OPTIMA CONTROL SOLUTIONS HELPING MAKE BRITTON GREAT

The Britton Group is one of the top PE film manufacturers in Europe, with multiple sites producing 90,000 tonnes of plain, printed and converted polyethylene film for the packaging industry each year.

OCS, a specialist in variable speed drive PLC and SCADA applications, is renowned for designing and integrating innovative bespoke products and off the shelf solutions to improve plant productivity. OCS upgraded the ER-WE-PA line at Britton's Winsford site by replacing nine DC drives with the latest Parker SSD VSD control equipment, resulting in greater reliability and reduced power consumption.

The equipment's lifetime was also extended by including an Allen-Bradley SCADA package, which will provide the platform necessary to accommodate any process technology improvements and will allow the integration of new control equipment with minimum disruption to Britton's manufacturing process.

Britton's engineering manager, Tom Evers, commented: The intervention by Optima breathed new life into an already fully depreciated asset. It was quite nerve racking initially as the machine lost approximately two tonnes in cable weight alone! However, the project delivered with time to spare and from cold start, the tension control needed no adjustment. Going forward the machine has delivered time upon time in terms of reliability and availability, which further cemented the trusting relationship between businesses.

Joint managing director, Michael Hill, said. We have worked with the Britton Group for many years now and have developed a good working relationship. Our mission to flourish by helping our clients reach their goals is typified in the way Optima approach every job that we engineer for them.

Optima, an approved Solution Partner with Allen-Bradley, Siemens and Parker SSD, has developed an unrivalled reputation for designing, building and commissioning high-quality drive control systems over the last 16 years and, through its sister company, InfoServe365, is also now a UK leader in managed data collection and analysis.

Established in 1995, the Blackburn-based company has grown steadily since then to provide a blue chip service to an impressive client base both here in the UK and overseas, including customers in Europe, China and South Africa.