I&E Systems project win

Perth-based I&E Systems, in partnership with Worsley Alumina, has won a national award for the design and implementation of an integrated process and control system at the Worsley refinery.

Designed to consolidate all control rooms within the refinery, the advanced process management project topped the mining category and was named project of the year at the Australian Process & Control Engineering Zenith Awards.

Working in an integrated project team environment with Worsley, I&E was responsible for the design, execution, front-end engineering and master plan of the project, which consolidated five control rooms with more than 50 operators into one new central control room.

The project utilised an integrated team approach, with team members from Worsley process control as well as the main contractors working on the project.

The $55 million project involved nearly 4,000 process signals and more than 300 drives being migrated from the obsolete plant equipment to the new systems with no impact on planned operations.

The aim of the new system is to improve production up-time, quality and safety performance, and to accommodate future refinery expansions by adopting the latest control systems concepts.

Pre-feasibility for the project began in 2003, with final handover and close due by August.

I&E Systems project manager, Amarjit Grewal, said the project was one of the first in Australia to utilise leading-edge technology in operator graphic displays.

Some of the concepts used include a shift away from numbers to using more objects, utilising the principles of pattern recognition.

Colour is only used in case of emergency, with the design utilising a more neutral background.

"From an innovation point of view, the project focuses very much on the human factor," Mr Grewal said.

Suppliers included Honeywell, which supplied the control systems, project builder CiMeCo, Bunbury Industrial Controls, which supplied the technician labour on-site, Electro80, which supplied the motion control equipment, Jackson Lane and ISS.

The Perth desalination plant won the award in the water and wastewater category.