Manufacturing

Case Study:

Virtual apps at BASF

8 May 2008

To optimise the use of assets and increase capacities by removing plant bottlenecks, BASF implemented an optimisation software suite from AspenTech.

BASF has a strong record in optimising its processes. For instance, by linking manufacturing plants, value-adding chains of production can be created where byproducts and waste from one plant serve as the raw materials in other plants.

Through this network of plants, energy and resources are also conserved. To make this work, BASF needs to design integrated and optimised production processes. No BASF chemical plant or facility comes on stream without BASF engineering involvement and having the right IT infrastructure and applications is essential.

BASF relies on AspenTech’s aspenOne Process Engineering Suite optimisation software. The challenge for BASF IT Services has been to provide BASF engineers with the latest version of their aspenOne software and to prevent conflicts with other software newly loaded to users’ desktops. Microsoft SoftGrid Application Virtualisation, which decouples applications from the operating system and enables them to run as network services, provided a powerful solution.

Dr Stefan Robert Deibel, senior vice president of engineering at BASF, notes: “Our engineers have outstanding engineer expertise. They use new, innovative technologies that help them constantly improve methods and tools that are crucial for their work. In our conceptual process department, we run and optimise some of the largest and most complex process simulations in the chemical industry.”

Dr Alexander Wiesel, senior process engineer, BASF, adds: “Our main task within BASF is to simulate processes for new plants and to optimise existing ones. We look for better process design, optimising the use of our assets and increasing capacities by removing plant bottlenecks. We run most of our simulations with tools based on IT services provided by BASF IT Services.”

“AspenTech enables us to model complex and large-scale process plants and to provide effective and efficient decision support for the BASF operating divisions. We run most of our simulations with aspenOne tools. It balances the availability of easy-to-use models with the power of state-of-the-art process simulation and optimisation technology,” says Dr Wiesel. Before software virtualisation, versions were tested and cross checked for dependencies. However, these tests were only valid for a given set of applications and did not cover all possible future combinations.

Dr Oldenberg elaborates: “An important element of our daily business is to work with a variety of different software applications. In such an environment, it is a major challenge to allow desired interactions between software tools by providing mutual exclusivity among other applications.”

Microsoft SoftGrid is a powerful application virtualisation and streaming solution which transforms applications into centrally managed services that are available when and where they are needed. Sam Youness, industry technology specialist, manufacturing at Microsoft, says: “SoftGrid is technology that allows you to virtualise Windows applications so that those applications can run on the desktop without even being installed on that desktop.”

SoftGrid Application Virtualisation decouples applications from the operating system and enables them to run as network services. This is different from machine virtualisation. The power of SoftGrid is that it allows applications to be delivered dynamically as services to be added or removed without leaving a trail on the client system. This in turn reduces the cost of deploying and maintaining applications and systems. Engineers are able to run different versions of applications on one PC to test in parallel and to run different applications that are normally not compatible on the same desktop.

Dr Wiesel summarises: “Response times for updates and patches have improved. New releases are available within weeks instead of months. The quick deployment of new releases saves time. Instead of developing workarounds, we can focus on our core business, process and asset optimisation, to create outstanding designs that are highly competitive for BASF. This contributes greatly to the success of our capital projects.”