Dow Chemical Eliminates Raw Material Management Errors with aspenONE MES Suite
Company Size
1,000+
Region
- America
Country
- United States
Product
- aspenONE MES Suite
- Aspen InfoPlus.21
- Aspen Production Execution Manager
Tech Stack
- MES solution
- Warehouse data management system
- Mobile human machine interface (HMI)
Implementation Scale
- Enterprise-wide Deployment
Impact Metrics
- Productivity Improvements
- Waste Reduction
Technology Category
- Functional Applications - Manufacturing Execution Systems (MES)
Applicable Industries
- Chemicals
Applicable Functions
- Discrete Manufacturing
- Quality Assurance
Use Cases
- Manufacturing System Automation
Services
- System Integration
About The Customer
Dow Chemical is a multinational corporation that manufactures more than 3,300 products at 156 manufacturing sites in 37 countries. The company delivers a broad range of plastics, chemicals, and agricultural products to customers in 160 countries. Many of their production facilities work with packaged, small-capacity containers that look alike from the outside but contain raw materials that are chemically different. The company's objective is to greatly reduce the risk of a process upset and move their operation from two to six sigma performance.
The Challenge
Dow Chemical manufactures more than 3,300 products at 156 manufacturing sites in 37 countries and delivers a range of plastics, chemicals and agricultural products to customers in 160 countries. Many production facilities work with packaged, small-capacity containers that look alike from the outside but contain raw materials that are chemically different. If a container is misidentified and the wrong material is added, a process upset occurs, adversely impacting product quality, material and asset utilization, or causing a health, safety and environment incident. Dow’s objective is to greatly reduce the risk of a process upset and move their operation from two to six sigma performance. Dow faced a number of challenges. Raw materials enter and exit the process at different times and from different locations. The control system is unable to differentiate between the various containers and materials, and human detection is unreliable.
The Solution
Dow developed a high-integrity material flow (HIMF) system, which is a method of ensuring that the movement of materials into and potentially out of a process position is authenticated. The HIMF system was built using two key products in the aspenONE MES suite: Aspen Production Execution Manager and Aspen InfoPlus.21 as an MES solution for procedural control. Connectivity between the MES solution and the warehouse data management system is essential for proper authentication of materials. As material is moved from the warehouse into production, the MES and warehouse systems share reference data. The MES system automatically generates a work request using Aspen Production Execution Manager, guiding the operator in material identification and retrieval. Material moved into production is compared with control system information through the use of a mobile human machine interface (HMI), which is a bar code scanner that’s integrated with a wireless mobile computer. Aspen InfoPlus.21 interfaces with the plant control system to confirm that the material the operator has scanned on the HMI at the production position is indeed the correct material for the recipe being executed. The automated workflow and product validation enabled by Aspen Production Execution Manager allows Dow to authenticate materials before they are used in the process.
Operational Impact
Quantitative Benefit
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