Recipe and Process Management Software Reduces Automation Costs

GSE System's FlexBatch Recipe and Process Management software provides tools to rapidly introduce new products, reduce batch cycle times, adapt faster to changing market requirements, lower life-cycle automation costs, minimize the time required to modify recipe formula and procedures, and reduce process controller programming.

FlexBatch consists of two main applications: Recipe Management and Process Management. Recipe Management is used to create, document, and manage batch recipes at a single plant or across an enterprise. Process Management layers on top of open control systems and provides the ability to schedule production and control the execution of product recipes while creating electronic batch records.

Recipe Management
The software directly supports the Master and Control Recipes, which consist of five types of information: header; equipment requirements; formula, procedure, and other information.

A header is a descriptive portion of a recipe. It contains information to uniquely identify each recipe, trace a recipe's origin, identify its author, product, and provide an overview of the procedure among other information.

The equipment requirement portion defines the processing equipment that can be used to execute the recipe. Equipment requirements are expressed as a list of units that each unit recipe may run on.

The formula in a recipe is the complete list of phase parameters. For summary and reporting purposes this is a list of all the ingredients, process variable values, and outputs used in a recipe. For data entry purposes each phase has a set of parameters that is the portion of the formula used by that phase.

The procedure is the largest and most complicated part of a recipe. The procedure contains the procedural information required to produce a batch. The procedural information includes what control programs to run, in what order, under what conditions, on what unit, and with what recipe data. Complex transitions can be defined between entities, greatly simplifying or eliminating much controller programming.

Three levels of procedures in a recipe include: the recipe procedure, the unit procedure and the operation procedure.

Click here to see FlexBatch Recipe Management.

A procedure, at any level, not only contains the lower level entity (unit recipe, operation or phase), it also contains the specification for when and where the entity is to be run. To simplify the creation, maintenance, and documentation of procedures FlexBatch uses a graphical procedure editor to create procedure charts, which are part of the Graphical Recipe Language.

The lowest level entity in a recipe's procedure is the phase. A phase is often an equipment-oriented control program running on a process controller. A phase is intended to be a relatively small, modular, control program that performs one or more process oriented functions in one or more sequence units, e.g. heating. The phase is designed and tested as a modular item for each different piece of processing equipment. Phases can then be used in many recipes, even on different units, with known behavior.

The other information portion of a recipe contains information required to meet regulatory requirements and corporate standards concerning the safety of personnel, the environment and equipment. The manner in which this section is used is solely dependent upon each customer. In FlexBatch this has been implemented as a series of user definable comment fields for every entity and grouped under the header portion of each entity.

Process Management
Production Displays are the run time displays used to schedule campaigns/batches and control batches in progress. These displays are used by the Production Staff. There are three primary views provided: Schedule View; Batch Overview; and Control View and several dialog boxes that provide more detailed information.

The Schedule View is used to create and modify the Production Schedule by scheduling campaigns and batches. It is also used to monitor and control production at both the campaign and batch level. The Production Staff can Start, Hold, Continue, Exit batches or campaigns. Like the other main Process Management displays the user can configure the columns of displayed information and create filters for what is displayed.

Click here to see Process Management - Schedule View.

The Control View is used to monitor and control the execution of unit recipes, operations, and phases. It provides more detail at this level than available in the schedule view. From this view, the Production Staff can Start, Hold, Continue, or Exit batches. The display uses a unit recipe faceplates metaphor for a concise, information packed display. An operator familiar with the process can quickly see the status and interact with all the batches. The operator can easily see a more detailed graphical display of the procedure for a particular batch using the procedure editor view.

Click here to see Process Management - Control View.

The Batch Overview is used to quickly monitor and control the execution of multiple batches. It provides more detail at this level than available in the Schedule View and less than in the Control View. The operator can use batch filters to just monitor the batches under his command.

FlexBatch recipes contain a graphical Procedure Chart that permits recipes to contain the logic sequences used to make individual products. This greatly reduces the amount of controller programming and provides a dramatic saving in life-cycle costs. This also means operational personnel can be given the ability to change the procedure, without programming and without calling a control engineer in the middle of the night.

Process Management supports a campaign/batch hierarchy for scheduling production. The Production Staff can schedule campaigns and batches for automatic execution or can schedule them to require operator participation at any step of the process. The Production Staff can modify the schedule at equipment based upon availability, and monitor batch events and production.

FlexBatch stores all of its recipe and batch information in a relational database. This makes it easy to access recipe and electronic batch record information from any desktop application using ODBC. In fact, the standard reports for both recipe and process management are written in Microsoft Access and are fully user customizable.

GSE Systems, Inc. develops and delivers business and technology solutions by applying process control, data acquisition and simulation software, systems and services to the energy, process and manufacturing industries worldwide.

For more information contact GSE Systems, Inc., 9189 Red Branch Road, Columbia, MD 21045. Tel: 410-772-3500; Fax: 410-772-3611.