The scope of the project comprises four plants for plastic granules of different designs for the manufacture of various products. These are fed by AZO conveyor technology from 18 silos, which feed the raw materials to the process via weighfeeders.

A batch process is used to produce a color-material mixture that is added to the main process. The production of this raw material component is largely self-sufficient.

The complex interaction of all plant components involved in the production process can only be successful in such a project if an end-to-end automation solution is installed.

Therefore, a solution had to be created that brings together all plant components with as few interfaces as possible. BSG has many years of experience and process competence in this area, both in PLC and IT project planning.

Large parts of BSG's engineering solutions were used in this project. These are divided into three areas. ONEoperate stands for the automation and operation of individual machines or entire production lines. Furthermore ONEview, which is used as a control system in the control room. The core of the entire automation is ONEexchange.

This software contains essential parts of an MES and connects all plant components with each other. In addition, it forms the interfaces to an ERP system, in this case SAP, and the laboratory information system LIMS.

At the beginning, an order is written from the SAP system into the ONEexchange software. As information, among other things, the required material and the required quantity are transferred.

ONEexchange creates a bridge between competences of business planners and plant operators in production. An order consists of two parts in the Trinseo plant.

First, the main order for continuous production over the production lines. Furthermore, a secondary order - in this case a batch process for a color mixture, which is required for the main order. The division of the total order into main and side order takes place in the ONEexchange system.

The main order is assigned the production line and the corresponding production program within the production planning. The secondary order contains the details of the quantity required for the main order and also a driving program.

The secondary order is a batch process in which a color mixture is created. This is added to the main order in the appropriate quantity. The complexity here is enormous, as this process is largely fully automated.

Involved are almost 30 metering stations, an automated warehouse for color components, a manual metering station for very small quantities in the gram range, and finally a mixer that mixes the individual components in the mixing container. The transport of these mixing containers to the individual stations such as storage locations, dosing stations, mixers and production lines is carried out by several fully automated industrial trucks (AGV).

The management of the storage locations and their locations is organized in ONEexchange. The sequence of stations to be approached for a batch is also stored in this system. ONEexchange transmits the sequence to the AGVs, which approach these stations automatically.

Special components or very small quantities that cannot be batched automatically are dosed into the mixing container at a manual dosing station. For this purpose, an employee receives the material and the required quantity at a ONEoperate station. The check of the correctness of the material delivery is carried out via a hand scanner and registered in the ONEexchange system. Through an interface to the batching scale, the batched quantity is also visualized and checked at ONEoperate.

Due to the automatic sequence of the batch process and the guided operation at the manual dosing station with plausibility check, errors in the batch process are nearly excluded. After completion of the batch, the mixing container is transported by an AGV to a specified storage location and is available for the main job on demand.

In the main process, the finished end product is created via a production line. A total of four production lines are installed at the Trinseo plant in the Netherlands. These are set up differently, as a wide variety of end products require different line configurations.

However, the end products always consist of a main component and several secondary components, including the color mixture from the batch process. Feeding into the production lines is done from the raw material silos via several differential proportioning scales. In ONEexchange, the main orders are created. A production line and the corresponding driving program are assigned to a main order.

A driving program consists of all data necessary for production. Among other things, it contains dosing ratios of the required materials, temperatures of the tempering zones of the line, and speeds. These travel programs are stored in the ONEexchange database and can be easily assigned.

Due to the database organization of all data necessary for production, sources of errors are excluded. The release of a main order is carried out from ONEexchange to the ONEoperate system. Thereby, the driving program is loaded to the respective production line. The operator is shown the currently pending order at the operating station of the production line.

ONEoperate includes complete automation of the production line, so that no data has to be transferred manually. After a short setup time, the main job is started by the operator of the line at the push of a button. From this point on, the entire rest of the process is automatic.

The line is started up via a step chain. The raw materials are fed fully automatically via corresponding, permanently installed conveyor paths and via the AGVs. Here, the raw materials are automatically brought to the appropriate removal points so that there is no interruption of the continuous production process.

In both PLC and IT programming, the processes are logistically optimized in such a way that the color mixing process (discontinuous) runs in parallel with the production process (continuous). At no time is human intervention required.

The mixes are parked on time by the AGVs in a rack system and automatically supplied just-in-time to the respective production line during production. During production, empty containers are likewise fully automatically replaced with full ones, allowing production to run continuously.

When production approaches the desired order quantity, the conveying of all raw materials is calculated and coordinated so that when the target quantity is reached, all containers and scales are almost empty. The advantage here is that no materials have to be disposed of at the end of the order.

In addition, the cleaning time is minimized considerably. The fully automatic cleaning of the mixer should also be mentioned here, in which the AGVs bring appropriate cleaning containers to the mixer. These cleaning containers can be used several times and are filled with new cleaning material as required. This whole process is also fully automatic.

The different start-up materials are also managed in ONEexchange. This material is stored in containers and reused by the AGVs as rework in the production processes. Either already in the currently running job or in the next suitable job.

As a secondary condition in this automatic process, there are materials that may no longer be used. These are collected and transported to a big bag loading point if the quantity is sufficient.

All batched quantities and the filling levels of the individual storage locations are recorded by ONEexchange. From the ONEexchange system, a write-back of the consumed materials to the SAP system takes place in hourly intervals as well as at the end of the order.

Thus, all materials of the total order can be tracked via the Track&Trace function. This includes both the materials from the main process and those from the batch process. The manufactured quantity of the end product is reported to the SAP system. The start-up material is also recorded in this way and can be returned to the production process depending on its quality.

A plant of this complexity generates a lot of data and information. For this purpose, the ONEview system has been installed in a control room. At this control station, the operator has the complete production with all plants in view and can monitor and, if necessary, intervene without having to go directly to the plant.

So-called information screens are installed at central points in the plant. On these, the most important data and statuses of the production plant, in particular of the production lines, are displayed on an overview screen.

For quality assurance and reporting for Trinseos customers, ONEexchange creates the order via an interface in the laboratory system LIMS. This reduces the workload of the laboratory considerably, since the order data no longer have to be entered manually in LIMS. Potential sources of error have thus also been eliminated here. The laboratory only needs to analyze the samples and enter the results.

Additional reports can be generated via ONEexchange. Besides warehouse or machine order report, also an OEE report is possible. The different plant statuses are transferred both automatically and manually from the ONEoperate system to ONEexchange.