Leading FMCG manufacturer expands its facility in India for manufacturing of Liquid Detergent with Best in class technology for Batch Automation & Field integration with ASI bus technology resulting in faster time to market.

Challenge

  • Integrate Existing System Features into New Custom Engineered Control System
  • Reduce Batch Timing to increase manufacturing yield
  • The customer needed to update its existing batching system. The new system should add more capability and fully automate the handling of liquid materials, weigh scales, and manually weighed materials.
  • The Old system had many interlocking issues as there were many manual operations. The new automation system should take care of all such interlocks and provide error-free batching solution without any mishaps.
  • Due to the limitations of the old system it resulted in substantial loss of production time.

Solution

  • For solving the customer problems and met their challenge by designing the new control system to incorporate four main processes: The Manual Add Process, the Main Batching Process, the Mixing Process, and the Batch Discharge Process.
  • The Main Batching Process is controlled from the main control panel using an integrated dual-screen display and the industrial computer running Rockwell Factory Talk View to provide a wide touch screen operator interface and a dedicated mixer display monitor. Password protected ingredient codes, bin assignments, and formulation data for the recipe are entered into the batching computer either at the main control. The scheduling operator will select the Recipe and create a batch schedule. The batching process screen displays a Formulation for the recipe.
  • The system starts the mixer at a formula specified speed, introduces scaled ingredients, and sets pressure. It then prompts for and confirms the addition of Manual Add ingredients at appropriate times during the batch, based on mixer power usage, time, and/or batch temperature conditions programmed for the selected formula.
  • System displays Manual Add pop-up which ingredient to weigh into the Mixer in a predetermined sequence to complete the batch. The operator confirms that the correct ingredient has been selected and after confirming, the operator is prompted to weigh the specified amount of the required ingredient. The operator continued the entire batch sequence weighing each ingredient in this manner.
  • The system continuously monitors and verifies mixer health and batch temperature are within tolerance. Once a scale finishes discharging, it will begin ready for weighing the next batch or formula while the mixer is processing the current batch in order to maximize batch throughput.

Result

  • Increased Production Capacity
  • Increased Batch Integrity due to batching control system that consisted of a Main PLC Control Panel using Allen Bradley Control Logix PLC with Rockwell’s FactoryTalk View software
  • The new Weighing System is responsible for the automatic and semi-automatic weighing of raw material ingredients used to produce the customer’s finished products.
  • Control system tracks the raw material data and ensures that each weighed is accurately scaled.
  • Due to the control systems’ data tracking and management capabilities the end-user is able to maintain inventory and usage of each raw material and VALIDATE that the correct materials are used in each batch process.
  • Records are created and maintained by the control system including batch summaries, cycle time, production, raw materials, finished product, lot data, actual weights, and batch operator information.