ANYTIME, ANYWHEREMatt Morrissey, Siemens, Canada,

explores the use of the Internet of

Things to achieve total automation

transparency, and to provide complete

access at all times.

IntroductionWords like Industry 4.0 and the Internet of Things (IoT) seem to be everywhere these days. But what do they mean for a rugged industry like cement? Isn’t there already more than enough to do: emails to answer, maintenance to attend to, customers to manage, measurements to validate… the list goes on. So how can even more data actually save time?

Reprinted from May 2017World Cement

A day in the life of a cement plant manager You are in your cement plant’s adjacent quarry and want to check the efficiency of one of the primary crushers. You pull out your cell phone to see the flow rate of the belt scale – good, it is right where it should be.

On the way back from the quarry, you get a call that a filter bag has ripped and an acoustic sensor has detected particulate in one of the plant’s baghouses. You get your phone out again, after coming to a safe stop, and confirm this, based on the alarm from one of your Sitrans AS100 acoustic sensors that is over range. You tell the repair crew to fix the filter and then continue driving back to the plant.

You pass the stacker-reclaimer and watch as the growing pile is being monitored by a Siemens Echomax XPS-15 transducer and MultiRanger ultrasonic controller. You take out your phone to check the pile’s level, confirming that it matches your rough eye measurement of it.

Moving on to chemical storage, you notice an older rusty pipe with a Sitrans FC430 coriolis flowmeter on it. You connect to the flowmeter using your smart device, checking its value and comparing it to the trend in the device’s data log. Looks like the flow isn’t being restricted just yet, so replacing the pipe can wait for a rainy day.

Another call from the control room: temperature sensors have indicated that the kiln is cooling down! That is not good. Productivity of the whole plant would be affected if something happened there. A quick look at the system via your phone shows that one of the pressure transmitters on the fuel feed is also below spec. Perhaps the fuel line is clogged, or worse, maybe the pressure has dropped due to a leak somewhere. You and your crew head there straight away.

As the crew fixes the fuel line, you finally head back to the control room. On the way in you remember that a train delivery is coming later today, so you use your phone to access the finished cement silo, double checking the level from the silo’s Sitrans LR560 radar level transmitter. You know that ten rail cars will hold about 50% of the silo and the measurement shows the level is above 75%.

After all that, it is probably time for a coffee break, don’t you think?

Knowledge any time, from everywhere Complete knowledge of what is happening at a plant, and with each instrument, at all times, is key.

Much more than a traditional distributed control system (DCS), Simatic PCS 7 combines a

Critical process information can be accessed on any device: tablet, phone, or computer.

Imagine knowing the specifications happening here, no matter where you are.

Integrating process information into a facility allows more time to plan for enhancements and other improvements.

Reprinted from May 2017World Cement

scalable architecture with powerful engineering tools and a wide variety of additional functions, such as alarm management, process safety, and asset management, all of which can be integrated seamlessly into the existing environment.

CEMAT, based on Simatic PCS 7, represents a complete philosophy on how to operate a cement plant, how to make diagnoses to keep downtimes to a minimum in the event of a plant problem, and how to interconnect drives, MCCs, power devices, and process instrumentations from the plant.

Simatic PCS 7 distributed control system from Siemens provides transparency for the automation system – for cement plant managers or those in any other industry – through a phone, tablet, or PC via a webserver with a process overview interface. Simatic PDM is used on a tablet or PC via a web server for complete access to the instruments for diagnosis or process variables.

l Checking the measurements of all belt scales in a quarry from the comfort of a truck on a cold winter day?

l Resetting the totalisers on two coriolis flowmeters on grinding additives without walking past a seemingly endless series of pipes?

l Lowering the 100% level on a 15 level instruments to help reduce inventory cost?

l Changing the scaling of submerged pressure transmitters without leaving the control room?

G_P

CS7_

XX

_003

88

Web Client- OS- Maintenance- Information

Optionale Clients- Simulation mit SIMIT- MES/MIS mit SIMATIC IT- Plant Lifecycle Management COMOS

Optionale Server- Web Server- OpenPCS 7- Information Server

OS/Batch/Route Control/Maintenance Clients

OS Server, Batch Server, Route Control Server, Maintenance Server, Process Historian

Standard-Automati-sierungssysteme

Hochverfügbare Automatisierungs-systeme

Sicherheitsgerichtete Automatisierungs-systeme

Engineering Stationen

Mobiler Client

Ethernet, Office LAN

Netzwerk-drucker

Front Firewall

Back Firewall

Wägesysteme

Wireless HART

Ex-Bedi-en-terminal

Y-Link

GasanalyseIE/PB Link

IE/PB Link + DP/PA Koppler

PA Link/FF Link

PA Link/FF Link

Zone 2 Zone 2Zone 1 Zone 1

Zone 1

Integriertes Energie-management

Integrierte Antriebe

SCALANCE X Switch

Modbus, serielle Kopplung

ET 200Msingle/redundant

ET 200MF-Baugruppen

Operator System (OS)Single Station

SIMATIC PCS 7performance you trust

PA Link

PCS 7 AS mEC RTXmit S7-300 I/Os

Embedded Automatisierungssysteme

Kompaktsysteme

PCS 7 BOX

OS Client 427D

ET 200pro ET 200M

ET 200M

ET 200SP

SIMOCODE profor PROFINET

ET 200M

PROFINET

PROFINET

PRO

FIBU

S D

P

PRO

FIBU

S D

P

PROFIBUS DP-iS

PROFIBUS DP

PROFIBUS PA

PA/FF H1

ET 200SP ET 200iSP ET 200iSP

ET 200pro

ET 200S

MTA

AFD

AFS

AFDiS

AFD AFDiS

PA/FF H1

PROFIBUS PA

AFD

AFD AFD

AFDiSPR

OFI

NET

ERP

ET 200M, Ex-I/O, HART

AS-Interface

Industrial Wireless LAN

Industrial Ethernet

Management Console

Siemens Totally Integrated Automation makes it possible to merge many monitoring systems together in one plant, providing a complete solution for automation.

The combination of reliable process instruments and Simatic PDM with PCS 7 helps take the worries away from operating stress, allowing real-time readings on a device, wherever needed.

Siemens’ process instruments, including level, pressure, temperature, flow, and weighing, are the ears and eyes of the process.

Reprinted from May 2017World Cement

Real-time, dependable monitoring For remote operating and monitoring of Sitrans instruments or other products, a tablet or PC with web access can access Simatic PDM via a web server. This gives direct access to any device on the bus, using standard industrial protocols and an EDD.

If a tablet or smart phone is used instead of a normal work station, it is mobile and can connect to the network over wireless. Complete visualisation of the process and measurements are available for quick and easy access. For example, in a meeting when a tough question comes up about inventory or maybe about an issue in production. It can be checked in real time and an answer can be provided by accessing the data virtually.

Partnering with process instruments Data, however, no matter how readily available, is only as good as the sensors it is coming from.

Take the Heracles cement plant in Greece, which uses Siemens level measurement in its raw material silos. “We can now rely on the level system from Siemens to provide us with the automated control we need for efficient raw mill feeding,” said the company’s technical consultant at the plant.

Chinese cement producer Longyuan Construction Anhui Cement Company Ltd. uses Siemens weighing technology to ensure accuracy in its

custody transfers. “After installing Siemens belt scales, we saw a real difference in our current operations,” said Longyuan Construction’s director of engineering.

The electrical supervisor at St. Marys Cement in Bowmanville, Canada, which has used a host of Siemens instrumentation throughout its plant for decades, when asked about these devices, stated: “they just work”.

Even in the age of IOT and the digital factory, it is still vital that a plant’s machinery and automation “just work.” Without accurate, reliable, and rugged process instrumentation and analytics, that day-in-the-life, as described previously, is made much more difficult, at best, or nearly impossible at worst. But the seamless integration of sensors and smart device provides the ability to deal with issues before they become problems.

Industry 4.0 and automation with smart devicesSiemens instrumentation and automation cannot solve all of the world’s problems, but Simatic PCS 7 with PDM makes some easier to deal with.

With the advent of Industry 4.0, this option for transparency and connectivity takes process instrumentation to a different level, giving unparalleled control and access.