FEATURE I&C DATA MIGRATION
INVESTMENT PROTECTION AND A BASIS FOR INNOVATIVE APPLICATIONS
BASF has switched to the new system generation ProDOK NG from Rösberg
F
or 30 years, the BASF Group has been using the I&C-CAE system ProDOK by
Rösberg for the planning and operational support of its production plants. User acceptance in day-to-day work is high, but there is also a new demand for the inclusion of innovative applications. For this reason BASF decided to switch to the new system generation ProDOK NG. This involved a Europe-wide migration of the I&C data of about 300 plants with approximately 1.3 million loops at locations as far apart as Antwerp, Basel, Ludwigshafen, Schwarzheide and Tarragona. Without disturbing day-to- day operating processes, within two years the historically-grown, partly heterogeneous data formats were brought up to a unified international standard (eCl@ss Advanced) so as to enable analysis and the use of applications on both a plant-wide and a cross-locational basis. ‘Spring Clean’ for documentation During the switchover it was also
planned to check up on the existing data. Where had unnecessary data and documents accumulated? Where was the data inconsistent? Where were there reports, forms and documents with almost identical content but differently formulated? Where were links that were now inaccurate or irrelevant? In a consulting process, the experts from Rösberg gave BASF intensive support in answering these decisive questions. Thus not only did they deliver their I&C-CAE system ProDOK NG – they also supported the migration process throughout, from beginning to end. Here it proved a big advantage that Rösberg’s employees are continually planning and supporting new plants and the modernisation of existing plants. They understand the planning
processes represented by the software and are familiar from their own experience with the typical challenges. Before transferring database contents they were first checked for data consistency and integrity by adapted ProDOK standard tools, without changing the engineering technology. Any discrepancies were then removed semi- automatically before migration. Even without migration, this would have been a useful step in itself. Standardisation and future security The migration involved all the big BASF
locations in Europe. Over the years various different data formats were used there. In some cases, several different documentation standards were even in use at the same location. The migration was taken as an opportunity to consolidate the individual master data
Fig. 2 a & b: The I&C- CAE system supports the planning and documentation of large process plants (a). The I&C plant documentation can be visualised on a PC or mobile device (b). (Copyright: Rösberg)
26 FEBRUARY 2020 | PROCESS & CONTROL
Fig.1 a & b: At the BASF location of Ludwigshafen alone, around 200 plants were migrated from ProDOK to ProDOK NG (Copyright: BASF)
records throughout Europe and reduce the number of I&C device specification forms used from around 250 originally to about 60. The unified basis for these device specifications is now eCl@ss Advanced. This standard, which is cross-sectoral and compliant with ISO and IEC standards, is ideally suited to describe process data and is unrivaled at present – at least in Europe (Fig. 4). Ralph Rösberg, managing partner of Rösberg Engineering GmbH, said: “To my knowledge ProDOK NG is the only I&C-CAE system now on the market that comprehensively supports this future-oriented standard for the process industry. Yet in our view significant parts of Industry 4.0 can only be realised if the devices used in plants can also be consistently described in a standardised way. Thus eCl@ss Advanced will be indispensable to enterprises in the medium term if they want to build and operate plants that are future-proof.” The Europe-wide reduction of the master data together with the unified use of eCl@ss Advanced provides more clarity and facilitates location-wide and cross- location comparisons and analyses for I&C planners, plant operators and production workers. Of course, access by many different
users in the individual plants at the various locations require basic regulations regarding data and information protection to be observed. For this purpose the BASF Group operates a central administration system for access to all its IT systems. Both the I&C-CAE system ProDOK NG and the as-built documentation system LiveDOK NG are connected to this central system. Trouble-free I&C data migration in
production plants The migration in Europe was carried out
gradually over two years. It was important not to let it interfere with operating processes, so to achieve this a unified migration plan and realistic time schedules were drawn up for all BASF’s production plants in Europe. After exhaustive testing of the whole migration process at selected pilot plants, it was implemented successively. Each weekend the data of about 20 plants at a time were transferred: to do this, at the end of the week the plant operators blocked access to the databases of the old system generation ProDOK 9.5, started the automatic checking of the database contents for consistency and integrity, performed any corrections, and stored the pre-checked data contents in a standard
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