Skip to main content
Search Close
Project

Migration of Distributed Control Systems

In order to ensure the safety and efficiency of production systems, automation technology needs to be updated regularly. At the latest when the manufacturer’s support for the hardware and software used ends, the use of old operating systems poses too great a security risk.

Get in touch

Update to the latest technology

Qualification in the GMP Environment

Renovation in a very short time

Project Overview

At a glance

Customer

Pharmaceutical company

Industry

Pharmaceuticals

Services

System Migration

Project Objectives

Comprehensive System Migration

SpiraTec supported a well-known pharmaceutical company with a comprehensive system migration.

This became necessary because sub-plants were in operation with different, partly outdated process control systems.

  • As part of the introduction of a new MES system, several sub-systems with different versions of SIEMENS SIMATIC PCS 7 had to be merged into a uniform multi-project
  • The prerequisite for this was an update of all systems to the same version
Technical Implementation

Automation of the entire plant

Hardware and software components – especially operating systems – require regular updating and are often the reason for a project migration.

Thanks to the system migration planned and implemented by SpiraTec, the entire plant is now automated by a standardized, state-of-the-art PCS 7 system.

The entire changeover from old to new was carried out in a GMP environment requiring qualification, including the corresponding documentation.

  • Manual adaptation, as project functions from one of the first PCS 7 versions (V4) were still present in some parts of the system

  • New installation of the entire HMI system, consisting of 8 servers and 63 clients, on several virtual VMware servers

  • Development of a migration strategy for a step-by-step changeover with as few production downtimes as possible (2 times 2 weeks), as it was not possible to shut down the entire plant

  • Parallel to the migration of the old systems, a new plant was built at the same time, which was also integrated into the overall PCS 7 system

Project Highlights

Unified Multi-Project

Update to the latest technology
Qualification in the GMP Environment
Renovation in a very short time

The customer benefits on several levels: Firstly, the number of interfaces has been significantly reduced. Secondly, the use of the latest software updates ensures a higher level of safety and availability of the plant.

Get in touch

Does this challenge sound familiar to you?
If so, please feel free to contact us, and together we’ll find a solution.

Heiko Kröber

Industrial Automation Services

Contact Form