The Mosaic Company enhances decision-making capabilities with modern DCS

19 December, 2018

As part of the DCS modernisation, the facility’s control base was expanded by 250%; making it a massive overhaul. The project took two years to finish with a significant hardware and software upgrade.

Installation included a number of new controllers, motor control centers, variable frequency drives, I/O racks, servers, HMI clients and monitors. The facility created 100 new high-performance HMI graphics screens, and customised 30% of the PlantPAx graphics library to better suit its needs.

Data revealed, decisions made easy

With a successful PlantPAx distributed control system upgrade and an effective start-up with minimal operational delays, the team was thrilled with the new system.

The incorporated alarm configuration and management feature got the facility’s alarm system under control. Now operators can view, filter and disable unnecessary alarms. Better alarm design reduced the facility’s alarms by 50% – from more than 4000 alarm tags to under 2000.

Plant-operators are now able to see legitimate threats without the distraction of nuisance alarms.

With the new, integrated, high-performance HMI graphics, data is put into context. Operators now have clear-cut benchmarks showing desirable data ranges to quickly see when equipment and processes are abnormal.

With intuitive graphics, Mosaic’s operators can now understand the production data in their HMI and are able to make more informed decisions. Rather than a slew of numbers, the new system showcases useful information.

Additionally, the new system provides a simplified presentation that utilises colours more strategically. Objects are purposefully designed to blend into the background so only important data stands out.

Alarm criticality is communicated by various colour and shape combinations established by the PlanPAx library. This prevents unwanted noise, so data can be processed quicker, further improving operator productivity along the way.

“Operators now have vital information available at their fingertips – information that any employee can quickly understand and react to,” Johansen said. “Our long-term goal is to ease training and reduce downtime with a standard system program across all our facilities.”

The results mentioned above are specific to The Mosaic Company’s use of Rockwell Automation products and services in conjunction with other products. Specific results may vary for other customers. PlantPAx is a trademark of Rockwell Automation Inc.

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