Owens Corning uses Siemens technology to boost efficiency

Owens Corning is once again relying on expertise from Siemens at its glass mat manufacturing facility in Fort Smith, Arkansas, USA.

Following the example of its Gastonia, North Carolina, facility, the scope includes plant-wide automation solutions and simulations that measurably boost the efficiency, quality, and availability of the equipment and the manufacturing line.

Owens Corning has invested in a 52,000m² non-woven manufacturing facility in Fort Smith to meet the construction industry’s demand for stronger and more sustainable building materials.

The new plant will replace the company’s smaller factory on an adjacent site.

Following a four-year construction period, the new factory was commissioned last year. It will manufacture Owens Corning’s non-woven mat for roofing shingles and other building and construction products.

Among the technological highlights at the facility are the world’s largest inclined wire former and glass mat drier.

Wim Weeres, Technical Director of Nonwoven Business at Owens Corning, said the company first collaborated with Siemens in 2016.

At the time, Siemens was collaborating with a system integrator to introduce plant-wide automation into Owens Corning’s new glass mat line in Gastonia, North Carolina, along with Simit for simulations and training.

This earned Siemens the Owens Corning Value Creation Award.

“The award set the trend for future collaborations with Siemens – because, as its name suggests, the collaboration created measurable value.

"Thanks to automation and simulation, the efficiency, quality, and availability of plants and machines were increased,” says Weeres.

Using this earlier project as a blueprint for Fort Smith, Siemens coordinated international OEMs and supervised the plant-wide automation of the former and dryer section of the new glass mat manufacturing plant and its auxiliary installations with the Simatic PCS 7 process control system.

It also contributed products relating to all aspects of process instrumentation, communication networking, drives, and control products.