Standards

IPACT is well familiar with public standards applicable to automation, such as IEC 1131 (programming) and ISA S88 (batching), and uses them whenever applicable.

However, our approach to standards in our work goes well beyond this.   In addition to our structured methodologies, we have developed internal standards for programming products that we use frequently, including several PLCs, HMIs, batching software, and MES packages.  These standards include sequencing structures, device logic, auto/manual control, tag naming conventions, use of indirects, interface signals, screen layouts, and color schemes.  We are also happy to use our customer’s internal standards when they exist. 

This means that the applications our customers receive from us are not designed and programmed in any way that works, rather, they are designed and programmed according to standards.  This means that different applications implemented by different IPACT engineers will still have the same “look and feel”, which greatly reduces the learning curve for our customer’s maintenance personnel.

Our use of standards benefited our customer in a different way when they were installing a large, high speed ice cream bar manufacturing line.  Parts of the line equipment were purchased from six different vendors, each of whom supplied their own Level 1 control and PC-based HMI.  The customer wanted all of the Level 1 systems to be designed similarly (for ease of maintenance), and also wanted to be able to integrate all six of the HMI applications into a single, large application after delivery.  In order to insure this, IPACT wrote engineering design and implementation standards for the Level 1 logic and the PC-based HMI package.  These standards became part of the engineering specification that the customer provided to each vendor.
 

Integrated Process Automation & Control Technologies