Fortune favours the prepared: from modular plant construction to shared economy

Fundamental change takes time and requires the active participation of all stakeholders. For the established control system manufacturers, the task used to be to develop a closed system and support it throughout its lifecycle - a large but relatively straightforward and predictable task. Modular plant engineering changes the parameters and the entire business model, as Maurmaier explains: "We are now dealing with an open system in which products from different players are integrated, sometimes with local control systems from several suppliers. We are no longer talking about the classic control system, but about the Process Orchestration Layer (POL). It can manage a whole pool of modules that are used in a first system today, are under maintenance tomorrow and will be used in another system the day after tomorrow".

For manufacturers of modules or PEA (Process Equipment Assembly), activities in Germany are currently being bundled in the REUNION funding project, which brings together module manufacturers, plant operators and approval authorities. The consortium leader of the funding project, Prof. Peter Pelz from the Technical University of Darmstadt, explains: "Our project includes many small and medium-sized companies that want to gain expertise in MTP as part of REUNION in order to be able to offer their customers appropriate products later on". The focus is on hardware, automation and documentation, with the Technical Universities of Dortmund, Dresden and Darmstadt working together with the partner companies.

"In the end, modularity can even be included in the portfolio as a product and offered to other sectors," says Pelz. " The motivation is great to help shaping the future in this way, to stop thinking in terms of modules and start thinking in terms of functions and services. For example, a new business model could be the sale of volume flow instead of pumps."

So while all market participants are tweaking the various parameters, beta tests by large companies are already serving to convince internal stakeholders to realise commercial systems. Sebastian Härtner, active in the DECHEMA modularisation specialist group and employed at Merck, is convinced that the effort is worthwhile: "In my view, modular plant engineering is the technology that will take us forward in the chemical and pharmaceutical industry. We now have two suppliers on the market who are creating the opportunity to use MTP with a commercial control system. By mid-2024, we will see the first qualified production infrastructure for active pharmaceutical ingredients in operation. These are the right and important steps into the future.

Härtner uses the comparison with car sharing to emphasise the potential of MTP. Today, everyone has their own car because car sharing is impractical. But if fully autonomous vehicles and intelligent control via an app ensured that every user had exactly the vehicle they needed within ten minutes, then they would no longer need to own a car. "This core idea of the shared economy can also be transferred to industry through modular plant construction. The more standardised processes are and the more interchangeable individual modules are to adapt production to demand, the more efficient and sustainable everything can be."