ACS Dobfar

ACS Dobfar, an Italian chemical-pharmaceutical company operating 11 factories across Italy with approximately 1,500 employees, faced compounding infrastructure challenges as its automation footprint grew. Physical client machines proliferated across departments, aging hardware and operating systems created reliability risks, and multiple vendors supplying process skids introduced incompatible SCADA environments. In a pharmaceutical manufacturing context—where audit trails, uptime, and validated systems are regulatory requirements—running fragmented, non-integrated client management across production, utilities, and packaging lines introduced both compliance exposure and escalating maintenance costs.

ACS Dobfar revised its client management architecture by deploying Rockwell Automation's ThinManager platform alongside the PlantPAx DCS across all 11 plants. The transition began with a 2015 pilot in a synthesis department, establishing confidence in the technology before broader rollout. ThinManager replaced aging physical clients with a virtualized thin-client model, backed by redundant primary and secondary servers from Stratus Technologies. This allowed multiple SCADA applications—including third-party skids—to run as switchable pages on a single client. PlantPAx standardized process engineering and control libraries plant-wide, enabling all process skids to share the same control and visualization layer. Mobile SCADA access via smartphones was also validated during this phase.

The architecture delivered measurable operational improvements across ACS Dobfar's manufacturing network:

• 100% system uptime maintained during maintenance windows, enabled by ThinManager's redundant server switching
• 11 plants standardized on PlantPAx DCS, unifying control libraries and simplifying cross-site communication
• Elimination of physical client hardware management, reducing integration failures and vendor lock-in
• Multiple FactoryTalk instances viewable on a single client—previously not achievable with other platforms
• Centralized inventory management across all sites as a downstream benefit of library standardization

System users began requesting additional features as benefits became apparent, indicating strong adoption.

• Start with a contained pilot before committing to platform-wide rollout—ACS Dobfar's 2015 synthesis department pilot de-risked the broader PlantPAx and ThinManager investment.
• Redundancy must be built into virtualized architectures—primary/secondary server pairs at both the server and client level are what enabled the 100% uptime claim.
• Platform-agnostic thin client software unlocks multi-vendor environments—ThinManager's ability to manage non-Rockwell systems allowed ACS Dobfar to standardize management without forcing out existing suppliers.
• Library standardization has compounding benefits—shared control libraries simplified not just engineering, but also cross-site problem-solving and centralized spare parts management.
• Validate mobile SCADA access early—smartphone visualization was tested in parallel and is now a planned gateway for multi-department mobile access.