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Full transparency
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January 2008
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For a new cooling, storage and filling plant, instead of an expensive centralised process control system, Follmann & Co has used compact modular controllers and HMI control terminals from Mitsubishi Electric, combining outstanding flexibility with full transparency.
In process engineering programmable logic controllers (PLCs) are usually only deployed in sub-processes – a central process control computer handles the higher-level tasks. The engineers at Follmann & Co have taken a different approach, installed a highly-flexible cooling, storage and filling plant for adhesives that be reconfigured, expanded and relocated at any time.
The Follmann Group manufactures chemical products for paper and textile finishing. Including printing inks for paper napkins and wallpaper, PVC pastes for technical textiles, micro-encapsulated perfume and aroma oils for advertising, adhesives, construction sealing systems and other specialised chemicals. It also makes adhesives for the wood and furniture industries.
Sales growth meant the existing cooling and storage tanks and the filling plant reached the limits of their capacity, so the company decided to expand the existing facility and to take the opportunity to automate processes that had previously been manual.
The market for adhesives is so competitive that the company simply could not afford to shut down production. This meant that the expansion and conversion project had to be completed while the plant remained in operation, and whilst maintaining a 24hr delivery service.
The control technology had to be expandable, flexible and failure-resistant, easy to operate and provide transparent visualisation of the processes. The management also wanted to have fast and reliable access to key process and production data.
After considering these specifications, the project team opted for an automation system controlled via a fieldbus for the product process paths, which run from the reaction tanks to the cooling and storage tanks and the bottling plant.
The reactor controller has an Ethernet communications module that connects the PLC network to the company’s office computer network. This makes it easy to exchange data with the system and perform diagnostics and programming from any computer in the network. Follmann uses MX Sheet software to feed the process data from the PLCs directly into the existing office software.
The company is continuing its expansion, with more components and function constantly being added to the control system, including an automated tanker truck filling system.
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Author
Chris Rowlands
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