DIARY / ACTIVITIES - REVIEWS

The recent YCF event “Pinch with Pride” held on the 12 September at the Syngenta site attracted 35 attendees presenting them with the opportunity to learn about best practice from their peers and YCF members in the area of manufacturing and process improvement.

Sushma Davidson of Britest was on hand to talk about the Sustainable Manufacturing Project funded by The Northern Way. This is an initiative involving 4 partners, PICME, Britest, Chemistry Innovation and CPI who together have developed a series of diagnostic tools around manufacturing and process improvement. Companies can get an initial diagnostic free of charge following which they must pay for any subsequent implementation.

Ian Paddock of Camtique enlightened everyone to the benefits of S.T.A.R (Shift Tracking Action Recording), a software programme designed initially to meet the needs of BASF at Seal Sands and which formalises operational shift logging and shift handover. It can be applied to any chemical manufacturing site and has a broader application across most process industries.

Tim Yates of Syngenta discussed the impact of effective engineering, how it can contribute, drive and underpin manufacturing excellence resulting in expanded capacity and HSE compliance. Through a combination of communication and standardisation across asset care, effective engineering, learning and development, process robustness and information systems manufacturing excellence resulted in a significant reduction in revenue spend over a two year period and capital spend being minimized or completely avoided. Observations were that it was predominately people driven, that multi-functional manufacturing teams are important and equally important is that people understand how their individual contribution adds value.

Alan Mason of AJM Consulting made the point that through the experiences of practical application of multivariate analysis, there is additional money to be made if process analysis and control are integrated properly. Case studies demonstrated that through understanding process variabilities processes are better managed or improved through the identification of reasons for plant deterioration or poor reactor performance to give just two examples. MS2 Data Mining is a software tool which allows process engineers, chemists, instrument engineers, chemical engineers and plant managers to do just that and it can be applied to both batch and continuous plants.