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The Maritex facility in Sortland, Norway, sits above the Arctic Circle, where supplies of the raw material, fresh fish, are plentiful. At the factory, internal fish organs are processed into margarine oils, for use as ingredients in traditional health food, such as Omega-3 margarine. The factory also extracts advanced products. These include DNA salts from cod milt, enzymes from cod stomach and peptone, a protein building block. Research into new products continues:
A new process, which includes an evaporator, was implemented using Digital Plant architecture and FOUNDATION fieldbus networked devices, which include Coriolis mass flow meters, pressure and temperature transmitters, and pH transmitters.
Existing 4-20mA field equipment is also interfaced into the DCS. Together with the parent company of Maritex, DCS engineers in Denmark configured the first evaporator over a satellite link. Such a capability is important when working on a facility in a remote location, with no permanent instrument engineers on site. One of the tools in configuration is Asset Management that uses information from field devices to manage plant assets. In the future this can be used to troubleshoot and diagnose plant operational problems and maintenance requirements, also remotely. Digital Plant Architecture is capable of handling everything from monitoring of the tank farm to advanced process control. These advantages continue to be important to us. At the time of the installation, Maritex did not have a process automation department. Since then, they have configured a second evaporator on our own! Continuous changes are taking place all the time in their process equipment and production has become smoother.
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