Lowara upgrades pharmaceutical plant
Increased production in pharmaceuticals means additional need for technological cooling - but stopping production to install a new system is costly as temperatures are above critical levels. When Jenapharm, a German pharmaceutical company, needed to increase the effectiveness of its cooling plant to support higher production levels, the solution was provided by ITT Industries' Lowara. This was achieved by keeping downtime to just hours, while providing a more powerful, more flexible, better balanced, and better backed-up, system that would actually cost less to run than the original installation.
Two years ago, the company embarked on an expansion plan to increase production, but was keen to do this with minimal disruption to the infrastructure of the building, or the control or other process systems that were already in place. But within the manufacturing process, temperature control is critical, and this was one area where the existing facility needed to be upgraded.
Ulrich Schmidt, managing director of Lowara Deutschland comments: 'The processes at Jenapharm rely absolutely on the correct temperature controls,'
'It is 100% critical. If the temperature rises above the set limit, the entire production is wasted. Pressure is important too; it is necessary to make sure that for individual users it remains constant, even with highly fluctuating demand and operating conditions.'
The existing cooling system was driven by a different supplier's pumps, using a number of smaller 3 - 4 kW units; the added production meant an increase in the demand, and some new and different uses, so there had to be a system that would provide greater capacity with total reliability and at a constant pressure.
'Other companies were interested in the work,' claimed Schmidt. 'But we were the only company who could meet all their needs including being able to give them increased flow without major adjustments to the basic installation.'
Lowara installed two 11kW LMR in-line Vogel pumps, through their distributor Pumpen Schulze. The pumps are configured with 100% redundancy, which means that at any given time, only one is running, but if for any reason that pump fails or needs to be stopped for maintenance, the flow can be re-routed and a second identical pump takes over. The control system is fully integrated with HydroVar, an automatic flow control system supplied by a sister ITT company, which matches demand with supply continuously to ensure equal and constant pressure; this was connected using a standard RS485 interface, removing the need for any additional external control units. The coolant, an equal mix of water and glycol, is circulated at an even temperature of -15°C.
'We were able to install this with very few changes to the system, said Schmidt. 'In fact it was more like a routine maintenance break - the system was out of service for just a few hours while it was drained down, the new pumps fitted into the existing system, then the system filled up again and it was ready to go. It was a smooth installation, with everything working well from the first time. And we could guarantee the constant flow, and constant pressure that Jenapharm needed, through the HydroVar system.
'I would say these were the reasons Lowara won the business,' he said. 'We could fit our pumps straight into the system they already had, which makes it quicker, and cheaper to install. We could deliver the specification they needed, with the ability to provide full backup, and guarantee the high performance while minimising down time for maintenance or repair work. And HydroVar was our special card - really it is the only system available for frequency regulation that is specifically designed to work on pumps such as these. This gave Jenapharm the control assurances they needed. And despite the higher pump performances, energy consumption is reduced as well as the operating reliability being improved.