Sasol Lake Charles improves HMI with UCDS

The following was written by David Smith, Process Control Engineer at Sasol.

Sasol is an international integrated energy and chemicals company that leverages the talent and expertise of our more than 32,400 people working in 37 countries. We develop and commercialize technologies, and build and operate world-scale facilities to produce a range of high-value product streams, including liquid fuels, chemicals and low-carbon electricity.

The Lake Charles Chemical Complex has seven manufacturing units situated on approximately 400 acres. Our primary products are used in the cleaning and personal care markets to manufacture ingredients for soaps, detergents, shampoos, cosmetics and more. We also manufacture specialty chemicals used in mild abrasives, thickeners and pharmaceuticals, as well as in the enhanced oil recovery markets.

Safety is a core Sasol value. This value, coupled with a high-performance Sasol culture, became the driver to implement the safest and most intuitive toolset for the operator. We didn’t have a firm foundation for how we designed the operator environment and needed to develop the framework from which to do so, that is why we hired UCDS.

We utilized UCDS’s world-class experience to guide our team in developing our operator environment. UCDS helped define and develop our site HMI Philosophy which will be used to benchmark existing units and design newly-added units.

Now that we have a working HMI Philosophy, we possess the foundation from which to design the most comprehensive HMI solutions for our operators. It also defines the framework for continuous improvement as technology, people, and the plant environment evolve.