Success Story: Food & Beverage

I. CUSTOMER ENVIRONMENT / PROJECT CONTEXT

Customer profile:

Constructed in the early 1990s, the Kensey Bakery was equipped with state of the art machinery, enabling the efficient production of 12,500 products per hour. Largely because of its effective use of advanced technology, the site is considered to be a showpiece throughout the industry. In January 1997,  Kensey Foods was established as a separate company. Soon after, the growing demand for chilled desserts, from a major supermarket chain, led to a plant extension to accommodate a new production facility at their Launceston site.

Customer objective and constraints:

The customer wanted to upgrade their automated refrigeration store system and standardize using Schneider Electric's products.

The driving factors behind this requirement were:

•  to reduce system downtime
•  to improve user interfacing.

II. SOLUTION IMPLEMENTATION

Implementation methodology (main phases):

•  Analysis
•  Conception and Design
•  Testing
•  Commissioning
•  Finalization
•  Training of Kensey Foods maintenance staff

Solution overview (services, products, systems, architectures...):

Schneider Electric provided a solution  to replace the existing AC Servos with Schneider Electric's Altivar Flux Vector Inverter drives, using standard AC motors. The Flux Vector capability of the inverters enable the motors to produce torque at zero speed, in a manner similar to that of an AC servo.

Each lift was fitted with two Linear Magnetic Encoders that provide the lift's actual position data. This allows the new overseeing TSX Premium PLC to close both the ‘speed' and ‘position' loops of each motor. With encoders positioned at either end of each lift, it becomes possible to provide the enhanced function of lift alignment, a significant feature of the new system, that allows chain wear to be identified, activating an alarm, long before damage occurs.

Each Altivar drive is connected to the overseeing PLC via a local Ethernet network allowing the PLC to gather drive status information as well as to provide the enhanced capability of adjustable torque control for the Pusher motors. This enables dynamic adjustment of the drive's maximum output in accordance with the amount of trays being moved . This level of control was seen as one of the new systems' most important advantages, as mechanical damage was a primary cause of downtime and repair costs.

To further improve the system reliability, eight additional ASI bus ‘look across' sensors were used to detect any trays that are protruding from the store, thereby preventing lift collisions.

Improvements in the operation of the store were implemented using a locally mounted Magelis HMI device. This unit allows the system operators to have direct access to the following functions:

•  Store layer enable/disable
•  Graphical and text message fault representation
•  Graphical display of the operation of both lifts
•  Lift speed control
•  Total store product counts and residency times
•  Manual override of product selection
•  Full manual control of lifts
•  Altivar drive status information

The new system software was designed to be as ‘user friendly' as possible by utilizing the PLC's GRAFCET (flow chart) capability. This type of software provides the user with a logical graphic representation of the system process. This in turn allows for easier program modifications and reduces the time spent on fault finding. Schneider Electric Projects & Services completed this upgrade by mapping the existing I/O onto the new system and testing on non-production days only. When the new system went live, the smooth and automatic changeover caused no interruption to normal production.

III. RESULTS / ACHIEVEMENT

Customer benefits:

•  Reduced downtime/improved uptime:

          - Greater accuracy in positioning of trays

          - More detailed diagnostics improves fault finding delays

          - User friendly diagnostics

          - Dynamic control of the Pusher motors

          - Reduction of lift collisions

•  Improved planning and control of plant information through detailed information which was provided on-screen.
•  No interruption to production through a smooth and automatic changeover from the old to new system, with all testing and commissioning being carried out on non-production days.
•  All Kensey Foods maintenance staff members were trained by the Schneider Electric engineers who had designed and developed the system.

Schneider Electric differentiating values VS competitors:

•  Good relationship with the customer
•  Schneider Electric teams answered every need and expectation and had a thorough understanding of customer pains.