Introduction
Denca Controls is well experienced in the unique requirements of the
food and beverage sector having worked with several food or beverage
companies to provide integrated process control systems.
Denca uses imaginative software engineering to provide a fully automated
and integrated control system which increases production volume by
reducing production downtime and minimising product losses. This is
particularly relevant to the needs of the food & beverage sector, as the
following case study demonstrates:
Problem
Guinness Packaging's partly automated control system on its pasteurising
plant had limitations in terms of integration and fault diagnosis which
led to unnecessary production downtime and product wastage.
Solution
To maximise production volume at the required quality, the legacy
control system needed upgrading to a fully automated PLC-driven control
system.
Denca designed, manufactured, programmed and installed a fully
integrated system which incorporated the following elements:
- Temperature loop control
- Zone flow monitoring
- Deviation temperature alarms
- Sequence malfunction alarms
- Low sparge flow warnings
- Cycle timing system
- Preset recipes for each product.
Benefits
The fully automated and integrated control system provided the following
main benefits to Guinness Packaging:
- technically complex problem translated into a reliable, simply operated solution
- reduced production downtime
- reduced product losses
- pre-warnings of equipment malfunction
- installed over minor shutdown to minimise production time loss.
Technical
Following a competitive tendering process, Denca Controls were
contracted by Guinness Packaging to:
- provide a detailed electrical & instrumentation design package
- software engineering - configure automation software for PLCs & HMI
- manufacture and assemble bespoke control equipment
- install & commission the full system.
The primary components of the fully automated and integrated control
system included:
- Allen Bradley SLC 500 PLCs with OP7 HMI
- Sub-base into existing control enclosures
- PID temperature loops controlled via PLC
- IFM flow switches for flow detection
- Coding of complex software to control recipes, sequencing, logic progression, build-back & feed-forward interlocks, and water mass balances across 5 zones.
The above installation provided Guinness Packaging with a fully
automated and integrated control system which increased production
volume by reducing production downtime and minimising product losses.
For further details, please contact Andy Vogan on 0151 257 9010
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