Today, at the 2017 Automation Summit in Boca Raton, Fla., Siemens announced the winners of its 12th annual Customer Excellence Awards (CEA). The CEA’s have become an integral part of the Automation Summit recognizing the achievements of Siemens’ customers and partners who demonstrate advanced business practices using Siemens technologies and solutions. The awards provide an illustration to other end users on how they can leverage software and hardware to successfully automate and digitalize their manufacturing operations.
“The intensity and focus on digitalization has never been stronger,” says Raj Batra, president of Digital Factory, U.S. “This journey takes both capital deployment and a cultural transformation. It’s abundantly clear this year’s Customer Excellence Award winners – representing a diverse group of verticals – have adopted digitalization, enabling them to become faster and more flexible than competitors, without sacrificing security or efficiency.”
Siemens 2017 Customer Excellence Award winners include:
Shaw Industries Group, Inc., the world’s largest carpet manufacturer with more than $4B in annual sales and over 22,000 employees worldwide met with Siemens to discuss solutions for its greenfield commercial carpet tile plant in Northwest Georgia. The company needed to expand to meet growing production capacity and extend market leadership. Shaw needed a technology partner that could deliver solutions on-time and on-budget for this critical project. At the same time, the company also was looking for a partner that could continue to help Shaw innovate in an increasingly competitive industry.
Logical Systems Inc. (LSI), a Siemens solution partner, worked with Shaw to handle system integration which included control panel design, fabrication, programming, and commissioning. LSI’s expertise with Siemens solutions was critical to the successful implementation of the project.
Siemens was given the opportunity to compete for the US business after a similar partnership on a project in Asia. After an extensive evaluation, Siemens was selected to provide programmable logic computers (PLCs), drives, industrial networks, human machine interfaces (HMIs) and controls, all tied together with Siemens Totally Integrated Automation (TIA) portal.
The greenfield Shaw plant was the first major installation in Shaw’s commercial division to use safety PLC’s and safe communications to I/O and drives. This solution saved wiring/installation cost while providing improved diagnostics. Shaw is now utilizing Siemens Safety PLC solution as a standard in all commercial plants replacing programmable safety relays.
Siemens variable speed drives integrated seamlessly in the greenfield site with Siemens controllers. Siemens variable frequency drives (VFDs) also support EtherNet/IPTM protocol for modernization projects happening at existing plants that did not have Siemens controllers. Sinamics drives supports V/Hz, Vector, and Servo applications reducing spare parts.
Shaw provided critical input into product design and functional requirements both on Sinamics drives and TIA portal that have resulted in product enhancements. A collaborative environment where Shaw feedback could be used to develop products and optimize solutions is important to this partnership.
In addition, an educational package was provided that included simulators and Shaw specific digital content to allow maintenance personnel to gain experience on Siemens solutions.
INTEC Automated Controls, Inc., is a premier controls integrator in the Aerospace industry, providing turnkey controls engineering, programming, panel build, and electrical installation. Intec initially approached Siemens for the design of the Boeing Fuselage Automated Upright Build (FAUB) cradle control system. Ultimately, Siemens supplied the control system which included computer numerical controls (CNC), servo motors, PLCs, HMIs, industrial networks, drives, control products and industrial power supplies.
Before FAUB, Boeing workers installed thousands of rivets in the fuselage manually.
This manual process was very hard on the workers bodies and susceptible to error. The previous build process was not flexible, used little automation limiting the production rate and involved manual manipulation of the cradles to ensure correct alignment.
The new FAUB manufacturing process involves robots automatically installing rivets in the forward and aft sections of the fuselage. There is no fixed tooling in the six stations. AGVs deliver the assembly cradles to the stations which can each build a forward or aft section in any station. Workers manually connect power to the cradles and then the Intec control system takes over to align all of the hoop’s pitch, roll, and yaw axes. The Intec system interlocks to a Simatic IT MOM system, cell controllers, and the AGV system.
The new process has eliminated fatigue on workers arms and backs from manual riveting, rivet installation quality has been improved and the need for rework after inspection has been dramatically reduced, throughput has been increased, and production scheduling has been improved due to flexibility of the dynamic build cells.
Janssen Pharmaceutical Companies, part of the Johnson & Johnson Family of Companies, aims to transform individual lives and fundamentally change the way diseases are managed, interpreted, and prevented. Janssen works for change that will improve access to medicines: the best available treatment at an affordable price. It is developing treatments for patients in six important therapeutic areas of healthcare: Cardiovascular & Metabolism; Immunology; Infectious Diseases & Vaccines; Neuroscience; Oncology and Pulmonary Hypertension.
A PCS 7 based Line Control and SCADA (LC&S) was installed in Janssen-Ortho, LLC plant in Gurabo, Puerto Rico. The LC&S in conjunction with Siemens Process Analytical Technology comprises the Central Control System (CCS) of the Continuous Manufacturing Line. The Siemens Process Analytical Technology (PAT) package which contains configurations for all PAT applications acquire data from the PAT analyzers, interpret the data using chemometric models developed by Janssen, and provides results and diagnostics information to the LC&S system.
Janssen Pharmaceutical Companies has been a Siemens customer globally for over 20 years. Technology from Siemens in partnership with academia as well as several OEMs and solution partners was used to create the first continuous manufacturing process at Janssen Pharmaceuticals in the Oral Solid Dose platform (OSD)
Janssen Pharmaceutical Companies became the first pharmaceutical company to receive FDA approval to change over from batch to continuous manufacturing for an approved product (PREZISTA® (darunavir) 600 mg tablets for the treatment of HIV). By incorporating state-of-the-art continuous production technology, Janssen has been able to produce a high-quality product while meeting the FDA’s challenge to accelerate the delivery of innovative therapies for patients.
TenarisBayCity, located in Bay City, Texas, is a leading supplier of tubes and related services for the world’s energy industry and certain other industrial applications. Tenaris is currently building a $1.8 billion seamless pipe manufacturing facility that will complement its integrated global manufacturing network as well as its existing North American facilities and further strengthen its domestic production of premium connections and seamless requirements for our customers.
The Tenaris Bay City plant utilizes a fully-automated solution to develop seamless pipe. By fully-automating the plant, Tenaris was able to drastically improve operator safety, product traceability, and plant efficiency. Selecting TIA Portal as the plant’s automation foundation, allowed Tenaris to use the same engineering framework across the entire plant and with over 50 OEMs and integrators worldwide. Tenaris leveraged the global reach of Siemens to overcome this lofty challenge and successfully implement a full Siemens solution at a multi-billion dollar plant.
In addition to TIA Portal, the facility is implementing PLCs, HMIs (wireless/mobile & standard), SCADA, networking, controls, low voltage and medium voltage motors, variance frequency drives, mechanical Drives, motor control centers, switchgear, switchboards and services.
Upon completion later this year, Tenaris will be the largest TIA Portal installation in the world.
The 2017 Automation Summit, with more than 60 breakout sessions led by Siemens customers and partners as well as hands-on training sessions, is a user-based conference with more than 700 participants and focused on “Community. Experiences. Productivity.” The event is led by two Siemens divisions in the U.S. – Digital Factory and Process Industries and Drives.
Siemens Digital Factory offers a comprehensive portfolio of seamlessly integrated hardware, software and technology-based services in order to support manufacturing companies worldwide in enhancing the flexibility and efficiency of their manufacturing processes and reducing the time to market of their products.
Siemens Process Industries and Drives helps its customers increase productivity, safety, reliability, efficiency and time-to-market for plants and processes with innovative, integrated technology across the entire lifecycle.
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