Control System Design

Food & Beverage

Applications

Conceptual Design / Engineering
Fabrication & Assembly
Installation & Dismantlement
PLC and DCS
SCADA & HMI

Services

Automation & Controls
Const./Project Management
Control Panel Design & Build
E&I Engineering & Design
System Integration

Introduction

Synergy is a leading manufacturer and supplier of flavors, extracts, and essences for the food and beverage industries.

Synergy was in the process of relocating its manufacturing from an existing facility in Wauconda Illinois to a new and larger facility to accommodate growth. As part of this process, Re:Build Optimation was hired to assist in the development of the project design documents for the bidding process.

Solution

After this task was complete, Re:Build Optimation was also hired to develop the control system design for the new manufacturing facility. This included control panel design, MCC design, VFD selection and integration into new control panels, PLC programming and HMI development for the process.

A total of sixteen PanelView plus stations were designed into the system. These all communicate via Ethernet to the Allen-Bradley Control Logix PLC. Also connected via Ethernet are the production tank load cells. This allows the PLC to perform automated ingredient additions to the tanks. The PLC also controls the tank temperature control on the tanks with heating or cooling. The hardware used for this system was a 1756-Rack based Control Logix processor with remote control panels with Allen-Bradley 1734 series point IO.

The system consisted of jacketed vessels on load cells with mixers and temperature controls for various types of flavor manufacturing processes. More than 25 VFDs in the system give operators the control of mixing and tank-to-tank pump transfers or tank outlet pump speed.

Development of the PLC code and HMI screens was designed to give the operators capability of manufacturing the different products, with ease of operation. Simple routines were created to allow ingredient deliveries using the tank load cells as the means of determining the correct amount of raw material. Simple on/off speed control for the mixers as well as setpoint entry is accessible at the HMIs.

Results

Synergy was pleased with the overall outcome of this project. One comment was made regarding the ease of use – that operator training was very easy. The screen layouts were designed such that the operations are very intuitive.