When AIB Bakery saw a growth of its countrywide franchises last year, it was decided to erect a fully automated flour milling, premix manufacturing and packaging facility in Mount Edgecombe to supply these bakeries with premix.
The entire automation and electrical contract for this green fields project was awarded to NC Automation Engineering, which has been providing quality engineering solutions to a wide range of industries since 1988.
The project involved the full automation of the plant and was split into two systems: the intake and mill section and the finished products section. The intake and mill section includes the wheat intake from multiple road or rail trucks; cleaning and tempering; wheat milling; and bulk flour intake.
The finished products section encompasses recipe batch handling; a bulk out-loading system; the finished product packaging; purchases and sales system; stock control system; maintenance log and reporting; production reporting; and lab test reporting.
"We designed the system around a Windows NT Ethernet network," says Jason Wright, Project Engineer at NC Automation, "with each section being controlled by its own OMRON PLC and Adroit 1500 Tag Agent Server." The active cluster arrangement has two Adroit 4.2 scada PCs communicating to two OMRON PLCs, which gives increased reliability if one of the scadas goes down for any reason. The other scada will take over seamlessly and allow control of both sections without interrupting production or losing any data.
The high-speed communication between the PLCs and Adroit is facilitated via a Klinkmann OMRON Ethernet OPC server. All other computers on the site network have access to both the intranet and the ability to view live scada information via Adroit's remote user interface.
"The new Adroit marshalling agent," continues Wright, "was a huge benefit in a project this big, as we were able to group all signals related to a piece of equipment (running, tripped, start request etc) into one marshalling agent saving on tags and making fault-finding, changing and documentation much easier." The easy-to-use software tools meant that the finished products section was fully commissioned within a week, and the mill and wheat intake section was commissioned in two weeks.
The rise of software-defined brownfield automation Schneider Electric South Africa
PLCs, DCSs & Controllers
Schneider Electric’s EcoStruxure Automation Expert is enabling brownfield operators to modernise incrementally, decoupling control logic from hardware to bridge legacy equipment and future-ready operations without disrupting production.
Read more...Effective alarm management for safer, more productive operations Adroit Technologies
SCADA/HMI
Adroit Technologies addresses alarm flooding and nuisance alarms with its Adroit Alarm Management solution.The platform combines performance dashboards, mobile escalation via Adroit AIR, and an integrated digital logbook to turn alarms into actionable operational intelligence.
Read more...Upgrading alarm systems for critical industries Omniflex Remote Monitoring Specialists
PLCs, DCSs & Controllers
Omniflex’s OMNI16R alarm annunciator platform provides a direct replacement for legacy CSA systems such as MPAS 90 and SA9100, enabling operators in oil and gas, nuclear and power generation to modernise alarm infrastructure without sacrificing the clarity required for safe operations.
Read more...How DCS can step off the hardware obsolescence treadmill Schneider Electric South Africa
PLCs, DCSs & Controllers
Schneider Electric argues that virtualising DCS environments breaks the cycle of hardware obsolescence, giving plant operators a smarter path to lifecycle modernisation without production disruption.
Read more...Loop signature Part 2-6
PLCs, DCSs & Controllers
The Loop Signature series turns to frequency plot theory, explaining Bode open-loop plots and how dynamic gain, phase lag and crossover frequency can be extracted from test data to inform more accurate control loop tuning.
Read more...PC-based control in surgery Beckhoff Automation
Editor's Choice PLCs, DCSs & Controllers
Researchers at the University of Basel are using Beckhoff PC-based control technology to develop a miniature laser robot for minimally invasive bone surgery.
Read more...How the DCS can step off the hardware obsolescence treadmill Schneider Electric South Africa
PLCs, DCSs & Controllers
Ageing servers and unsupported operating systems are quietly eroding the stability of process plants that rely on distributed control systems. Kobus Vermeulen of Schneider Electric explains how virtualising the DCS environment can break the hardware obsolescence cycle without disrupting operations.
Read more...Building efficiency into cement production with SCADA and IIoT Adroit Technologies
Fieldbus & Industrial Networking
For decades, Adroit Technologies has worked alongside leading cement producers, helping them gain greater visibility into their operations through advanced SCADA and IIoT solutions.
Read more...How integrated EMS platforms are redefining risk management in mining Adroit Technologies
IT in Manufacturing
As mining operations become deeper, more mechanised and increasingly data-driven, the role of technology in safeguarding workers has never been more critical. For Adroit Technologies, this shift has driven the evolution of its environmental management and safety system into a fully integrated, enterprise-level platform that supports both real-time safety and long-term occupational health.
While every effort has been made to ensure the accuracy of the information contained herein, the publisher and its agents cannot be held responsible for any errors contained, or any loss incurred as a result. Articles published do not necessarily reflect the views of the publishers. The editor reserves the right to alter or cut copy. Articles submitted are deemed to have been cleared for publication. Advertisements and company contact details are published as provided by the advertiser. Technews Publishing (Pty) Ltd cannot be held responsible for the accuracy or veracity of supplied material.
printer friendly version