Smart wireless monitors water at GlaxoSmithKline Ireland07 June 2011

GlaxoSmithKline's Cork plant in Ireland is reporting success with monitoring water usage using Emerson's smart wireless technology.

Emmett Martin, site services and automation manager at GlaxoSmithKline, says that Rosemount wireless flow and pressure transmitters, installed on two new storage tanks, have enabled a better understanding of water usage throughout the plant.

The installation was about trialling the wireless technology, and creating a network for adding new process instrumentation at lower cost in the future.

"GlaxoSmithKline is continuously looking to improve plant performance by increasing the number of parameters measured," states Martin. "Water is a considerable overhead to the plant, so it is important that we monitor flow rates to manage consumption, and to help identify any usage trends."

He explains that the Cork site manufactures a range of bulk active ingredients for use in prescription drugs. The existing water storage facility was too small and had no instrumentation.

However, when the new storage tanks were installed 300 metres from the main control room, there was no existing cabling and a wired installation would have required new power and data cables to be buried in trenches. By adopting a wireless solution these costs were avoided, he says.

Ten Smart Wireless devices were installed, including six pressure transmitters, two flow transmitters and two level transmitters. Flow data is now transmitted every 30 seconds and pressure and level data every 300 seconds to a Smart Wireless Gateway positioned on the control room roof and connected, via a serial link, to the plant's existing DeltaV automation system for plant utilities.

"We regard the installation of wireless very much as a two stage process," comments Martin. "The first step is to establish a wireless network and let it prove itself over a period of time. The next step is to expand the network and use wireless whenever it is more cost effective than a wired alternative.

"We are more than satisfied with the solution, which is proving to be reliable with no signal loss," he continues. "Based on a successful implementation, at some point in the future we are perhaps, looking towards a plant with no wires."

Brian Tinham

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