A DuPont Batch Automation Project Experience

Overview:

When presented with the problem of having to increase capacity 25% for a $100M/yr DuPont fluorochemical business, the solution was to fully automate the bottleneck of its supply chain, a batch process. Although the process already had a DCS, it was not nearly used to the potential it could be if additional instrumentation and automation software were installed. The journey taken to complete this solution taught us a lot about how to properly run a batch automation project. Upon completion of the project, we were presented another challenge. DuPont’s largest competitor withdrew from the market dramatically increasing product demand. With no additional capital, we were able to further increase capacity another 40%.