Quantum Design add new controls to an existing PLC and operator interface for a gum manufacturing facility.
What is the significance of the project?
Modification to a process line can be tricky, risky and expensive if the right upgrades and solutions aren’t utilized.
Relevant Industries
- Food & Beverage – any line that is adding additional ingredients
- Pharmaceutical
- Chemical
Engineering Specialties Utilized
- Upgrading Controls
- Bench Testing & Offline Simulation
- Software Integration
Technologies Utilized
- Rockwell RSLogix 5000
- Rockwell RSLinx
- Rockwell connected Components Workbench
- Wonderware InTouch
- Wonderware Archestra IDE
- Microsoft SQL Server
Details of Project
Quantum Design came to the aid of a local gum manufacturing facility looking to add a new liquid ingredient to their product line. This process could have been very expensive, as the system primarily uses loss and weight feeders. In order to add an additional ingredient, the customer needed an ingredient tote, storage tank, fill pump, product pump, solenoid valves, scales, flow meter and heat trace.
Quantum started by proposing the manufacturer add PLC logic and hardware to the existing system to control a new ingredient pump using a Coriolis style flow meter as a reference and a metering pump to measure the input to the recipe which is a more cost effective approach. This would allow the ingredient pump, tote, tank and flow meter to act as a loss in weight feeder, using a PID loop to control the ingredient pump speed. In addition, the new ingredient would be added to the existing Wonderware recipe control and operator interface. Alarm messages and status indicators would be added as well. New zones would be added to the existing Heat Trace system.