Challenge
Co-packing allows consumer packaged goods manufacturers faster turnaround times, greater flexibility, and often significant cost savings over doing it themselves. Successful co-packing relationships are based on good communication and the ability to measure, benchmark, and validate performance. When the largest independent beverage co-packer was facing data acquisition challenges from their manual performance monitoring system, the company needed to find an automated solution that could monitor real-time operations across its manufacturing sites.
Solution
The customer had been shopping around for this project. Others had quoted new “out of the box” options that included additional sensors & equipment, extended implementation times, and very lofty price tags. After building confidence and rapport through our Emergency Service Support visits, E Tech Group was asked to submit a proposal to deploy a robust data acquisition strategy that delivered an automated real-time performance monitoring system.
The customer was already using the Ignition industrial application platform from Inductive Automation. Ignition is developer-friendly and designed to be maintained at the customer level. The customer owns the data, and it is exportable in multiple formats. There are no subscription fees, so the ongoing maintenance costs are very low. Instead of adding another system like others had proposed, the E Tech Group team innovated the solution to expand on Ignition’s unlimited and fully customizable system that could efficiently provide real-time data to monitor performance.
Results
E Tech Group’s Senior Controls Engineer certified in Ignition designed an automated downtime performance monitoring and reporting system that would give the beverage co-packer visibility to metrics across multiple locations. Aiming to utilize existing sensors to save on hardware costs, several programmable logic controllers would need reprogramming. Remote development enabled E Tech Group to accomplish this without site visits, increasing their efficiency and the implementation time. Effectively employing this agile system resulted in significant cost savings for the beverage co-packer and provided the necessary tools to take their business to the next level.
Challenge
After producing some of the world’s most famous and flavorful confections for many years, a Northern California candy manufacturer’s aging conveyor system was becoming old, noisy, and obsolete. The existing conveyor system, which had sorted and moved large volumes of product for over a decade, was a line shaft design and was beginning to degrade. The factory was in desperate need of a conveyor system modernization which would increase efficiency, decrease noise and minimize maintenance costs.
Solution
For this project, E Tech Group (AG) used Ignition industrial application software from Inductive Automation and an Allen Bradley controller. The technology for the new conveyor was DC roller controlled. DC rollers are quieter, more energy efficient, and can be controlled more precisely with the set-up of multiple zones per conveyor. This technology allows for a variety of new features to enhance overall operations and reduce wear and tear. As an example, multiple rollers can be started and stopped in sections, and can also start and stop on demand. This enables a more efficient workflow based on capacity and need.
The addition of Ignition Software provided increased visibility to the plant floor, as well as the ability to pull more data via the new Itoh Denki controller. It also enabled AG to create templates for the DC roller controllers which included running data, alarming data and controls.
The upgrade and modernization of the candy manufacturer’s old, outdated conveyor system helped improve overall operational efficiency and enhance the automation processes. AG was able to eliminate the manufacturer’s noisy, worn-out system and modernize their entire conveyor operation with added features that created a quieter operation, extended life, and reduced wear and tear
Quieter Conveyor
Upon installation of the new system, the candy manufacturer noticed an immediate reduction in noise during the operation of the conveyor system.
More Efficiency
With a 24V DC motor nestled inside each roller’s tube, the conveyor system achieved better accumulation (a higher run rate). They also had tighter control of product placement which increased overall efficiencies.
Reduced Maintenance
The old conveyors were always running and had a lot of moving parts that would get worn out and require servicing or replacement. Since the modernization project has been completed, the manufacturer has seen a significant decrease in all service and maintenance costs.
Challenge:
The City of Clovis Police Department’s mission is to “provide superior protection and service.” That mission includes ensuring that Clovis City Jail operations remain uninterrupted and anyone booked into or working in the jail holding cell area is kept safe from harm. For that reason, the area had been equipped for years with a hard-wired panel that managed critical jail cell door operations, intercom communications, light switch functions and other security-related processes. When jail officials began experiencing trouble repairing failures in the archaic panel system, and there was no documentation to help troubleshoot the problems, they knew the control panel needed to be replaced before a major failure occurred and jeopardized jail operations.
As a result, the City of Clovis Police Department engaged E Tech Group to design and deliver a solution that would maximize reliability and minimize troubleshooting efforts. City officials needed a partner that could fully ideate the project scope and recommend a unique configuration. They chose E Tech Group for the company’s depth of technical expertise and reputation for developing the most elegant, cost-effective solutions for its customers, on time and within budget.
When jail officials began experiencing trouble repairing failures in the archaic panel system, and there was no documentation to help troubleshoot the problems, they knew the control panel needed to be replaced before a major failure occurred and jeopardized jail operations.
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Solution:
E Tech Group engineers and project managers examined the existing control panel and determined the original scope of “cleaning up the mess” would not provide the integrity the police department needed. They discovered, through reverse engineering, the old system had roots way deeper than anyone anticipated and extended to rooms and places that had not been touched in many years.
Reliability was paramount to this project as downtime is not an option during daily jail operations. The team determined that a Programmable Logic Controller (PLC), along with a Human-Machine Interface (HMI), was the best solution to ensure delivery of a well-organized system capable of executing reliably across all operations.
Result:
E Tech Group engineers ultimately tracked down and extracted the old signals and integrated new reliable controls to replicate the functions the officers were familiar with. Troubleshooting issues with the existing chaotic bundle of 300+ wires would be reduced to just two small cables with a new state-of-the-art touchscreen installed with Ignition Software. The final design would be considered fairly unique for a commercial environment, but for security reasons, it was the most reliable and cost-effective solution for the project.
With the design complete, E Tech Group conducted the changeover successfully in just five days with minimal interruption to daily operations. They also delivered an easy-to-understand operator’s manual, along with training, documentation, and schematics to assist the police for years to come.
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E Tech Group was great to work with. They offered solutions to problems we expected, but also for those we didn’t anticipate. It is not common in our world to deal with automation control and if this type of problem ever comes up again, I’ll definitely be reaching out to E Tech Group.”
Ben Hutchison, City of Clovis Facilities Maintenance Supervisor