Plant intelligence provided by the APV Production Server contributes to improved product quality and capacity at the Pernod Suze plant

Gathering together with friends, early in the evening to have a long refreshing drink of Suze is a fashionable event - not only in France and not only in recent years. The famous Suze brand by Pernod was launched in 1889, and is renowned even today for the elegant shape of its bottle along with its distinctive bittersweet taste, which makes Suze a highly popular aperitif.

As a result of meticulous preparation involving a traditional distillation process, this mixture gives a refined alcoholic base with flavours and fragrances of gentian and is rounded off by the addition of a wide range of plant extracts.

Suze is produced at the Pernod factory in Thuir, where a recent investment has greatly improved plant performance.

Pernod'™s Objectives

The new process and automation system needed to:

• Optimise production processes for consistently high quality and increased capacity
• Provide real-time plant intelligence for performance analysis and sustained performance improvement
• Allow for accurate registration of all manufacturing parameters in process cells for equipment traceability
• Reduce the risk of unscheduled disruption to production and increase plant maintenance efficiency
• Support an open architecture for the integration of "third party" software

Pernod were faced with a difficult decision making process in order to be able to identify the optimum solution for their needs. They required a solution that was well proven, so that they could be assured that it would deliver the reliability they needed. At the same time, they wanted to ensure that their investment would continue to deliver benefits over the long-term. They required a solution that was well proven and would remain cutting edge.

Combining proven process technology with cutting edge automation

The proven beverage process know-how of APV combined with the ArchestrA® based APV Production Server technology were just the right fit for Pernod'™s Suze plant. It perfectly matched Pernod'™s objectives along with its desire for long-term investment security.

From the scalable set of highly functional software components of the APV Production Server the following components were used for the Pernod Suze plant:

• APV Visualisation and Event/Alarm Management based on Wonderware'™s InTouch® HMI software
• Reporting for Operators, Quality Management and Production Management using Wonderware'™s ActiveFactoryâ„¢ reporting and analysis tools
• "Process Cell" '“ APV'™s unit traceability reporting and analysis tools
• Wonderware'™s Industrial Application Server
• Wonderware'™s IndustrialSQL Serverâ„¢ Historian
• Microsoft'™s SQL Server
• INRA '“ third party process analysis software

"Process Cell" unit traceability

One of the unique features of the APV Production Server is its ability to combine process know-how with data integration, transforming fragmented data into real-time plant intelligence.

As the Suze manufacturing process is very specific and includes multiple process stages, the "Process Cell" option of the APV Production Server was the natural choice for the traceability requirements of Pernod. "Process Cell" provides a set of pre-defined templates, which can be individually configured and deployed for each piece of process equipment to allow:

• Recording and analysis of all selected "Process Cell" manufacturing parameters
• Full traceability for each process function of the selected process unit e.g. quantity, volumes, product code, recipe number, etc.,
• Genealogy in conjunction with process transitions
• Recording and analysis of CIP cycles
• Equipment efficiency analysis and reporting
• Continuous improvement

For Pernod, "Process Cell" is an accurate and easy to use tool which provides process unit performance analysis to sustain a consistently high quality and optimise productivity.

Open Architecture allows integration of third party Process Analysis software

Due to the long and involved process required to produce Suze, which includes filtration, storage, fermentation etc., it is essential for the laboratory managers at Pernod to be able to track and trace all the production parameters both in real-time and historically.

In addition to the functionality provided by the APV Production Server, Pernod needed to perform specific, company confidential analysis of certain process parameters. Therefore, in co-operation with the research department of the Institut National de la Recherché Agronomique (INRA), they developed a dedicated software which needed to be populated with process data.

The open architecture of the APV Production Server along with the ArchestrA® infrastructure and its various components, such as the MS-SQL data-base, allowed an easy integration of this third party software. It also ensured compliance with the corresponding set of objectives from Pernod.

Control System and Field Instrumentation

Along with its pursuit of open architecture solutions, Pernod opted for PC-based control to provide tight integration with the plant intelligence functions and the IT infrastructure. Four Invensys Intelligent Integrators "Soft PLCs" using APV process oriented language (Paracode) control the Suze manufacturing process. The Intelligent Integrator is a rugged industrial PC in a compact magnetic interference-protected housing that supports DIN rail mounting. APV has successfully installed more than 500 Intelligent Integrators during the last four years and proved its quality in a wide range of demanding process applications.

For the process operation, Pernod selected APV valves with AS-I interface. The AS-I network was also used for all other field devices and included a decentralised installation of PLC Input/Output systems. AS-I provides a single technology for all instrumentation and fulfils the need of the process industry i.e. ease of installation and maintenance, flexibility and cost efficiency.

Added-value Solutions

The system provided to Pernod delivered the following added value solutions:

• Plant Intelligence reporting and analysis
• Enabled the Suze manufacturing team to contribute to improved quality and capacity
• Improved plant productivity

As Mr. Nitzel, Technical Director at Pernod Ricard headquarters in Paris concluded: " The APV system allows us to achieve new levels of plant performance and quality. I can remotely monitor all relevant real-time and historical plant quality data from our Suze manufacturing plant in Thuir and use this data for further analysis and team discussions. As a matter of fact, the plant intelligence provided by the APV Production Server has fostered a culture of continued improvement within the Suze manufacturing team and beyond in the Pernod organisation. This will ensure that we will sustain high-efficiency plant performance. And by the way, we were also impressed that APV could start-up the new process and automation system within our scheduled due dates for this fast track project of only nine months, which was particularly challenging. This is really an exceptional performance and achievement mainly due to the excellent and tight collaboration between the team of Pernod and APV."