“The deployment of contemporary process-control modules opens up opportunity for Nippon Gases,” said Rodrigo Riera, EMEA Regional Vice President for the southern region, Rockwell Automation. “As well as day-to-day operational enhancements, it can look more confidently to the future, with greater agility for further evolution, alongside the potential to add AI for more autonomous operations, which will deliver even greater efficiencies.”
The modernisation programme, which covers the company’s air separation unit (ASU) installations on multiple sites across Europe, is backed by a comprehensive migration strategy devised and developed jointly by Rockwell and Nippon Gases’ engineering team.
“By standardising on a single PLC solution, we can benchmark the migration process at the pilot plant in Aviles in Spain and then fine tune it for subsequent sites,” explained José Maria Martinez Gallo, Operations Director Europe, at Nippon Gases. “The new digitalised hardware will also give us much deeper insights into our processes, allowing us to realise even greater efficiency while lowering energy use and waste.”