When Durban-based RCL Foods embarked on a modernisation journey at one of its three sugar mills, it turned to Schneider Electric.
The company has over 20 000 employees across three core divisions, consumer, sugar and milling, and logistics. Its Pongola mill is one of three sugar mills which collectively produce over 544 310.8 tonnes of sugar annually.
Situated in the north of KwaZulu-Natal, the mill’s distributed control system (DCS) system for the juice preparation and crystallisation areas was obsolete, and in desperate need of an upgrade.
This caused the mill to suffer extensive downtime, breakages and stoppages, including 33 to 40 blackouts each season. Moreover, its dependence on external resources for any maintenance resulted in extended production losses due to slow response times.
RCL’s modernisation needed to achieve several things – improved uptime and reliability, a scalable and expandable solution, more operational information, and process control optimisation.
In addition, it needed to empower its workforce to improve decision making, and gain access to local support and expertise.
The solution
Schneider Electric provided connectivity and efficiency with its EcoStruxure Plant solution, that features integrated software and domain expertise, enabling better data access, visualisation and connectivity to the software.
To modernise RCL’s DCS, Schneider Electric supplied the System Platform 2014 R2 as the supervisory to the juice preparation and crystallisation plant areas of the Pongola sugar mill. Each of these areas uses a level-3 M580 processor, X80 I/O and ABE field interface units.
During the course of the project, the scope was expanded, and the sugar handling system was added on to the new M580 processor, thereby adding a platform for the expansion of the refinery section of the plant and removing the last bit of the old DCS at the site. Remote X80 I/O was used in a redundant ring with NRP links to fibre to distant substations. Magelis HMIs were used for the local displays in the factory.
To deliver the combined IIoT-ready hardware and software solution, Schneider Electric partnered with Control Software Solutions (CSS), a Master Alliance System Integrator Partner and Certified Wonderware Partner, due to their extensive expertise in innovative and customised solutions, as well as their track record in successfully delivering solutions using System Platform and Schneider Electric PLCs.
The results
The results achieved by RCL were remarkable. The food giant gained a reliable and flexible automation system underpinned by the vast capabilities of the IIoT. This returned control to the hands of RCL operators and was backed by strong local support.
The company realised a 20 per cent increase in the plant’s throughput, improved competitiveness and reduced downtime for better reliability. It also gained enabled technology, which simplified process optimisation, as well as a modern, high performance PLC system with high availability in RIO and Hot Standby.
Other benefits include remote visibility and diagnosis, improved operational information thanks to new software standards, expert local support and in-house first-line support.
Alan Williamson, manufacturing executive at Pongola Sugar Mill, RCL Foods, says: ‘Over the period of implementation, the Schneider Electric system has substantially contributed towards our 20 per cent increase in throughput in the plant. Our vision for the future is to continue modernising the plant in partnership with Schneider Electric and to achieve our mission of ‘more food to more people, more often’.’
