To maintain its market position, the digital technology has been evolved to provide greater convenience and higher efficiency, with reduced costs. This is in line with the government plan, known as “Digital Thailand” that was started in April 2016 that encourages Thai people and investors to make use of digital technology in the most efficient way.  

Thai Roong Ruang Group of Companies (TRR), one of the leading sugar manufacturers and exporters in Thailand, has been focusing on improvement for the better efficiency of equipment in its production process and better sugar quality for the customers. Furthermore, TRR are currently developing a sugarcane farming management system by using information technology and GPS to link and share data between farmers and factory, which could help farmers to increase their efficiency and effectiveness in selecting sugarcane fields for harvesting.

TRR recently invested in a new production center project in the Sakon Nakhon Province, in the northeast of Thailand where ABB will provide the complete sugar mill automation system.  This includes a partnership with Real Soluplus Company Limited, EPC, who has extensive expertise in the sugar industry.   ABB will supply 18 LV motors, 3 ACS880 multidrives for the sugar mills, 1 MV slip ring motor for the shredder and 2 MV slip ring motors for cutters.  All equipment will be controlled by the ABB AbilityTM System 800xA.   The installation and commissioning of ABB products and systems is planned to start during August – September 2017 as advised by TRR.

“This is the second plant in Thailand where the new technology of individual (pinionless) AC drives will be installed on each rolling mill, enhancing the ability to transmit power independently to each mill, allowing greater control and higher system efficiency.  This innovative solution helps reduce initial investment, maintenance costs and increases energy savings at the same time.  In addition, it has provided the opportunity to further develop a number established milling concepts and gain valuable operational information that can be applied to the other projects in the future,” said Phimon  Limlikhitagsorn, Sales Manager with ABB’s Robotics and Motion division.

 “With this extension of the ABB AbilityTM System 800xA, the system will control, monitor and coordinate all the drives as well as electrical equipment precisely. Moreover, ABB also provides a full redundant system to ensure that the plant obtains a highest reliability control system.” said Prasit Kantakul, ABB’s Local Business Unit Manager for Industrial Automation.