Production Data Collection and Processing Systems
| IPACT worked with a large food manufacturer to design a standard approach for the buffering of production data in PLCs and collection of that data into an intermediate computer system (Data Collection and Forwarding Systems or DCFS). Two important features were included in this design: the ability to ride through a temporary loss of the DCFS system, and interlocking between the PLC buffer and the DCFS that guaranteed one and only one read of each piece of production data by the DCFS. The DCFS then does some pre-processing on the data (e.g. units conversion), and stores it in a SQL database to await transmission to the plant's MIS computer system. This approach has been adopted company-wide, and IPACT has already installed it at several sites and is in the process of installing it at others. |
Integrated Process Automation & Control Technologies