Challenge
The era of the PLC5 has come to an end. The controller that once served companies well for many years is now obsolete, resulting in costly aftermarket replacement parts, limited capabilities, and downtime challenges. For one of the world’s largest mozzarella cheese producers, the key challenge with their legacy Allen Bradley PLC5 control system centered around its limited memory capacity and, consequently, the inability to handle new data collection and documentation requirements by U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). The cheese producer was further challenged to find a system integrator that had technical expertise with the obsolete architecture to leverage their existing automation investment and determine their migration options. Specialized in this matter, E Tech Group was engaged to plan and manage the migration to the ControlLogix platform.
Solution
The customer’s Allen Bradley PLC5 control system used legacy communication protocols such as Remote I/O and DeviceNet. These networks were converted to ethernet communication with the use of aftermarket gateways and media converters. However, these short-term fixes to remain functional were not well-documented making the decision to reuse existing PLC5 I/O modules with “local” Remote I/O & DeviceNet gateways a difficult issue to troubleshoot while setting up their communication.
The E Tech Group team implemented their success-proven phased approach for a timely migration. The team identified modern Rockwell processors with ample memory to support the new process documentation requirements in addition to the best location to physically install the new PLC in the customer’s existing control panels. Furthermore, E Tech Group assigned a project team of engineers with strong PLC5 conversion experience to properly migrate to the new architecture and leverage the ControlLogix’s functionality.
Results
The preservation of archaic automation systems can be risky and expensive. With consideration to downtime costs and other performance challenges, the investment to migrate to a modern system may pay off sooner rather than later. “The migration provided our customer a solid basis to build for the future.” said Aaron Peri, E Tech Group Project Manager. “It gives them the opportunity to take advantage of newer technologies as they continue to become available and enables them to meet the new, more stringent reporting requirements imposed by the USDA.”
Ultimately, E Tech Group deployed a successful migration strategy that equipped the company to better meet regulatory demands. Although a migration process can seem daunting, it doesn’t have to be with the right system integrator partner.
Challenge
Communication is an essential tool for operational efficiency. Poor communication across manufacturing departments and their control technology can result in production downtime, inferior product quality, unhappy customers, and ultimately the loss of focus as an industry leader. After all, a company’s expertise is their product and generally not control system communications. When one of the world’s largest almond processing companies became unsatisfied with their legacy SCADA system and its limited report capacity, E Tech Group was called to action to support the conversion to a new SCADA system.
Solution
The almond processing company determined Ignition, an industrial application platform from Inductive Automation, was the best platform to standardize their supervisory control and data acquisition across multiple locations. As a Premier Ignition System Integrator, E Tech Group applied their expertise in Ignition implementation to streamline the conversion process and support post-conversion operations. “Complex system upgrades call for advanced expertise. Partnering with a system integrator well-versed in Ignition is essential to drive successful results and a well-executed project”, says Xavier Tristan, Controls Engineer at E Tech Group.
While migrating to the new system, the E Tech Group team resolved network-related challenges and prioritized a user-friendly software design. The team developed screens on the new Ignition platform to closely resemble the company’s legacy system for operator ease and comfort. The goal was to reduce the learning-curve for their client’s workforce as they adopt to the new SCADA system. This enabled the company to enhance their workforce efficiency post-conversion with greater data communications and minimal training costs.
Results
Within a four-month timeframe, the E Tech Group team successfully converted the almond processing company’s legacy SCADA system to Ignition. The new platform equipped the company with enhanced visualization and reporting capabilities to make the right decisions at the right time. This means improved cross-functional efficiency, greater quality assurance, and reduced downtime —all with a more reliable, easier to manage system.
Challenge
Terminating a system integrator can be a difficult decision. From suboptimal performance to poor communication, unfulfilled promises from a failed partnership can be devastating to the project outcome and client-integrator relationship. For one of the world’s largest culinary oil production companies, poor communication and staffing issues with a large system integrator challenged the company to find a new partner for state-side support. E Tech Group was given the opportunity to renew their trust in system integrator partnerships.
Solution
Initially, the international culinary oil company was hesitant to engage with another system integrator, but recognized state-side support was needed to uphold future projects and correct the prior integrator’s missteps. E Tech Group addressed their concerns and explained how their solution-focused culture differentiates from others. “E Tech Group has a strong reputation for delivering best-in-class solutions. Our goal as a cohesive team is to find every opportunity to improve operational efficiency for our customers. This is how we foster confidence as long-term, solution-focused partner”, adds E Tech Group Project Manager, Amit Jadhav.
A key project that needed support was integrating the oil company’s weight scale system with Ignition, an industrial application platform by Inductive Automation, to empower timely data and inventory reporting. The E Tech Group team scheduled weekly status meetings to inform stakeholders on the project’s progress and applied their Solution Experts Business approach by staffing the project with specialized personnel to get the job done right. “This customer was amazed at how fast I could implement their ideas with Ignition.”, remarks E Tech Group Controls Engineer and Ignition subject matter expert, David Schmidt. “E Tech Group has years of experience working hands-on with customers and, with this customer, this resulted in a very smooth development process.”
Result
E Tech Group successfully integrated the Ignition software and is currently on the next step of this engagement — integrating Ignition with the company’s SAP system for enhanced enterprise connectivity. The oil production company was thoroughly impressed with E Tech Group’s commitment to their word, notably their schedule flexibility, transparent communication, and multidisciplinary support approach. The company saw the advantage of having E Tech Group as a trusted partner and committed to an extended support service contract to formalize the new partnership.
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Challenge
Wine consumption in the United States has increased annually over the past ten years. In 2020, the United States alone consumed one billion gallons of wine.[1] The increased demand for wine has amplified the need for technologies to manage wastewater treatments during the winemaking process. Supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) systems play an important role in this process by monitoring and analyzing real-time data to address system problems and keep operations running smoothly. When one of the world’s largest wineries needed to address data collection and operational issues at their wastewater facility, E Tech Group was engaged to make their process more sustainable from their existing infrastructure.
Solution
The wastewater process required a large quantity of process data to be routinely sampled and the size of the facility, coupled with the number of sampling tasks, often took operators away from the control screens. This reduced their ability to access up-to-date, manageable information on potential operational problems. E Tech Group’s Senior Controls Engineers determined that the success of this project would rely on centralizing the existing equipment, upgrading to a new SCADA system, and planning for future growth.
The E Tech Group team upgraded the winery’s SCADA system with the ability to notify operators of different priorities of alarms by leveraging their existing FactoryTalk View SE Distributed application. WIN911 software that delivers critical alarms and alerts in real-time was connected to the facility’s FactoryTalk Alarm & Events to notify operators of potential operation issues without requiring duplicated databases. Once installed, an operator could effortlessly receive push alarm notifications through an app on their mobile phone. This allowed the operators to complete routine tasks throughout the facility without the worry of missing critical alarms while away from the control screens.
Results
“Had the facility not been equipped with a SCADA system that was capable of this type of expansion, the controls strategies that now exist would not have been possible and may not have allowed the engineering team to address the process issues” explains a Technical Manager at E Tech Group. This amplifies the importance of long-term infrastructure planning and choosing the right system that can grow with a facility. With a SCADA system investment, the opportunities to control efficiency and mitigate downtime can foster a significant advantage over other manufacturing and processing competitors.
1] Wine Institute. (2022) US Wine Consumption. Wine Statistics. https://wineinstitute.org/our-industry/statistics/us-wine-consumption/