“Ethanol producers are currently waging battle on three fronts in an effort to remain profitable; corn prices remain high, energy costs are rising, and ethanol is in surplus bringing the price per gallon lower,” said Eric Belaski a director at Ibeque Corp. “When margins are tight it may be difficult for a plant manager to justify purchasing a data management system but the truth is, now is the best time to take control of your resources and effectively and efficiently manage your plant”.
Presently, most ethanol plants use spreadsheets to manage the operations and lab data. It is nearly impossible to analyze a week or month of data effectively. Add an enzyme trial or other process change and it quickly becomes a monstrous task. E-PIMS provides the graphing and reporting capability to reduce the analysis and benchmarking times to minutes. Even plants using Advanced Process Control (APC) software will benefit from E-PIMS. APC software controls various steps of the ethanol production process, essentially reducing the decision making of the Operations Manager. But there are times when only intuition and experience can keep a plant on track and E-PIMS easily compliments the APC by providing a window into the process data to help troubleshoot problems and trend multiple data points simultaneously.
“Because E-PIMS is a web-based application it opens a wide communication channel for all employees at the plant,” said Chris Ferrier, the Technical Director at Ibeque Corp. “Any employee with access to a web-browser, regardless of their physical location, can view the plant status, diagnose problems, and retrieve reports. Within days, employees realize that this is a much easier way to collect data and retrieve information.”
E-PIMS utilizes a relational database, historian, and proprietary data warehouse that provides the impressive ability to report and analyze real-time DCS data and lab data simultaneously. Our user-friendly interface allows managers to quickly and accurately view trends, benchmark trials, and closely monitor fermentation against best batch data. Managers proactively make use of the data that is collected on a daily basis. Statistical analysis is readily available to make effective decisions regarding process changes or product trials.
“With E-PIMS, we can make decisions based on data, without having to spend precious time assembling the data from different sources such as written logs, spreadsheets, and external reports,” said Brian Pasbrig, Plant Manager at Pinal Energy in Maricopa, AZ. “Data acquisition is done on a real time basis by all employees, and immediately shared through the entire organization. This tool enables us to improve our communication, control, efficiency, and decision making for the entire operation.”
E-PIMS collects, trends and displays data starting from the grain received, through all the process steps, to the ethanol and by-products produced. Data is collected automatically from the DCS, HPLC, GC and other network compliant devices. E-PIMS also tracks your suppliers, products, consumables, enzymes and more. Additional tools are provided to maintain daily inventory, plant procedures, and process limits all wrapped into an affordable package.
