ANT Telecom supplies fully-integrated, DECT-based communications and alarm system for AstraZeneca manufacturing facility

• site-wide installation includes mobility, messaging and alarm servers, 70 DECT base stations and 90 Ex-approved handsets with lone worker protection functions

ANT Telecommunications has installed a fully-integrated, DECT-based communications and alarm handling system for AstraZeneca’s manufacturing facility at Bristol. This facility is one of two large-scale pharmaceutical manufacturing plants that the company operates in the UK, and is currently undergoing major expansion. The new system provides site-wide personnel communications, process monitoring and alarm messaging facilities, and is designed to replace a legacy network of personal mobile radios and pagers, and to obviate inappropriate voice traffic on the site’s existing public address system.

ANT Telecom won the AstraZeneca contract back in June 2001, primarily on the strength of its expertise in producing specialist communications systems for process monitoring and safety applications. After conducting an extensive site survey of the facility, ANT Telecom immediately commenced design and manufacture of the custom elements, and subsequently finished installing the entire system in 2002. Following commissioning, user training and customer acceptance trials, the system will go live in stages.

The system that ANT Telecom has installed uses a Tenovis Integral 33 modular communication server to provide the core mobility server functions. The system is linked directly to 70 DECT base stations that are distributed throughout the site, to ensure seamless voice and data communications between all peripatetic operations personnel, via DECT handsets. It is also equipped with a 30-channel ISDN link to the site’s existing main PABX system – facilitating communication with people outside the plant -– as well as interface modules for the messaging and alarm servers. All three servers are backed by uninterruptible power supplies, to provide at least 30 minutes’ operation in the event of power loss.

Both the alarm and messaging servers are PC-based units, running under Windows NT and Windows 2000. The alarm server accepts inputs from AstraZeneca’s site-wide alarm system, issues fault reports in the form of text messages to the appropriate operations personnel, and automatically manages the task in terms of alarm acknowledgement and escalation. An external watchdog function continuously monitors the total system from alarm generation to acknowledgement of alarms by DECT units, to provide real-time verification of system integrity; if a functional test alarm is not received ‘off-air’ when it is transmitted, after a short time an independent external warning device is activated. The alarm server also maintains a comprehensive event log for safety audit purposes.

ANT Telecom has supplied three versions of DECT base station for AstraZeneca’s Bristol facility; indoor and outdoor locations are equipped with IP20- and IP65-rated units respectively, while all potentially hazardous areas of the site are equipped with the company’s latest RBS 492 intrinsically safe unit. The RBS 492 is the first DECT base station in the UK to be certified under ATEX 100a Directive 94/9/EC as suitable for use in potentially explosive atmospheres. Each DECT base station is capable of handling up to eight full duplex communication channels simultaneously.

ANT Telecom is also supplying 80 of its advanced MM780 industrial DECT handsets, as part of the initial order. These handsets are fully approved to the CENELEC EExibIICT4 classification, and are the only Ex-approved units on the UK market to feature a vibrator call-alert function. The handsets also provide the text messaging and lone worker protection facilities that are needed for this application – including a single button-push which is used to acknowledge regular check calls initiated by the alarm server as well as the acknowledgement of production alarms. A red button on top of the unit is used for initiating a call for emergency help by lone workers.

According to AstraZeneca, "The DECT-based system that ANT Telecom has installed at our Bristol facility meets our communication and alarm-handling needs very efficiently. Our plant operations staff can now communicate with each other, and other people, from anywhere on-site, and they can also be alerted to any process-related condition that warrants their attention, all via the same compact handsets. Also, since we are currently undergoing major expansion, our communication requirements are constantly evolving, and this new DECT-based system provides the mobility and flexibility that we need."

Back to case studies