Challenge
Heating and cooling technology has come a long way in recent decades. Upgrading legacy HVAC controls can be a daunting project for many businesses where downtime is simply not an option. This was a challenge faced by a California-based wine company who needed to recontrol their HVAC system in one of their largest production facilities. The original system was outdated, hard to maintain, and only supported local control. The wine company engaged E Tech Group to upgrade their HVAC controls and integrate Inductive Automation’s Ignition SCADA system for improved efficiency and system reliability.
Solution
The first step was to identify how the customer’s existing system was designed and functioned. Due to limited documentation of the original install or existing modifications, the project team completed extensive field research to determine the current system’s functionality. Once accomplished, E Tech Group worked closely with the customer to add additional functionality to the system’s efficiency and reliability. The project team leveraged Allen Bradley ControlLogix PAC with ethernet remote IO and integrated Inductive Automation’s Ignition HMI platform for remote control plus a panel mount touch PC for local control. Throughout this process, the project team’s goal was to integrate the new system with little to no interruption to the customer’s current operations. With careful planning and coordination with the customer and other contractors, E Tech Group deployed a smooth transition to the upgraded HVAC controls system with no downtime.
Results
The project was completed in about four months. With the new system, the wine company can experience new remote monitoring functionality and the ability to receive mobile notifications of critical failures. E Tech Group staffed the project with subject matter experts in HVAC controls, the Ignition platform, and project management. Experienced controls engineers used their knowledge to create a robust PLC control backbone for HVAC controls and an efficient system design integrating the Ignition SCADA platform. Project management coordinated the implementation of the project to meet the customers goals and supported a smooth transition to the new system with no interruptions. To date, E Tech Group has completed four HVAC and refrigeration related projects for the customer and is currently in progress to complete another refrigeration project.
Challenge
The pump-over method plays an important role in modern wine extraction and can impact the wine’s flavor, intensity, and color. For a Californian winery, their red fermenter tanks used manual pump-over technology, but it was experiencing inconsistent timing as well as limited electrical capacity to run all pumps simultaneously. For instance, each Motor Control Center (MCC) could only run 50-70% of the pumps at a time. The winery needed to upgrade to an automated pump-over system to improve monitoring and control performance, reduce maintenance costs, and support their production needs. E Tech Group was engaged upgrade their existing tank controls effectively and efficiently given their expertise with similar projects in the wine industry.
Solution
The first challenge to address was the customer’s limited electrical capacity to run their pumps simultaneously. E Tech Group created a first in, first out (FIFO) scheduling algorithm for each MCC which would allow the pumps to run in the order that they were scheduled. The FIFO scheduling structure simplified the pump-over process, queuing pumps to run based on priority with the customer’s electrical capacity in mind.
With the algorithm established, the E Tech Group team pivoted to tackle the next area of support. The customer needed an automated pump-over system that was user-friendly, powerful, and modular. The team leveraged the customer’s existing ControlLogix PLC and Ignition SCADA platform by Inductive Automation to build robust code that could be swiftly tested and deployed. For example, the project team utilized the add-on instruction (AOI) to maximize code reusability and simplify code development in the ControlLogix PLC programing. Ignition’s user defined types (UDTs) were also utilized as a powerful tool for dynamic system modeling, and field devices, such as flowmeters and temperature and pressure sensors, were IO-Link enabled to provide diagnostics and data more effectively.
Results
The customer was equipped with a fully automated pump-over system for their red fermenter tanks by their upcoming grape harvest. E Tech Group’s subject matter experts in wine processes and the Ignition platform fully automated the customer’s existing pump-over technology, improving its efficiency, reliability, and ability to scale with the growth of the company.
Challenge
Distilled spirits have complex processing needs. To stay competitive, spirit producers often turn to batch processing and blending solutions to improve their operational agility; however, this can be compromised as their systems become outdated. This was the case for a global leader in the spirits industry who needed to update their existing blending system to better support recipe management, faster quality verification, and adaptive ingredient delivery. The global spirits leader engaged E Tech Group and their industry partner Barnum Mechanical Inc. to provide a turnkey solution given their collective process design and control system integration expertise.
Solution
The first step was to understand the customer’s recipes and batch execution methods. This included their ingredient applications, equipment processes, and final product expectations. The project team introduced the customer to ISA-88 batch process management; a set of standards published by the International Society of Automation (ISA) for managing batch control systems. It divides a batch process into a hierarchy of subdivisions to better optimize the utilization of assets and operational performance.
Using the ISA-88 standard, the project team divided the production environment into logical blocks to separately analyze units, equipment, and control modules. With these separated, the sequencing of the process could be well-outlined and then proven for accuracy and reliability. The project team utilized Rockwell Automation FactoryTalk Batch and View Site Edition networked software to provide seamless integration across all aspects of the system. The team also integrated electrical design and automated reporting solutions for classified areas to help safeguard assets, equipment, and people. Once completed and thoroughly tested, the project team stayed onboard to train operations staff on how to quickly adapt to the updated system and take advantage of its enhanced features.
Results
The complex project lasted eighteen months to design, develop, commission, and decommission the existing system. E Tech Group and Barnum Mechanical Inc. enjoyed the opportunity to collaboratively leverage their process knowledge to design the batching and CIP systems, as well as support PLC and HMI programming. For the global spirits leader, the updated system supported increased productivity with greater system reliability in addition to improved quality with more precise control strategies using ISA-88 standards.
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/