Almarai
A steady flow of milk in the Middle East
Almarai is the largest vertically-integrated dairy producer in the world. The conglomerate has more than 200,000 cows and systematically controls the entire process – from farm to table.
At the beginning of 2019, Almarai’s Maintenance Manager notified INDEFF that the SCADA-system in their Central Process and Packaging Plant 2 (CPP2) was end-of-life. Additionally, the 10+ years old Wonderware 3.0 system ran on obsolete physical servers.
Introducing full-on fault tolerance
Sure, updating the automation software on the physical servers would have been an easy fix. But it wouldn’t deliver on INDEFF’s main promise: continuous improvements of industrial efficiency. That’s why we proposed and built a virtual server environment that offers the highest possible availability: fault tolerance. 4 brand-new physical servers were fully synchronized to make sure that production processes could always continue without interruption.
Unmatched SCADA expertise
As always, our project started with a thorough technical analysis and careful resource planning. Only 3 months later, the renewed automation software and servers were factory- and site-accepted.
Smooth collaboration – backed by Stratus-experts
The challenge for our team – 5 dedicated automation engineers – consisted of implementing a large number of virtual machines while maintaining a good balance with the CPU-capacity of the servers. To achieve this result, we created a solution based on Stratus everRun.
Thanks to the strategic location of INDEFF’s Middle East office – located in the middle of Dubai Internet City – our team could count on fast and face-to-face support from HP, Cisco, and Stratus. As a result, our team was able to deliver on all its promises while simultaneously increasing operator productivity.
Goals
- Replace redundant hardware and software with modern SCADA systems
- Implement fault tolerance to prevent unforeseen downtime
- Create a better user experience for operators
Challenges
- Simplify the automation software structure and create a virtual environment
- Complete the project in a 3-month life cycle
- Find the right balance between processing physical and virtual machines
Results
- Completed Factory Acceptance Test and Site Acceptance Test
- Successful integration of fault tolerance based on Stratus everRun
- The start of a productive, long-term relationship between 2 innovative companies