PlotIT Case Study: Intalco Aluminum Corporation

Intalco Aluminum Corporation is one of North America's largest producers of primary aluminum, with an output of more than 300,000 tons per year. Intalco's plant at Ferndale, Washington is the nation's largest (and one of the most efficient) aluminum smelter. Intalco produces both a basic painted aluminum sheet, and also processes its sheets into a variety of products such as aluminum foil, cable television conduit, roofing materials, stadium seating, window casings, and more.

Computers have played a vital role in the continual improvements which have taken place at Intalco over the years. In 1985, Intalco installed a fiber-optic communication system that covers the entire 300-acre plant site. Today, Intalco's 1,150 employees have access to more than 400 terminals connected to two Prime mini-computers running the Prime Information Pick database.

Intalco has sought to provide the functionality required for today's manufacturing environment with mini-computers, in order to avoid the costs and complexity of PC networks. Because the computer is so widely used by every department and every employee from operators to managers to scientists, a "user-friendly" environment is essential.

Intalco's system incorporates spreadsheets, graphics, ad-hoc data queries, statistics, quality control tools, and more. Graphic terminals operate at both 19.2 and 38.4kb over the fiber ethernet. These terminals have the ability to dump graphics displays to slave printers as well as to other printers and plotters, located throughout the plant.

In 1988, Dave Earley, the MIS manager at Intalco, was looking for a graphical and statistical tool for use on the plant's Prime system. He became aware of PlotIT, the advanced graph system from Scientific Programming Enterprises, and he ordered a copy.

"I was immediately impressed with PlotIT's flexibility and the potential power in its underlying architecture," Dave says. "Over the past four years of using PlotIT and watching it grow and evolve, those first impressions have been confirmed. Today, PlotIT is a key factor in Intalco's information systems, as well as the systems of our related companies."

PlotIT has evolved from the R&D area to being integrated into virtually all areas of the plant. "In a single package, PlotIT provides us with a common tool capable of supporting the statistical and graphical needs of the entire plant," Dave says. "We use it for on-line interactive purposes, scheduled automatic graphs, and graphics imbedded into other applications. I've never encountered a program that can match it."

The processing of aluminum from alumina ore is complex, involving many people, lots of machinery, electricity and heat. Thus, safety is a primary concern at Intalco. PlotIT, with its Fishbone (cause-and-effect) charting capability is especially useful in safety applications.

Molten aluminum is extracted from electrolytic cells and transferred to large holding furnaces. Here, alloys called hardeners are added to produce the various chemical compositions requested by Intalco's customers. With so many variables involved, PlotIT's statistical control charts are vital in maintaining the required quality standards on a 24-hour-a-day basis. PlotIT produces on-line control charts that are sent directly to furnace operators via terminals on the factory floor. Customers also receive capability charts generated by PlotIT.

The R&D staff continues to depend on PlotIT's ability to reduce complex scientific and engineering data into easy-to-understand 2D and 3D charts and graphs. Data is easily manipulated within PlotIT's spreadsheet-style Worksheet.

PlotIT has also found its way into the business side of Intalco. It is used to product charts of budgetary data, performance, costs, labor hours, etc. PlotIT enables managers to create a wide variety of plots including 3D pies, histograms, traces and control charts. These charts are available on demand at any terminal in the plant, and they can be printed easily for inclusion in reports.

Maintenance is another area where PlotIT is used on a daily basis to save time and reduce costs. Control charts are used to track equipment performance and calibration, while Pareto charts are used to analyze and prioritize maintenance needs. Management uses PlotIT's regression features to project equipment maintenance costs.

Many Intalco employees use PlotIT without even being aware of it or seeing a single PlotIT screen, because PlotIT has been embedded into many applications. A user or a program generates a data file, then calls PlotIT, which runs a pre-defined template that in turn produces the desired plots. In some cases, plots are generated automatically, and stored as screen images, allowing users to view the plots as needed in "slide show" fashion.

"PlotIT has become an important component in applications throughout Intalco," Dave says. "We're also using PlotIT in a number of applications at our new Alumax smelter in Canada, which is just coming on-line."

Contact:

Dave Earley
Intalco Aluminum Corporation
(206) 384-7061