Rockwell Automation helps modernize machine infrastructure at major fiber and textiles plant, with minimal downtime

Turkish company Korteks addresses risk of unplanned downtime due to obsolescent hardware, and reaps rewards of its new digitalized architecture, in a plant with more than 50 machines.

ISTANBUL, March 30, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Rockwell Automation, Inc. (NYSE: ROK), the world's largest company dedicated to industrial automation and digital transformation, today announced that its digital solutions, knowledge and capabilities have proved pivotal in the successful plantwide modernization of Korteks' fiber and textiles plant in Turkey.

Korteks, one of Europe's biggest fully integrated polyester continuous filament yarn manufacturers, boasts about 335,000 m² of production facilities, with daily polymer production capacities amounting to nearly 600 tons of yarn in various formats, including POY, FDY, texturized, twisted and air texturized.

The company faced a growing risk of unplanned downtime due to the obsolescence challenges within its legacy OT infrastructure. However, it also faced difficulties in the planning of its modernization investment due to the complexity of its installed base.

After in-depth technical discussions and multiple site visits, Rockwell Automation demonstrated a holistic modernization approach – that factored in all the complexities of the existing OT and IT infrastructure – with minimum production disruptions.

"This phased modernization approach is a textbook example of what can be achieved with the right planning, backed by proven hardware and supported by a highly knowledgeable technical team," explains Ediz Eren, Rockwell Automation country sales director in Turkey. "The three-year plan will see a complete plantwide redesign with the final architecture delivering a fully digitalized platform that Korteks will be able to use to generate even greater efficiencies.

"We examined each individual machine and developed bespoke machine-specific upgrade pathways that would keep downtime to an absolute minimum. Each individual plan then feeds into the overall plan, which will eventually deliver a standardized plantwide automation and control infrastructure that will greatly simplify maintenance, training, operation and future integration."

"One of the most fundamental factors we considered was that production could not be stopped and each machine could be out of service for limited periods of time, only," explains Barış Mert, General Manager of Korteks. "Our primary goal was to address the risks we anticipated, relating to obsolescent control hardware, but the secondary outcomes - provided by a fully digitalized architecture - will open the door to great operational improvement opportunities in the near future."

Learn more about Rockwell Automation modernization solutions here.

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