As one of the world’s largest independent pharmaceutical companies, Eli Lilly has several manufacturing sites across the UK. P&B has been involved in several projects at its Liverpool site, designing custom solutions specifically for the client’s site as well as supplying products from the existing product range.

The client needed to replace two types of ageing 415V circuit breakers originally supplied by Ellison and GEC. P&B designed retrofits for these products and, prior to installation, performed short circuit type tests in the presence of the client’s engineers at a Laboratory in Italy to confirm the ratings of the new products. The tests revealed weakening of the original isolating contacts. These were changed to new, proven P&B contacts on several circuit breakers, which were retained as well as the new retrofits supplied by P&B Switchgear.

Some of Eli Lilly’s 3.3kV E3 switchgear supplied by English Electric and their 11kV BVP17 from GEC was also in need of upgrade. P&B has supplied several hundred air break retrofits in many UK installations and were able to retrofit the E3s and install in an arranged outage. Several BVP17 oil circuit breakers were replaced by modern P&B vacuum circuit breakers modified to cover the client’s operational requirements. The breakers were installed by P&B to the programme requested by the site management team.

Having completed the switchgear project Eli Lilly came back to P&B to request replacement of some of the motor protection relays on site. After an evaluation of requirements on site, P&B supplied, installed and commissioned MPR 3000 relays and provided tailored training to Eli Lilly staff on their use.