ABB India bags country’s largest automation order in agro-chemical sector

Swiss engineering major ABB India on Thursday said that it has bagged an order to execute the country’s largest process automation and safety system projects in the agro-chemical sector from Deccan Fine Chemicals. The company, however, didn’t divulge the details about the value of this order. ”This mission critical automation and safety system controls over 100 reactors at the largest multi-product plant, at their SEZ (special economic zone) facility in Tuni, Andhra Pradesh,” ABB India said in a statement.

ABB said it will deliver these automation projects for Deccan Fine Chemicals – a leading chemical manufacturer in India. Deccan Fine Chemicals currently has three manufacturing sites, each consisting of highly automated production plants, labs, warehousing facilities and advanced effluent treatment facilities.

ABB’s offered solution is designed for both high availability and high fault tolerance by positioning the primary and back-up critical controllers and servers at two separate locations. This design allows the system to flawlessly operate in case of immediately irreparable failure at any one geographical location, it said.

ABB said the Indian agrochemical market is pegged to reach USD 6.3 billion by 2020 as per a report jointly commissioned by PWC and Assocham, adding that automation and other digital technologies have demonstrated an ability to deliver increased efficiency and thereby enhance productivity for the sector.

”Adoption of such digitalisation technologies can help agro-chemical companies accelerate their overall business, increase profit margins, and cater to the burgeoning demand,” said G Balaji, Head – Energy Industries, Industrial Automation, ABB India.

Although ABB already automated all manufacturing operations, this is its first project wherein it is bringing over 100 reactors on to a single connected platform to control a new manufacturing block, as per Jagan Buddharaju, Chief Operating Officer, Deccan Fine Chemical.

”This intelligent automation and safety system with high availability will improve product quality, process efficiency and reduce downtime. We are keen to partner with ABB to drive process efficiencies in our manufacturing operations,” he said.