18 | Tees Business
Serving the Teesside Business Community | 19
ANOTHER SHIP
COMES IN
FOR APPLIED
INTEGRATION
Applied Integration has provided the
power monitoring system for the
electrical distribution networks on the
£400 million Liverpool2 terminal.
Special report on how Stokesley firm Applied
Integration has played a key role in the UK’s landmark
deep water container terminal
S
ome of the world’s largest
container ships have a new UK
port of call. Liverpool2 represents a
£400 million investment to create a
new deep-water container terminal
at the Port of Liverpool.
Built on land the size of 14 Wembley
pitches reclaimed from the River Mersey,
Peel Ports’ landmark project creates two
in-river berths on a one kilometre-long
quayside, enabling container ships from
around the globe to service the north half of
the country, opening up quicker and cheaper
access to a large client base.
Featuring eight of the biggest ship-to-shore
cranes of their type and 27 rail-mounted
gantry cranes, the hi-tech facility provides
one of the world’s most state-of-the-art,
efficient terminals, future-proofing the port
for decades to come.
Liverpool2 provides an alternative to using
the southern ports, allowing cargo owners
to direct goods destined for the North more
directly towards their destination, avoiding
long-distance road or rail trips from southern
ports.
Playing a key role behind the scenes
is technology designed and installed by
Teesside SME Applied Integration, the 2015
North East Manufacturing Company of the
Year taking on a £200,000 contract that
builds on blue chip work on the biomedical
‘cathedral’, the Francis Crick Institute, and
Astute-class submarines.
When Peel Ports appointed FES to
deliver a 33,000 high voltage ring main for
Liverpool2, the infrastructure contractor
asked the Stokesley firm to provide the
power monitoring system for the low
voltage, medium voltage and high voltage
electrical distribution networks.
A small Applied Integration team was
scoped with providing a full turnkey solution,
including design, configuration panel build,
factory testing, site installation and site
acceptance testing. A visualisation system
was required to provide the project’s
operations staff with real-time information
and the ability to manually control power
around the awe-inspiring terminal, while a
historian system was needed to provide highspeed back-up information to the operations
staff as and when needed.
The firm’s system solution was based on
Siemens automation and control hardware,
Siemens high-voltage protection relays and
Schneider protection relays connected to a
Citect visualisation system a nd historian via
a site-wide fibre-optic network that utilises
multiple communications protocols.
Applied Integration overcame a number of
critical challenges during the term of the twoyear project, including the communications
protocol conversions with third party
vendors. In laymen’s terms, this meant
ensuring that the Liverpool2 system was
programmed to understand the language
spoken by third party equipment. While
communications protocols generally prove
to be the most difficult part of such projects,
the Tees firm has become a leader in the
field. Their vast knowledge and experience
meant the
interfaces
were quickly
prototyped
and delivered
by the project
team.
Delighted
director Garry
Loftouse
said: “This
was another
fantastic
highlight to
add to our
portfolio of
blue chip
projects.
We’ve
received
glowing reports from the customer, who will
again provide long-term opportunity for us
in the foreseeable future. We’re earning a
strong reputation in our capability to design
and install electrical control systems to world
class standards.”
Working closely with Teesside University are Applied Integration directors,
from left: Garry Lofthouse, Roy Coleman, Lee Raywood and Graham King.
KTP set to give big advantage
The deep water container terminal is the
size of 14 Wembley pitches.
Applied Integration has taken a big step
towards completing an innovative project
that could help the firm win more blue-chip
contracts.
The award-winning technology firm is
working in collaboration with Teesside
University in a two-year Knowledge Transfer
Partnership (KTP) designed to encourage
businesses to improve their competitive
edge through the use of emerging expertise
and innovative technologies.
Funded by government grants and
sponsorship, KTP is a nationwide
programme helping businesses improve their
competitiveness and productivity through
the better use of the UK’s knowledge,
technology and skills-base.
Applied Integration is working with
academics within the university’s School
of Computing to radically redesign
the Stokesley firm’s in-house project
development framework.
The project will develop software to
streamline Applied Integration’s in-house
processes, with the aim of reducing costs
and development time associated with
the production of hybrid critical systems. It
is focusing on the introduction of internal
processes to ensure client requirements
are clearly understood at the very outset of
major projects.
The KTP could save Applied Integration
– and its customers – substantial time and
money, giving the systems integrator a
competitive advantage in a challenging and
increasingly demanding market.
Phase 1 of the software framework named ReqCap, short for Requirement
Capture Tool – is now complete, with
engineers trailing the tool set giving it highly
positive feedback. Now Phase 2 is underway,
with work ongoing to generate automatic
test cases from user requirements.
The software tool allows Applied
Integration engineers to represent customer
user requirements of the firm’s automation
and control system, using a graphical
modelling language which, when fully
developed, will allow their engineers to
automatically generate high level sequential
flow charts (SFC’s). The SFC’s will be
primarily used to review and validate the
original user requirements at an early point in
a project, ensuring all parties understand the
exact requirements of the project.
Leading the university’s team of academics
on the project is Dr Joao Ferreira, a senior
lecturer and integral member of the
university’s Digital Futures Research Institute,
while Ali Almohammad is working as an
associate with the firm on the £108,000 KTP,
with engineer Phil White supervising the
project within Applied Integration.
Applied Integration director Garry
Lofthouse said: “Phase 1 completion of the
project and software trialling has generated
real excitement around the business.
Projects previously delivered by Applied
Integration have been used as test cases
for the new software tool. A live fix-tracking
and enhancement capture database ensures
nothing will be missed during the design and
development lifecycle of a project.
“Completion of Phase 1 was a major
milestone for the KTP and it’s great to
see our concept ideas of the how the tool
would work coming to fruition. The support
we’ve received from Teesside University,
particularly Dr Joao Ferreira and Gilly Hall, as
well as from Innovate UK has been first class
throughout the whole process.”