Powered Engineering Brings the Latest Automation Technology to Real Customer Systems

The Customer Problem

A Local Foundry Wants to Digitize their Automated Process

The customer, a local Muskegon, Michigan Foundry, approached Powered Engineering to design and build an improved temperature tracking system for their many heat treat ovens and quench tanks. The main objective of the new design was to allow the foundry to eliminate their outdated paper recorders and go to purely digital data retention - the modern, engineered solution.

The Old System was built on outdated Programmable Logic Controller (PLC) equipment

In parallel with the paper data recorders, the customer also had an outdated OPTO-22 PLC system installed that only displayed current temperatures and offered a visible plot of historical data.

The Powered Engineering Solution

System Engineering Requirements

Powered Engineering worked closely with the customer to establish requirements of the new temperature tracking software as follows:

1. A data point needed to be taken once per minute for 9 heat treat ovens and 3 quench tanks.
2. A load number is assigned to each batch that is recorded along with the temperature data points for that batch. With just a click of the mouse, they can either move on to the next load number or they can go to a “no load” situation and return to the next load number when the operator desires.
3. A data lookback feature for each individual oven and quench tank that allows the operator to select a precise moment in time to begin the dwell phase of the heat treat cycle.
4. Once per day, the data should upload to a server in a .csv file format.
5. Monitor cooling tower temperatures with no data logging.
6. The system should be calibrated to NIST standards

Powered Engineering knows how to leverage Modern PLC in automation design and engineering

A Keyence PLC was chosen as the replacement for the simple fact that their PLCs have built-in data logging capabilities. Unlike many other PLC manufacturers, it does not cost extra to use that functionality with the Keyence PLC.

Scaling the Design

The project grew over time and functionality of automatic load number calculation was implemented along with remote monitors throughout the plant for maintenance and engineering purposes.

The Final Result

A Satisfied Customer with a Fully Digitized Automation Solution

The functionality of the data lookback feature turned out great. They are able to look back 3 days for each of the ovens and quench tanks directly from the HMI software. They can see the temperature and the load number at one-minute intervals.

In addition, uploading all data to the server in .csv format did not cost any extra in terms of software licenses required.

Powered Engineering was able to fully replace the Muskegon Foundry's outdated PLC and paper data recording systems with modern PLC technology that is built for total digitization of data and cloud-based data management.

Want to Upgrade your Automation Systems? Get in Touch with Powered Engineering.

At Powered Engineering, our mission is to help our customers evalutate the state of their current automation and controls systems and establish a plan for a well-designed, state of the art automated systems solution. For a full list of Powered Engineering's Expertise, see our Expertise page.