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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Providing cybersecurity context, encouragement, protection and detection for users in multiple process industries There’s no way to go it alone on cybersecurity. Because no one knows everything, even the most informed and competent end user is going to need help from someone more know-how and information about a certain device, software, best practice or other protection their process or facility requires. Mere mortals usually need cybersecurity help just to get started. Fortunately, there are many well-informed and generous sources, who can provide history, education, encouragement and solutions to make cybersecurity projects workable, efficient, thorough, cost-effective and reliable over the long term. We spoke to an E Tech Group executive about cybersecurity: how do they handle securing a facility’s network and operations, and how IT and OT must be managed to minimize malfunctions and associated downtime. E Tech Group is an Ohio-headquartered integration and automation firm with 18 locations covering all of North America. IT vs OT to Ethernet & IIoT Laurie Cavanaugh, Business Development Director at E Tech Group, reports that cybersecurity’s recent evolution is a natural outgrowth of operations technology (OT) and information technology (IT) learning to work together and speak each other’s languages. Cavanaugh explains that OT and IT must cooperate on their organization’s overall cybersecurity assessment, which will give a true reading of its OT assets, PLCs and unmanaged devices, as well as its network topology, managed switches, firewall protections and IT-related components. IT/OT assessments don’t only identify weak points in the network and prioritize the fixes they need; they help modernize automation platforms, which eliminates the risks that obsolete hardware poses. Moving to a plant-wide IIoT-driven control system offers an easier-to-understand IT-OT dialect. Un-flatten Your Network To beginning addressing some of the IT-based tasks that cybersecurity requires, individual process and site characteristics can show what gaps need to … Continued
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/
Challenge
Olive oil is a multibillion-dollar market. With a projected compound annual growth rate of 6.10% by 2028, producers must find ways to keep up or get left behind.[1] Challenges in the packaging process can impact the ability to scale operations and can affect many aspects of a company’s product line such as quality, safety, product professionalism, and maintenance costs. Deploying automation solutions can help with these challenges and better streamline operations. When one of the top 4 olive oil companies in California recognized the costly operational challenges of their manual packaging process, automation was key to help them remain competitive.
Solution
The olive oil company needed to modernize and expand their packaging process, with preservation of product quality and integrity as a top priority. The customer wanted a state-of-the-art, aseptic system that would integrate well with their other existing processing lines. Certified in Ignition, an industrial application platform from Inductive Automation, and having an extensive work history at the location, E Tech Group’s Technology Solutions Manager (TSM) came up with an innovative plan for the project’s success.
E Tech Group provided design schematics, built the control panels, developed the PLC, HMI, and SCADA programs, and commissioned a new Bag-in-Box line. The controls system included several communication layers managed by a single line control AB ControlLogix gateway. The Process Level (Level 0) was composed of AB PowerFlex 525 VFDs and IFM IO-Link master blocks on an EtherNet/IP DLR network. On the Basic Control Level (Level 1), the line control ControlLogix gateway communicated with all the PLCs from the OEM equipment. Leveraging the existing Ignition SCADA system, E Tech Group developed a special project for the packaging line and installed two industrial computer clients for local monitoring and control.
Results
Using Control System Integrators Association (CSIA) methodology and best practices, our TSM coordinated with the client and the various OEM’s, keeping everything on schedule. E Tech Group has been a certified member of CSIA since 2012, which is a mark of excellence that demonstrates technical proficiency across ten key business management areas and commitment to executing the best methodology. Finally, with the ability to test and run the new system alongside the old, the olive oil company experienced no downtime or loss of production during the transition which resulted in a successful modernization of their packaging process.
[1] Geographic Scope and Forecast. (2021, August). Olive Oil Market Size and Forecast. Verified Market Research. https://www.verifiedmarketresearch.com/product/olive-oil-market/
