AkzoNobel’s Ashington plant can now turn the production wheel of 3,500 paint varieties in only 2 weeks. As well as meeting the ever-increasing needs of their customers, the automation technology has helped AkzoNobel reach their sustainability goals and manage the minefield of safety legislation. Through looking closely at their challenges, we have helped them realise their unique vision, so that the moment raw materials come on site, to the finished product leaving, every process is automated with Siemens SIMATIC PCS 7. We have created a unique solution that helps answer their business needs today, prepare them for the unknown threats of tomorrow, and make their automation ambitions a reality.
I feel like we’ve advanced 20 or 30 years ahead…Jeff Hope, Head of Manufacturing, AkzoNobel, Ashington.
The complexity of this project was that AkzoNobel were looking at the scalability of their production facility. The joy of the Siemens solutions is that there’s no “one size fits all”. We can accommodate not only these large plants, but also cost-effectively address the small-scale ones as well. We also have a range of tools that will help us easily migrate legacy control systems into the Siemens SIMATIC PCS 7 platform, enabling existing plants to be efficiently modernised.

Want to future-proof you chemical or manufacturing business? Attend this webinar.
After creating the most advanced paints and coatings plant in the world, we reveal the people, processes and technology that enabled AkzoNobel to dramatically increase productivity while reducing carbon emissions by up to 50% and how the same can be scaled and applied to brownfield and greenfield sites alike.