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Vol 32 - No 06 - September 2006 Branch news : North East - Visit to BASF Chemicals Seal Sands Approximately 40 delegates met at BASF Chemicals large scale continuous production plant at Seal Sands near Middlesbrough to observe a demonstration of the newly introduced shift handover solution called STAR (Shift – Tracking – Action – Recording). This electronic application has been developed and successfully implemented jointly by BASF and Camtique. The session was opened by Camtique’s Ian Paddock followed by a site introduction and bus tour with excellent commentary from Phil Stevens, BASF’s Engineering Services Manager. The site produces over 500,000 tonnes of bulk intermediate materials per year that are shipped from its own jetties on the River Tees to other chemical plants for conversion into ABS plastics and Nylon 66. The scale and complexity of the site can only really be appreciated by a tour. The site was originally developed by Monsanto in the 1960’s but has been owned by BASF since 1985. Not only is there plant in use for producing the site’s main products, but over the years other equipment has been installed, often in conjunction with other companies, to convert what at one time would have been a waste by-product into a useable chemical or for energy recovery. For example, BASF operate one particular area of plant on behalf of BP. Some parts of the process require very large amounts of electricity and the site contains its own power generation station – complex plant in its own right. The plant operates continuously and is manned on a 12 hour shift basis. As well as a large number of shift changeovers per week these shift patterns mean that people will sometimes have long breaks between their groups of shifts and need to be brought up to speed quickly when they are on duty. The need to improve efficiency of communication and tracking of actions for such a large and complex set of plants led to the development of the STAR system. Additionally, the existing paper system used to record plant operations was eventually archived to microfilm making it very difficult to review history and trends. Although BASF use SAP notifications for the recording and control of certain activities, the STAR system is much simpler to operate and also contains the key functionality of logging information by user and allowing records to be added to but not overwritten. Andrew Pool of BASF IT Services provided the demonstration. Although designed to be paperless, users are assigned to the plant they are currently working in and can generate reports specific to their area. Once actioned these do not have to be retained as activities are held electronically and can be queried as necessary. The system is quick and “real time”, the main benefits being time saved by large numbers of people who can now simply look into the system rather than tracking down documentation or extra telephone calls etc. BASF estimate that these savings will amount to approximately £240,000 per year. BASF IT Services and Camtique are hoping to develop the application commercially and build a user community. They can be contacted on 0161 488 5998 and 01489 790859 respectively. Before the session ended with fine buffet refreshment, Keith Stockdale, an International Trade Advisor with UKT&I, presented on the services which are available to assist companies in this sector with business development into new markets. Assistance ranges from market research reports to providing contacts at embassies and facilitating trade fairs. This support is subsidised by Government particularly for SMEs of up to 250 employees. I would like to finish by thanking everyone who was involved in organising, hosting and presenting at this visit. It was both informative and enjoyable. Jonathan Keighley. MIOM Related Topics:
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