1 SOLVAY The Sarralbe Experience Sarralbe is the name of a town in France, close to the border between France and Germany. In this town Solvay has a Production.

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SOLVAY

The Sarralbe Experience

Sarralbe is the name of a town in France, close to the border between France and Germany. In this town Solvay has a Production Plant. This presentation refers to the recent experience gained by Solvay at that Plant.

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Project Geography

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Solvay:Four Sectors of Activity, One Strategy

It has always been the policy of the Solvay Group to focus its efforts on product sectors where it has experience and know-how. The diversity of Solvay's activities is the result of systematic development of the by-products of each manufacturing process. This diversification centers on four sectors of activity, governed by a single industrial and commercial strategy.

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PharmaceuticalsResearch with Life in Mind

Development of sales by sector

(%)

ChemicalsThe building blocks of Chemistry

Plastics Custom-made Materials

Processing From Plastics to Finished Products

Consistent Growth in Any Sector

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More than 400 entities ...

             Total 1999 sales: EUR 7,869 M (USD 7,905 M)

Solvay Global Presence

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More than 400 entities ...

Solvay Global Presence

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Purpose of the Sarralbe Project

General purpose: to find a solution managing production/consumption data inside an ERP system.

Chosen ERP system: SAP R/3

Communication protocol: PI-PCS

For the complete assessment we planned two different types of tests:

A) Tests of performance and reliability of the PIMS system.

Covered subjects were: Security at the tag level, add-in for MS Excel, Integration of external RDB,

Calculations, User friendliness, Reliability, Archive Migration, Manual DE

B) Tests of data exchange between the selected PIMS system and SAP R/3 PP-PI module.

Covered subjects to prove were:

•Download of a recipe to PIMS/DCS: ability of having SAP automatically sending recipes to PIMS system.

•Buffering: FIFO recipes queue properly works. Execution order can be changed.

•Batch Data Management: batch data handshake between PIMS and SAP properly works.

•Shift based data exchange: polymerisation row materials consumptions are sent on a regular time basis.

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Project Timing and Project Team

First Approach: a non standard solution.•Application to develop

•Duration: 8 months

•Team (mainly involved): 3 people from Solvay, 3 consultant people

•Results:

•We could only simulate events and messages

•No buffering, no download of a recipe on dcs event, no traceability

•Limited solution: only one event (start/stop campaign) and only one batch, no quality management

•Summary: we only proved that a solution could be developped, but we didn’t have one

Second Approach: usage of a standard solution.•Usage of proved software: PI + RLINK

•Duration: 4 weeks including time spent for testing PI system (January 2001)

•Team (mainly involved): 2 people from Solvay, 2 people from CSC Synapsys, 1 person from OSI

•Results:

•Real events and messages

•Buffering, download of a recipe on dcs events, traceability

•We could split a campaign into several batches, in/out of quality

•Summary: only configuration and MMI customization was necessary

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Project Description

PIMS

DCS

Interface to DCS (CHIP)

PI Real time data base

PSRLINK PP-PI

SAP R/3 PP-PI

(PI-PCS interface)

PIMSapplication

Process

Business

Real-time

Transaction

Sarralbe plant

Prototype Architecture

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Project Description (cont)

PIMS Application onPI-ProcessBook

Physical Architecture

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Project Description (cont)

Targets (scope of the test)� Download of recipe from SAP to PIMS� Goods issues declaration on a time basis (shift)� Goods receipts declaration on operator confirmation basis� Batch update

� E1 Start of the campaign� E2 Stop of the campaign� E3 Change of quality (product)� E4 Tank is full

The Process

E1

E3

E2

E4 E3 E4 E3

E2

E1

In the “Scope of the test” document the process has been defined as a sequence of batches (in quality, out of quality) to be grouped by the operator according to specific DCS events

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Project Description (cont)

Phases and relevant material lists

APHAR_1 characteristics

Process instructions

Control Recipe ID

SAP Recipe

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Project Description (cont)

The prototype implementation required the development of an application able to present production

information and to guide the operator to confirm production period for “in quality” and “out of quality” batches.

For the prototype, the application has been implemented just to handle the current campaign.

The application just provide a MMI interface and has been developed in PI-ProcessBook using the VBA

environment. Two displays are provided by the application:

•A display to manage the current campaign

•A display that demonstrate how traceability can be implemented

Prototype Implementation

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Description of Solutions

List of available SAP batches for the material (read from SAP)

Current campaign, list of consumption events (shift)

Request for operatorInervention

Worked batches according to DCS events

DCSCampaign status and time

SAP recipe relevantinformation

Managing the current campaign - Consumed Material

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Description of Solutions

Pop-up window proposing batch information

Current campaing, list of worked batches and status

Managing the current campaign - Production confirmation

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Description of Solutions

In quality batches confirmed

Out of quality batches confirmed

Worked batches and related status (confirmation)

Managing the current campaign - Campaign summary

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Description of Solutions

Periodic time-event partial confirmations to compute activity costs

Good issues providing material consumptions

Good receipts and batch characteristics confirmations

Control recipe status

Managing the current campaign - Sap view of the process messages

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Description of Solutions

Process information related to selected batch

In quality/Out of specification batches for the campaign

Worked campaignes

Traceability of the campaigns

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Summary of the experience

Most significant points of our experience with PI + RLINK solution are

•Reliability ok

•General Configuration of recipes and events is possible

•Customization of MMI is necessary

•Customization of handshaking between PI and DCS for the recipe download must be made

•A long training is necessary to own knowledge on the SAP and RLINK side

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Next steps at short-medium term

To enforce presence of PI system inside Solvay Polyolefins Europe.

We are going to propose PI + RLINK as a solution for a complete

integration of the data.

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Any Questions?