Dry Ingredient Grinding and Handling SCADA System
IPACT has supplied a PC-based SCADA system to a large food manufacturer. The system provides supervisory control of and an operator interface into the "hard stock" grinding area. Materials requiring grinding are routed from various storage silos to feeders and grinders, and then conveyed to one of a large number of bins. Supervisory control of conveying, feeding, and grinding is accomplished by the PC based SCADA system, which interfaces to numerous programmable controllers that are sequencing the equipment. The system also interfaces to a Level 3 DEC VAX computer via an Ethernet/Pathworks connection. Recipe data is read from the Level 3, while production information is sent back to the Level 3.Several color graphic process mimic screens are available to the operator, as well as alarm screens, historical trending screens, and various "pop-up" device control screens. The device control screens allow the operator to take manual control of any motor-driven or solenoid-actuated device in the field in a standardized fashion. Color schemes on the process mimic screens are also standardized (e.g. on in auto, off in auto, on in manual, off in manual, etc.), which, along with the standardized control "pop-ups", make it very clear what state the device is in and what action will be taken. This scheme has won great acceptance from operators, and minimized errors.
Integrated Process Automation & Control Technologies