Half a century of innovation
CHALLENGE
Integration of individual systems under one centralized management platform.
SOLUTION
- Desigo CC management software
- Convertion of all protocols to BACnet/IP
RESULT
Central monitoring of all systems and the possibility of integrating new ones.
THE COMPANY
Pharmathen is a large multinational pharmaceutical company whose heart has been beating in Greece since 1969. It is one of the five fastest growing companies in Greece (regardless of industry), with its exports accounting for 1% of Greece's total exports, and with more than 1,000 employees.
With more than 200 researchers in Greece and abroad, and with two state-of-the-art production facilities at Sapes Rodopi, Pharmathen bases its global growth strategy on two pillars: Research & Development and its vertically integrated production capacity.
PROJECT DESCRIPTION
At the Pharmathen plant, there are various control systems installed to control the conditions in drug production sites, the heating & cooling generation and distribution, and the regulation of conditions in public areas and workplaces.
The plant has an EMS (Enviromental Monitoring System) that operates autonomously and is associated with certified monitoring of conditions in specific production sites.
The above systems worked autonomously and required the use of different applications for monitoring. Following the collaboration of AS Hellas with Pharmathen, we have been asked to integrate the above systems under one centralized management platform.
After evaluating the systems and protocols they use to communicate, of Siemens we chose the Siemens Desigo CC platform as the most appropriate solution.
TECHNICAL SOLUTION
Desigo CC uses BACnet as a native communication protocol, and connecting systems using the same protocol is highly efficient and reliable. It also offers the management of validated data and the production of specific reports that comply with standards applicable to Pharma solutions.
The systems originally selected for connection to this platform use the BACnet / LonMark and KNX protocols. The use of appropriate gateways and routers has transformed these protocols into BACnet / IP protocols. With this solution, the Desigo CC platform communicates across all systems, but interoperability between systems is supported.
Platform operators (as clients), monitor and operate the systems simultaneously, in a uniform graphical environment. They are informed about the malfunctions that occur, they create and define time schedules, they evaluate and configure logs and reports. Each group of operators oversees their system and is remotely updated about abnormal situations or events that may occur.
For the management of validated data, the platform ensures the double approval of operators for each action applied to the specific data, and the input of comments that are then stored in the database.
“The management of many systems through a centralized platform adds value to these systems and they are supervised much better.”
IMPACT OF THE PROJECT
The new solution is designed to integrate more autonomous systems that are already installed or will be installed at the Pharmathen plant.
The IP-level BACnet protocol is the most preferred for any new system planned to be deployed, offering uniformity in communication and interface with the Desigo CC central platform. The management of many systems through a centralized platform adds value to these systems and they are supervised much better.
