV Sterilization Skids (plate/frame heat exchangers)
- Seed Vessels
- Fermentors
- APV CIP skids
- Automated SIP utilizing SUDMO Mix Proof Valves.
- System commissioning & Operator Training.
- Furnished Emerson control valves and instrumentation.
- Design and furnished DeltaV control panels with Fieldbus, Device Net and ASi Bus networks.
- Design of Fieldbus and ASi bus networks.
- Large start-up shift based effort to ensure early production and yield goals were met.
- 4 controllers with 1200 I/O, 6 workstations, 1 Application Station, and 1 Batch Historian
Results
Plant production increased to 1 million liters, an additional benefit of the fully automated plant was an increase in yield of approximately 50%.