The headquarters of a large pharmaceutical firm are located in Melbourne, Australia. This facility serves as the base for two key operations:
One unit focuses on manufacturing diagnostic blood grouping reagents, essential for ensuring the safety of blood supplies across Australia, New Zealand, Southeast Asia, and Europe.
Another specializes in creating customized procedure packs tailored to the needs of the Australian healthcare market.
The manufacturing area consists of discrete physical rooms and zones. All rooms have restricted access, with the cleanrooms and airlocks having differential air pressures to segregate activities to prevent unintended contamination.
Why Distech Controls technology?
Distech Controls, a global leader in building automation and energy management solutions, which designs and manufactures systems and products based on open and interoperable communication standards, was deemed best suited for the application.
Distech Controls’ ECB, compact DDC range was preferred, as each critical cleanroom AHU could be controlled by a single ECB controller, limiting potential failure to a single unit.
The controllers were connected via a BACnet/IP network and operate on a peer-to-peer basis, allowing for data integration and interoperability.
The Building Management Supervisory software is Distech Controls’ EC-Net 4 (Niagara N4) and consists of a J-8000 (EC-BOS 8) and a standalone server.
Distech Controls solutions installed
- EC-Net 4 – Supervision software
- EC-Net Designer
- Eclypse controllers range - ECB, ECx and VAV
Additional Equipment Interfaces
- Mitsubishi VRF System (BACnet/IP)
- Simon Boilers (MODbus TCP)
- Mitsubishi Air Cooled Chiller (BACnet/IP)
- CAT Generator with DSE HMI (MODbus TCP)
Several Advanced Features
- Cleanroom Pressure Control
- Cleanroom Supply Air Reset Strategies (Energy optimization)
- Cleanroom Fresh Air Pretreatment (Dynamic Dewpoint Control, Energy optimization)
- Cleanroom Visual Indicators. The indicators provide a visual status of plant serving the cleanroom.
Key stakeholders
- System Integrator: Controltech
- Design Engineer: Gareth Astbury / Catherine Glassenbury
- Mechanical Contractor: AG Coombs
- Builder: Bio Construct