Integrating a New Smelter Supervision HMI in Existing Control Systems at ALBRAS

Abstract

ALBRAS needed to align its operation with the follow-up methodology used by Hydro Aluminium, its majority owner. To achieve this goal, ALBRAS decided to standardize its potline production information by installing Hydro’s APICS system. A tight integration with the underlying pot control systems was needed to replace their supervision HMI by APICS’s one. To design an interface to integrate both systems and install it in the running control systems without disturbing the smelters’ operations was a challenge. In this paper the interface solution provided to integrate APICS with two different versions of the SCORE supervision and control system, installed in all four smelters at ALBRAS, will be presented. Challenges will be discussed, the defined interface solution will be detailed and the results along with some lessons learned will be presented.