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Data management: Petrochemicals
to be monitored to ensure that there is no security and archiving is also important.
contamination.’ All of these stages require Within the laboratory, there is a need for
laboratory data to optimise the processes of cost reductions both in terms of labour
extraction and refining. and in cutting costs of chemicals
and supporting processes (records,
size matters calibration, verification,
Avino of Raffineria di Roma notes that the certification, etc.), Svoboda
refinery is quite different from many other comments. LIMS provides
petrochemical environments, because the an ideal informative
production process is always large scale and environment and enables
even smaller refineries need to be properly optimisation of work in
sized to be competitive. An increasing the laboratory.
requirement is the ability to control the Svoboda continues
production process in a precise manner that production
(online analysers are a typical result of this units are also put
trend). Data management systems are key under pressure to
in delivering this control to the relevant minimise costs of
persons in the organisation. both energy and
Petr Svoboda, head of the technical raw materials,
support department at Unipetrol RPA, a and that LIMS
Czech petrochemical and agrochemical provides a good
processing company based in Litvinov, environment
also draws attention to the scale of these for conducting
processes: ‘The volume of processed raw necessary
materials and manufactured products is analyses in the
huge, and everything takes place in facilities evaluation of
where operating fills are substantial. Each production
error in production control leads to lower processes.
quality produce and results in economic
loss. Thus, great emphasis is placed on the r&D
quality and fast response of sample analysis and Qa
within the laboratory and LIMS is the ideal practices
instrument to analyse this process and to Two big areas
avoid such errors.’ where LIMS is
Unipetrol is using Siemens’ Simatic IT used within the
Unilab LIMS to manage its sampling data. petrochemical
Both in-process analyses for production industry, as in
control and checkout analyses for releasing many industries,
the end product are carried out. All results are research and
from these analyses are stored in LIMS, and development (R&D)
the system is the basic operating tool for and quality assurance
both production control and quality control (QA). Tom Curtis,
of specific products. vice president of product
In addition to general reporting for each innovation at Labtronics, a
production unit, some sample results are provider of software solutions for
automatically transferred into an historical laboratory instrument and system
production database (typically Honeywell integration, notes that, on the R&D
PHD). The results are used by production side, investigations are carried out on
staff for evaluation of the production process, different formulations of a product. For
and the system also stores information for example, an engine oil formulation will
other analytical purposes, such as analysis of undergo testing for density, viscosity, heavy
laboratory workload. metal analysis, chromatography studies, etc.
Svoboda says that, in this environment, ‘What these tests represent are: “how has
oil samples undergoing analysis at
the QinetiQ Fuels and lubricants centre.
great emphasis is placed on accuracy, this product stood up over time or under
the centre uses labWare lims to
reliability and speed of providing data, as these conditions”, “how long do we expect
manage its sample data.
well as on eliminating human error. Data it to stand up under these conditions”, and ➤ image courtesy of David Breach, QinetiQ.
www.scientific-computing.com scientiFic comPUting WorlD OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2009
15
SCWoct09 pp14-18 petrochemicals.indd 15 10/1/09 12:42:53 PM
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