Encore Tissue, an Australian manufacturer of toilet paper and paper towels, has boosted production efficiency and reliability at its Victorian facility by upgrading to Rockwell Automation’s PlantPAx Distributed Control System (DCS).
Rockwell Automation, which has worked with Encore Tissue for more than two decades, supported the transition from the company’s outdated control system to the new PlantPAx platform.
Rockwell said in a news release that the collaboration began in the early 2000s with upgrades to the tissue machine’s DC drive system, later converting to an AC drive system based on Rockwell’s PowerFlex 755® in 2014 and 2017.
“Our existing DCS had become outdated, and was no longer supported,” said Mark Camilleri, project manager at Encore Tissue. “Rockwell has extensive knowledge of our machinery and plant through our long relationship, so we engaged them to look at upgrading our DCS.”
Encore Tissue, a family-owned business supplying household brands such as icare toilet paper, selected PlantPAx for its open architecture, ease of use, and compatibility with the company’s existing Rockwell drive system.
According to Rockwell Automation South Pacific regional director Adrian Giecco, the familiarity reduced the learning curve for staff and streamlined the migration process.
“PlantPAx is an open DCS, which means partner companies, such as system integrators with knowledge of the system, can provide support, too,” Giecco said. “The software shares the same platform as the Rockwell drive system already in use at Encore Tissue, so their staff were already familiar with how to use it.”
To minimise risk, Rockwell stated it re-used existing wiring, maintained Allen-Bradley ControlLogix hardware compatibility, and directly mapped the logic from the old DCS to the new platform without requiring full re-commissioning.
“This is a proven approach to quickly migrate the process functionality to the PlantPAx standard and minimise risk,” Giecco said.
Rockwell noted the upgrade has resulted in a unified control system linking Rockwell’s DCS, safety controller, and PowerFlex drives, simplifying future integration and upgrades. The installation also reduced hardware from four controllers to two, saving panel space.
“We needed to upgrade the hardware due to its age, so selecting Rockwell meant we were given better support from a company with dedicated and proven process automation experience,” Camilleri said.
“Encore Tissue also takes care of critical spares via the Rockwell Automation Inventory Parts Management Agreement.”
Extensive factory acceptance testing ensured a smooth commissioning process. “FAT is usually just a couple of days, but we wanted everything to run smoothly for Encore Tissue, so we went into meticulous detail,” Giecco said. The migration from commissioning to production was completed in four days, with just 72 hours of machine downtime.
“PlantPAx is also designed to allow manufacturers like Encore Tissue to more simply and efficiently follow industry standards and best practices,” said Giecco.
