Raising the curtain
When DS Smith Converters introduced automatic paper reel handling at its corrugated board production site in Louth, Lincolnshire, it faced a dilemma. The process was already automated, with operators ensuring that paper reels were received and fed, overseeing the line and transferring pallets of finished goods to storage. However, with the new addition - which transports 2.5 tonne reels along a conveyor track in the factory floor, before automatically picking them up and loading them onto one of five reel stands - there was a safety issue.
Safety first
When it comes to automated plant, ensuring safety is not just about adherence to the IEC 61508 control system standard or its industry-specific derivatives (IEC 61511 for the process industries, IEC 62061 for machinery etc). It's also about instilling a bullet-proof safety culture and sticking to basic rules. Just as important, we need to understand why people do things that put themselves and others at risk.
Safety that boosts the bottom line
In a world where the failure of even a modest-sized steam boiler can cause millions of pounds' worth of damage, as well as injuries and even fatalities, the management of risk should always figure high on the agenda of any business.
The cost of complacency
If there is one lesson that emerges in the wake of last month's conclusion to the 2005 Buncefield disaster prosecution, it surely is the importance of vigilance. And that applies to all plants, not just to those in the chemicals, oil and gas industries that may be subject to the COMAH (Control of Major Accident Hazards) regulations.
SILs explained
It's clearly important to determine the safety functions that we want an automatic electrical, electronic or programmable electronic safety-related system to perform - but what about the safety integrity level (SIL)? What does it really mean? How is it arrived at? And what are the implications for plant engineers?
Control freak
Let's talk about drives, motors and controls - no, not just the technologies for linear or rotational motion control, important though those are, but also control engineering in, for example, transportation, the process sector and the utilities. Why? Because there's quite a lot happening that could make a difference to plant engineers specifying, installing, commissioning and maintaining all of this stuff.
Automatic for the people
REM probably didn't have plant automation on their minds when they released that album in 1992, but computing for the masses is reinvigorating control, writes Brian Tinham
A process of elimination
Mercifully, serious incidents in the process industries are few and far between. Sadly, however, when they do happen, they're devastating. Consider Flixborough back in 1974, Piper Alpha in the North Sea in 1988 and, much more recently, Buncefield and BP Texas City. So it's against this background that we now operate chemical, petrochemical and similar hazardous process plants in tightly regulated environments.