HIMA’s Smart Safety Test supports BASF new Verbund Site in Zhanjiang
BASF’s largest new construction project in China, the Zhanjiang Verbund Site Project (ZVSP), requires high personnel and time expenditures for tests, especially factory acceptance tests (FATs), integration factory acceptance test (IFATs) and loop tests. To reduce these efforts, BASF has opted for the HIMA Smart Safety Test, an integral part of SILworX®, HIMA’s engineering, diagnostics and test tool that enables a flexible, automated test concept over the entire lifecycle of a safety system.
Announced in July 2018 and officially commenced in November 2019, the project will be BASF’s largest investment to date with around €10 B upon completion. It will be operated under the sole responsibility of BASF and will be the company’s third-largest Verbund site worldwide, following Ludwigshafen, Germany, and Antwerp, Belgium.
The new smart Verbund site will include a steam cracker with a capacity of 1 MMtpy of ethylene and downstream plants for consumer-oriented products. By utilizing the latest digital technologies and applying the highest safety standards, the site will be built into a role model for smart manufacturing and sustainable production.
The FATs and IFATs for the first segments of the plant were carried out traditionally. After the manual execution, it became clear that a new way needed to be followed in order to meet the high-ranking project objectives and to increase efficiency. This, among other aspects, is born by the complexity of the start and stop sequences to be tested.
The decision was made to automate future tests with the HIMA Smart Safety Test. By doing so, all static functions as well as their sequences were fully tested and the test evidence was created and documented automatically.
Reflecting timelines and dimensions of this capital investment of BASF in China, new ways of implementing the safety functionalities were required to achieve the project objectives while maintaining plant safety of the highest level achievable. Based on a close collaboration between BASF and HIMA engineers, a new concept for testing and verification of safety functions was implemented across the entire project.
The new solution leads to a time saving and cost reduction. In addition, the test quality and accuracy of individual tests could be optimized. Based on that, many small deficiencies could be found and cleaned up during the process, which resulted in a faster FAT and IFAT. Test reports complied with the specifications, reducing a large amount of documentation – including the handling of manual test reports.
The BASF team was highly satisfied with the project quality and delivery speed, and both parties are currently exploring how to apply the smart safety test during the upcoming loop tests and automatic proof testing during the plant operations.
Peter Sieber, Vice President Strategic Marketing of HIMA Group pointed out: “This project is an excellent example of how close collaboration between a user and a solution vendor can create added value at project implementation and operation. It is also a prove of HIMA’s commitment supporting clients in making the complexity of functional safety more manageable.”
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