Rockwell Automation, Inc. (NYSE: ROK), the world’s largest company dedicated to industrial automation and digital transformation, today announced that its digital solutions, knowledge and capabilities have proved pivotal in the successful plantwide modernization of Korteks’ fiber and textiles plant in Turkey.
Korteks, one of Europe’s biggest fully integrated polyester continuous filament yarn manufacturers, boasts about 335,000 m2 of production facilities, with daily polymer production capacities amounting to nearly 600 tons of yarn in various formats, including POY, FDY, texturized, twisted and air texturized.
The company was aware that it faced a growing risk of unplanned downtime due to the obsolescence challenges within its legacy OT infrastructure. However, at the same time, it faced difficulties in the planning of its modernization investment due to the complexity of its installed base.
As a result of in-depth technical discussions and multiple site visits, Rockwell Automation demonstrated that it could deliver a holistic modernization approach – that factored in all the complexities of the existing OT and IT infrastructure – with minimum production disruptions.
“This phased modernization approach is a textbook example of what can be achieved with the right planning, backed by proven hardware and supported by a highly knowledgeable technical team,” explains Ediz Eren, Rockwell Automation country sales director in Turkey. “The three-year plan will see a complete plantwide redesign with the final architecture delivering a fully digitalized platform that Korteks will be able to use to generate even greater efficiencies.
“We examined each individual machine and developed bespoke machine-specific upgrade pathways that would keep downtime to an absolute minimum. Each individual plan then feeds into the overall plan, which will eventually deliver a standardized plantwide automation and control infrastructure that will greatly simplify maintenance, training, operation and future integration.”
“One of the most fundamental factors we considered was that production could not be stopped and each machine could be out of service for limited periods of time, only,” explains Barış Mert, General Manager of Korteks. “Our primary goal was to address the risks we anticipated, relating to obsolescent control hardware, but the secondary outcomes - provided by a fully digitalized architecture - will open the door to great operational improvement opportunities in the near future.”
Modernization presents huge opportunities but sometimes equally big challenges arise. This makes in-depth planning, and a clear understanding of the issues and challenges essential. Although better performance, more flexibility, and more conscious decisions top the list of benefits, there is so much more value that can be realized.
Learn more about Rockwell Automation modernization solutions here.
About Korteks
KORTEKS is Europe's largest fully integrated and innovative polyester filament yarn manufacturer. It has been serving local and international markets as a polyester yarn producer for more than thirty years. Today, KORTEKS Yarn has a production facility of 335,000 m². In addition to the main product groups of 580 tons of polymer per day, 480 tons/day of pre-oriented yarn (POY), 120 tons of full-drawn yarn (FDY), 450 tons/day of texturing; It produces twisted, air-textured, monofilament yarn with a capacity of 40 tons/day. With its 2,500 employees, distinguished supplier, and customer portfolio, KORTEKS Polyester Yarn makes a significant contribution to the economic life in and around Turkey as an employer and manufacturer.
For more detailed information, you can visit www.korteks.com.tr.
