Huntsman Tioxide - FIS Visibility

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Business Challenges

Each site uses numerous distributed control and SCADA systems and Huntsman Tioxide had a strategic aim to make each site's production data available to the other sites and to the Research and Technology Department in order to better understand and so improve their processes, facilitating the sharing of best practice. A decision was taken to build a Factory Information System (FIS), which would interface to different distributed control systems to provide archives of process and product data at each site, with the facility to allow plants around the world access to each others production data. Huntsman Tioxide carried out a detailed evaluation of several possible software products early in the project, visiting the United States and selecting PI software from OSIsoft to underpin the FIS.

How We Helped

OSIsoft introduced Huntsman Tioxide to Capula, the leading UK Value Added Reseller of PI and a company with many years experience in integrating PI and writing applications and interfaces around the product. After visiting a reference site, Huntsman Tioxide awarded the contract for engineering services on the FIS project to Capula.

The Capula/Huntsman partnership has been running for over five years and Capula personnel have become an integral part of the FIS team. The core product has been specified, developed and rolled out to sites worldwide and Capula also assisted with the integration of FIS with Huntsman Tioxide's SAP system.

At the heart of the FIS are the Processbook user interface with the PI System real-time database in which the time stamped process data from the DCS and product data from the laboratory system are stored. The PI database contains unique compression algorithms so that several years worth of data can be stored on-line at original accuracy. Numerous Key Performance Indicators, which depend on this data, are regularly calculated at the end of each shift or day and are stored in the same database.

OSIsoft’s DataLink utility provides an additional PI item on the main menu in standard spreadsheets. When the PI menu item is selected, it provides a drop-down menu through which specific data can be called into the spreadsheet. These calls can be automated, and this is the way in which Huntsman Tioxide has developed its Key Performance Reports and started to drive business benefits.