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How to select a greenfield DCS

Nov. 13, 2017
Total cost of ownership, platform functionality and local expertise lead biotech facility to choose PlantPAx DCS

Alnylam Pharmaceuticals is a pioneer of RNA-interference medicines for targeting rare diseases, such as hATTR amyloisosis, acute hepatic porphyrias, hemophilia and hypercholesterolemia. Founded in 2002, Alnylam decided to build a greenfield facility in Norton, Massachusetts, to complement its existing manufacturing plant.

“In the plant we’re building, 70% of the process area is an electrically rated Class I, Div. 2 design,” explained Aaron Conant, associate director of automation engineering at Alnylam. “It’s greenfield, so it’s a whole new set of challenges. There was no engineering team. We didn’t have any standards or preconceived notions. We had no previous DCS installations in the company.”

Conant shared his story at the 2017 Process Solutions User Group (PSUG) in Houston, leading up to the Automation Fair event later this week.

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The new facility would be 210,000 sq ft with two manufacturing trains and space for a third. Because there was no company engineering function prior to the project, Alnylam relied on Jacobs Engineering and Gilbane Construction for their experience and expertise.

The DCS analysis included total cost of ownership, design/scalability and operational considerations. The team analyzed multiple platforms and narrowed them to two final candidates: Emerson’s DeltaV and the PlantPAx distributed control system from Rockwell Automation. Both had similar capabilities and functionality, but the PlantPAx DCS had the advantage and ultimately hit the right value/price point with lower installation and scale-up costs.

“When we factored in how much to pay people to do the work, it turned into a 30-40% savings to go with Rockwell Automation and PlantPAx,” explained Conant. “And, if we have to go with a third train, the Rockwell system tends to scale up better.”

Engineering expertise

Another part of the analysis was the talent pool available. “In the New England area, there are hundreds of Rockwell experts,” said Conant, who noted the Emerson expertise was quite limited in the region.

After Alnylam chose the PlantPAx DCS, Rockwell Automation produced a network architecture, including a fully virtualized server farm and ACP ThinManager as the HMI solution. For the OEM plan, Alnylam went out to vendors for basic quotes with equipment supplied as “dumb” skids.

Where possible, Alnylam specified the skid vendor to supply Rockwell Automation Remote I/O and no controls. For proprietary smart skids, data collection and monitoring were integrated. Skidded systems were specified with Allen-Bradley controllers and PanelView HMIs. Black (non-sterile) utilities, chillers and boilers were specified with supervisory front-ends using FactoryTalk View.

Key requirements for system-integrator selection included strong project-management tools, PlantPAx DCS expertise, experience with the life-sciences industry and a strong local presence. More than 20 firms were interviewed, and they were narrowed to five bidders. “We brought it back in with system integrators doing all of the design for us,” said Conant. “We selected an Avid Solutions, Evolve Systems partnership to integrate this system. There’s a lot of excellent talent in the area.”

The schedule allowed for early evaluation opportunities for design aspects. “As part of our early evaluation, we bought an industrial data center (IDC),” said Conant. “It helped to de-risk our project. We did everything in a NavisWorks 3D model, so now we’re putting all of that data in the IDC.”

The project kicked off a year ago and is now scheduled to finish mid-2018. “There’s activity in the plant,” explained Conant. “We have a building, piping and electrical are going on, and we will start up in June 2018.”