Removing the bottleneck with automated systems.
When Pioneer Foods realised that the bottling plant where it packages the Marmite and Bovril spreads was running slower than expected, it was time to consider revamping the automation process. “An outdated PLC, renowned for a great deal of downtime at the plant, was causing a bottleneck in the process,” says Festo sales engineer, Pieter Raubenheimer.
Raubenheimer points out that this plant is the sole source for Marmite and Bovril products in the country and the bottleneck, which had been getting steadily worse over a number of years, was causing a significant backlog to occur. “Unfortunately though, because no monitoring system was in place, Pioneer Foods was unable to determine accurately how many hours every day were being lost due to faults in the system. This was obviously something that needed to be rectified urgently.”
He explains that because of the well established relationship with the client for the supply of pneumatic products, it was natural for them to contact Festo for assistance for other automation needs as well. “We replaced a number of valves in the plant last year and were then asked to provide a quotation in late 2010 for the replacement of the PLC for one section of the production line.”
Festo was responsible for complete project management and consequently worked with Pioneer Food’s engineering and technical team to select the best solution. “In this instance, we elected to provide an FED-60 display panel with a CPX controller unit. This is an extremely user friendly setup which uses a keypad instead of the previous pushbutton control,” says Raubenheimer.
Johan Smith, supervisor for Pioneer Foods, adds that he is extremely happy with the fact that all parameters can now be setup and changed remotely from the control panel.
Raubenheimer says that the CPX is an ideal platform for electrical peripherals and is perfect as a valve terminal partner or as remote I/O. “With CPX and the CPI system, users can integrate pneumatic and electrical control chains easily and seamlessly into all automation concepts and it is a fieldbus company-specific standard.”
The advantages of the CPX electrical terminal are its modularity and flexibility, thus providing users with freedom of choice. “CPX gave us the freedom to choose the installation concept to meet our requirements,” says Raubenheimer.
One of the prerequisites of the contract was that the installation needed to be completed over a weekend to ensure minimal disruption of the production process. “During the installation, we maintained continual telephone contact with Pioneer Foods’ service technician and software engineer, allowing us to achieve this goal easily and complete the commissioning on time,” explains Raubenheimer.
Pioneer Foods now has a full-time software engineer on site who is assisted by the Festo technical team should a problem arise. “We also have a maintenance contract in place whereby I visit the client once a week to ensure that any problems are dealt with proactively,” adds Raubenheimer.
In the short time since the system has been in place both Smith and maintenance manager Jan Horn have reported that the backlog has cleared and that production is now running faster and with no downtime. “This equates to increased revenue and is a testament to Festo’s ability to match solutions to problems as well as the superior performance of the Festo automation system that was selected,” says Raubenheimer.
Such is the success of the project that Pioneer Foods has asked Festo to quote on replacing a further PLC and adding scada functionality to the system. “When we undertake this project we will interlock the two systems ensuring complete integration at the plant,” concludes Raubenheimer.
For more information contact Pieter Raubenheimer, Festo, +27 (0)11 971 5500, [email protected], www.festo.co.za
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