Encore Tissue improves plant reliability with new DCS

Encore Tissue, a leading Australian manufacturer of toilet paper and paper towels, is an Australian family-owned business with a vision to provide quality tissue product to the Australian market, while endeavouring to be socially, economically and environmentally sustainable.

With production ramping up, the company sought a modern DCS solution that would deliver productivity gains, offer a user-friendly interface, and include long-term support. In addition to new functionality, Encore Tissue also wanted the new DCS solution to have a user-friendly software interface that could be used by multiple teams.

“Our existing DCS had become outdated, and was no longer supported,” said Mark Camilleri, project manager at Encore Tissue. After thorough review, Encore Tissue selected Rockwell Automation’s PlantPAx DCS to replace the older solution.

Rockwell has worked with Encore Tissue — which produces household brands like icare toilet paper — for more than 20 years, first working on the tissue machine’s DC drive system in the early 2000s, then converting half to AC in 2014 and the other half in 2017. The AC drive system is based on Rockwell’s PowerFlex 755.

“Rockwell has extensive knowledge of our machinery and plant through our long relationship, so we engaged them to look at upgrading our DCS,” Camilleri said.

“PlantPAx is an open DCS, which means partner companies, such as system integrators with knowledge of the system, can provide support, too,” explained Adrian Giecco, Regional Director – South Pacific, Rockwell Automation. “The PlantPAx software also shares the same platform as the Rockwell drive system already in use at Encore Tissue, so the staff was already familiar with how to use it, which meant there was a smaller learning curve for the migration to PlantPAx.”

To allow for a smooth transition, Rockwell was able to extract the code and logic configuration from the existing DCS and remap it to PlantPAx logic, thereby ensuring object alarms, limits, tuning, references and other setups remained the same without the need to re-commission or re-tune.

“This is a proven approach to quickly migrate the process functionality to the PlantPAx standard and minimise risk,” Giecco said. “Another way Rockwell minimised risk on this project was by re-using existing wiring. The existing control systems use Allen-Bradley ControlLogix hardware and, as such, the I/O modules can be replaced as a ‘like-for-like’ system while keeping the existing terminal modules and wiring looms intact, significantly reducing risk of migration and reducing commissioning time.”

By implementing PlantPAx, Encore Tissue now has a unified system. A Rockwell DCS is communicating with a Rockwell safety controller, which controls the PowerFlex drives. This simplifies integration with the drives system, as well as enabling simple upgrades in the future.

“We needed to upgrade the hardware due to its age, so selecting Rockwell meant we were given better support from a company with dedicated and proven process automation experience,” Camilleri said. “Encore Tissue also takes care of critical spares via the Rockwell Automation Inventory Parts Management Agreement.”

The new system also reduces the physical footprint, requiring only two controllers instead of four and occupying less panel space.

To make commissioning and start-up as smooth as possible, Rockwell undertook an extensive factory acceptance testing (FAT) period of several weeks.

“FAT is usually just a couple of days, but we wanted everything to run smoothly for Encore Tissue, so we went into meticulous detail with our testing,” Giecco said. “As a result, the entire migration — from the start of commissioning to production — was completed in just four days, making it a highly efficient transition.

“The steps that needed to be taken while the machine was offline were all completed within a 72-hour window from paper off to paper on, thereby achieving a successful result in a tight window.”