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Croda International Ltd. is a supplier of speciality chemicals to a wide range of market areas. Headquartered at the historic “Cowick Hall”, a 17th-century listed manor house in East Yorkshire (UK), the business has developed to cover the international market. The company now has more than 1,600 employees in 29 companies located in 25 countries; it achieved worldwide sales of ?300 million in 2004. One of Croda Chemicals Europe’s manufacturing sites is located at Rawcliffe Bridge in East Yorkshire. The Engineering and Maintenance Department at the site supports the technical production facilities which amongst its product range produces “lanolin”, a substance that, in its basic form, supports many of the products. Dave Wright is Senior Instrument Technician at the site’s Engineering and Maintenance Department.
Originally, the instrument calibration procedures at Rawcliffe Bridge were developed to meet both business needs and compliance with industry standards, archiving hard copy certificates within box files for each manufacturing area. This laborious task meant technicians had to support the shutdown maintenance programme by filling out certificates by hand to include primary standards used for each individual calibration. “When you have more than 6 manufacturing areas, with an average of some 250 instruments involved in each area, you can determine the time taken to complete this annual task,” David introduces.
Beamex was approached to introduce their products and how they may be used to aid the annual calibration tasks at the Rawcliff Bridge site. Instrument and Control Engineer, Stuart Marshall, aided by Dave, reviewed Beamex’s products and forwarded a proposal to adapt their current system at Croda to Beamex’s CMX calibration management software. “Our focus was to improve our calibration methods and improve efficiency by producing calibration certificates automatically”, Dave describes why Beamex was chosen.
“Our engineering procedures form part of the sites ISO 9002 accreditation, which enhances the need for improved calibration systems and documentation”, Dave explains. The process control at the site relies on accurate data from field instrumentation. Tolerances of 0.5% error on total loop help in achieving production targets.
The Engineering and Maintenance department at Rawcliffe Bridge site utilizes Beamex’s MC5-IS Intrinsically Safe Multifunction Calibrators, CMX calibration management software and both PGV and PGM calibration hand-pumps. “Compared to competitive products, the ease-of-use, the price and support locally were determining factors in our choice”, Dave reveals.
CMX also proved to have unmatched benefits. “Reliability, industry-accepted certificate formats, ease-of-use within production areas, adaptable database and good level of security”, Dave describes why CMX meets their needs.
The differing tasks throughout the plant areas at Rawcliffe Bridge, their timing and tolerance levels, mean that we need criteria, which is easily changeable to each loop on the database. “Once trained and confident, the CMX system proved to be invaluable in helping us to achieve our target in the first year of use”, Dave states. The benefits to Croda at Rawcliffe Bridge have been demonstrated to improve the time taken to complete a set list of tasks and file the relevant paperwork. The average savings of time per technician is 4 weeks in man-hours per year.
The instrument and electrical technicians at the site are deployed on a continuous 5-cycle shift pattern, performing routine preventive maintenance and responding to plant breakdowns and failures. This is supported by a number of technicians working on the day shift. The total number on the team is nine. According to Dave, Croda’s experience with Beamex has been one of positive interaction, help with training, and also customer support has been first class. “Altogether a positive experience”, Dave ends.
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