Suzano - Five systems, from the lab to the plant floor
Custom software for FuturaGene's forest biotechnology and for the general shutdown of Suzano's plants.
Where off-the-shelf software does not reach
Suzano is a world leader in pulp and paper, and FuturaGene is the group's biotechnology arm. Both run processes no market product describes well: tracking genetic material from meristem to batch, planning crosses that must not be genetically incompatible, and taking an entire plant offline for days without losing track of what is being done to each piece of equipment.
The partnership with X-Apps produced five systems across two fronts: three in biotechnology and two for internal operations.
The challenge shared by all five
Every request went through an internal committee comparing off-the-shelf against custom software. To win that comparison, the custom system had to do what the packaged product did not, and not merely cost less.
- Long, branching processes with rules that exist only in that lab and that plant. Work in the field and on the plant floor, where connectivity is not a given. Physical traceability, tying the digital record to the vial, the plant and the equipment.
Biotechnology: the FuturaGene laboratory
The laboratory system was the largest of the five, specified across 139 user stories.
It catalogues genetic material and genetically modified organisms and follows the entire flow: meristem collection, plasmids, culture media, batch control, process phases and routes, through to glassware disposal. Reports come out by batch, by material and by researcher.
Physical traceability was solved with barcodes printed on a thermal printer at the bench and read back during operation, binding the record in the system to the vial on the shelf.
One real-world detail changed the authentication design: not every lab operator had an individual password. Instead of forcing a login that did not exist, the system gained an operator profile identified by personal number, preserving who did what without inventing credentials.
Hybridization orchard and experiment management
The second biotechnology front moved out of the lab and into the field.
Hybridization orchard. Genotype allocation on the plot map, flowering monitoring, pollen collection and stock control, controlled crosses, and fruit collection with seed stock. Validation is the critical part: when a cross recorded in the field conflicts with what was planned, the system warns beforehand, not afterwards.
Experiment management. Field experiment registration with the designs agronomic research actually uses, randomized blocks, augmented blocks, completely randomized, split plot and lattice, with plot types and borders. From that, the experimental plot map is generated automatically instead of drawn by hand.
QR Codes tie plant, pollen and cross back to the record, keeping the traceability research demands.
The experiment management and hybridization orchard applications went into production in June 2018, with assisted operation in the following weeks.
General shutdown: the most expensive clock in the plant
A general shutdown is the window in which an entire plant stops for maintenance. It is short, planned in detail, and every hour counts: the official schedule for one of the lines ran a little over ten days end to end.
Suzano already used a market tool for this and pointed at two concrete problems. Customization cost too much for the reality of the operation. And moving the schedule out of MS Project and into the tool consumed two weeks of work before the shutdown even began.
The system that was built went straight at those points:
- Schedule import directly from the project file, by activity type, replacing the manual rework. Execution export to a spreadsheet, closing the loop back to planning. Activity list by owner, so each technician sees what is theirs. A dedicated API, so the app used in the field consumes the same data. Records with evidence: photo of the replaced part, photo of the new part, comments and cancellation reason, with a checklist configurable per equipment.
One requirement drove much of the design: it had to work without connectivity, because part of the maintenance happens in basements and isolated areas of the plant. And since shutdowns happen at more than one site, the system was built parameterized rather than tied to a single plant.
Stack and practices
- ASP.NET MVC for the web applications and ASP.NET Web API for the services. Layered architecture, with domain, service, repository and persistence separated. Dapper as a micro ORM over a relational database. ASP.NET Identity for authentication, extended for the password-less operator profile. SharePoint integration, the environment the client already used. Barcode printing and reading on a thermal printer, and QR Codes for traceability in the field. MS Project integration, the source of the shutdown schedule. Scrum with user stories, definition of done, unit tests and security tests. Team working on site at Suzano, under the same supplier onboarding as everyone else.
Documentation shipped alongside the code, including requirements specification and API documentation for the laboratory system.
Testimonial
"In Suzano we have an excellent partnership with X-Apps on project development, now with three systems in the biotechnology area and two for internal demands."
Mario Del Matto - Suzano Papel e Celulose
Does your process not fit off-the-shelf software?
When a process is specific enough, the bill for the packaged product shows up in customization and in operations, not in the licence. X-Apps builds the system that describes the process as it actually is, with documentation and traceability from the first cycle.