b'36 Partner News Winter 2021Corporateof calcium carbonate (limestone), through the delivery of products and onto the removal of waste at remote customer sites. Historically, command operations were managed via eight separate control rooms, situated in proximity to production locations, each with its own operational and engineering staff. These locations incorporated around 40 legacy PLCs and 25 SCADA applications, each supported by separate servers at the remote locations.The company was experiencing limitations with this approach. The operations were siloed, and there was little coordination between activities in separate parts of the operations: such as the quarry, kilns and production plants. This presented issues from a resource-allocation perspective, and also created safety risks due to fractured communications between the sites. The approach was also costly due to the need to operate multiple different sites and have staff present in each. Additionally, there was an ongoing risk of downtime due to a lack of redundancy in the companys IT infrastructure. This could be a major issue More than 40 large screens give operators the flexibility to monitor across operations using single log on, with minimal maintenance if one of the control rooms did experience downtime, as it would be inoperative One of the most desirable qualities anyoriginal owners, the company has a devoutfor hoursand possibly dayswhile business can have is the ability to adapt tofocus on reinvesting capital back into theengineering work was arranged.change. Industries evolve, circumstancesorganisation to fuel continual improvement shift, but what remains over time are thoseand modernisation initiatives. Its thisAcknowledged as an area for improvement, businesses with the foresight and flexibilityapproach that has given the Lincolnshire- in 2015 the company began the process to move with the tides. based company the flexibility to deliver anof consolidating and integrating its control expansive set of products and services tooperations. The initiative aimed to replace Such adaptability is perfectly exemplified bymore than 300 customers, across the energy,the multi-site approach with a single control limestone calciner Singleton Birch. Formedutilities, water treatment and steel sectors. room with complete visibility across the in 1815, the company has endured throughcompanys entire operations. Working multiple industrial eras and continues toCommand and Control with its longstanding systems integrator thrive to this day. In part, this is due toA central component for managingInControl Systems, the board saw the the companys unique structure. Governedthis complex supply chain is its controlproject as an opportunity for cost saving by a board of trustees comprised ofoperations. This function is responsible forand competitive advantage. Following a several charities and descendants of themonitoring everything, from the extractiondiscovery workshop in 2017, the board approved the development of an integrated Room to Adaptcontrol centre, supported by a new, on-premises data centre.The vision for the project also aligned with a broader organisational push to adapt and Thrive the company culture and integrate its production chain. This meant moving away from fragmented, generalist staff managing different part of company operations, towards fully integrated operations via specialist operators. The new control centre would become a state-of-the-art facility with duties ranging from resource allocation By Elena Gardiner, Channel & Field Marketing Lead forand optimisation, through to safety and logistics; with the twin goals of cost Rockwell Automation UK, Ireland and Nordic Region reduction and value addition.'