Intelligent automation in the food and beverage industry

March 2001 System Integration & Control Systems Design

Command of every element of a business, from sensor to boardroom, is an essential feature for today's management. Tying the operation together into one totally integrated information continuum means that important decisions affecting procedure, maintenance, operational faults and the system generally, can be taken immediately as all the essential parameters are available on the spot.

In the case of the food industry, stringent environmental regulations can be met with the Foxboro intelligent automation (I/A) series from AFH Devers. Food industry application solutions integrate plant information for food and beverage plants to help reduce automation costs, improve product quality and increase production capability. There is a selection of proven solutions for evaporators, blending and batching, sugar vacuum pans, retorts, fermenters and numerous other purposes.

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.

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, conduc-tivity etc are all available at the fingertips of the operator.

In addition, the information can be tied in with the Foxboro process management function such as continuous, sequential, batch and logic control. Only the Foxboro I/A series directly links 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 needed for all sectors of industry.

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