The Project: Create an Automation Solution that Gives the Client Control

Production health is a synergy between availability, performance, and quality. Overall equipment effectiveness (OEE) is the gold standard to measure these metrics and can help identify early signs of production issues with modern software solutions. This was the challenge for a leading supplier of almond products who needed to find a better way to monitor the real-time efficiency of their lines as well as record production line problems as they occurred.

A priority in this control system upgrade would be data ownership so the client could operate their system autonomously. The almond supplier didn’t want to rely on outside data hosting resources since these often limit extensive data archives. E Tech Group was engaged to upgrade the almond supplier’s performance monitoring system given their experience with the platform, OEE, and database structures.

The Solution: Leverage Top Allen-Bradley & Ignition Automation System Platforms

The almond supplier requested E Tech Group convert their existing production system to Ignition, an industrial application platform from Inductive Automation, to standardize their SCADA architecture due to its scalability and intuitive design features. The client requested the project be expedited within a very tight timeline, and E Tech Group was ready to put boots on the ground.

Our automation professionals provided connection programing to ensure assets were properly tracked in the Allen-Bradley PLCs using Studio 5000 Logix Designer in addition to the Ignition system using the Perspective module. This supported the client’s ability to have a personalized visualization system that could monitor, control, and record their industrial applications in real-time across any mobile device.

The E Tech Group team set up a database that could effectively log information in an organized manner and enabled seamless data extraction. This structure was difficult to develop from scratch due the high-level of efficiency desired when querying the data. As an Ignition Premiere Integrator with deep domain experience in implementing this flexible, transparent control system platform, our Ignition specialists configured and connected the SQL database structure with Ignition’s transaction groups, which later proved to be highly efficient.   

The Results: Improved Visibility & Control with a Seamless Ignition Upgrade

The project was completed in three months and the Ignition Perspective module is currently being tested by the client. The project deployed seamlessly given E Tech Group’s proactive collaboration with the almond supplier. The upgraded Ignition automation platform enabled the client to track shift start and end times as well as monitor the shift time efficiency. E Tech Group’s Ignition specialists leveraged their in-depth expertise to support the conversion to the Ignition platform, enabling a strong performance monitoring system that could properly track, store, and visualize data to support the customer’s OEE.