Food processing with intelligent automation
August 2003
Fieldbus & Industrial Networking
The country baker was concerned only with lifting and adding big bags of ingredients to mixers, and the like, through to making sure the finished bread came out of the oven just right. We have come a long way since then, and although various degrees of automation have emerged through the years, food production now forms part of a sophisticated process system. The ultimate might seem to be for one man and a computer to run a complete food production facility, but for most food products that is not yet possible.
Communication within the system is paramount. Tying an operation together into one totally integrated information block means that important decisions affecting procedure, maintenance, operational faults, and the system generally, can be taken immediately as all the essential parameters of the complete system are available on the spot. Fast reaction to changes means uninterrupted flow, less risk of downtime, leading to increased throughput.
Foxboro has studied this problem of communication for many years now and came up with its solution of intelligent automation (I/A). Through I/A, food industry application solutions integrate plant information for food and beverage plants to help reduce automation costs, and improve product quality while increasing production capability. There is a selection of proven solutions for evaporators, blending and batching, sugar vacuum pans, retorts, fermenters, and numerous other operations.
Available from Protea Automation Solutions, the Foxboro advanced packages help food processors address formula security, inventory tracking, regulatory agency compliance reporting, and worldwide HACCP quality control regulations. In addition, management gains instant access to realtime plant information for better business decisions right at boardroom level, on-line.
The Foxboro I/A Series functionality transparently accesses this information across the network from I/A Series intelligent measurement instruments and intelligent control valves. Realtime data from sensors measuring process flow; pressure, temperature, level, pH, conductivity, etc, are all available at the fingertips of the operator.
The information can be tied in with the Foxboro process management function such as continuous, sequential, batch, and logic control. Foxboro is an I/A Series that directly links all these industrial automation functions in the same network to all the business applications. It is a complete automation package with the hardware, software (UNIX and Windows NT), and I/O catering for all sectors of industry.
For more information contact Nico Fourie, Protea Automation Solutions, 011 719 5700, [email protected], www.protea.co.za
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