Duplex Water Softener Automation - Express Dairies |
Automation of a large, duplex resin based water softening system, including regeneration, flow monitoring,level sensing and
handshaking with a site wide data acquisition system.Mitsubishi F1 PLC used |
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Pump House Automation - Express Dairies |
Control of 8 supply pumps dealing with bore water, chlorinated hard water "to site", hard water supply to water softeners
and soft water supply "to site". Analogue and digital level probes, pressure switches and "lead / lag / standby" considerations. Mitsubishi F1 PLC used |
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Separated Skim Silos - Express Dairies |
4 skim milk silos, each with 4 "mixproof" valves, full valve feedback, valve pulsing during CIP with separate water
flush valves to clean the "leak indicator" spaces in the valves. Control by a Mitsubishi A1S-S1 PLC with analogue inputs and outputs. In this case,the analogue inputs were used to display
silo levels and temperatures.Soft Screen software package as an operator interface to graphically display routes and levels etc. Operations were started, stopped and queued using the Soft Screen package. The
system was later expanded to allow skim despatch to a road tanker (with air purge of lines), using a local Mac 50 operator display which was also attached to the PLC. |
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Automatic "Direct on Line" Standardisation - Eden Vale Ltd |
The PLC used was a Mitsubishi A2AS CPU with analogue inputs and outputs, with 6 PID loops controlling the position
of valves to give correct cream fat percentages. For each separator, flow meters gave flow values, and the PLC performed floating point maths to produce setpoints etc. The system was linked to a MAC
E700 colour dispaly for operator information and control. This project is described in greater detail elsewhere. |
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Soft Cheese Automation - Express Foods Ltd |
Replacement of an obsolete RELOG control system to control the complete operation of a Soft Cheese production
department. Mitsubishi A1S CPU with MAC E700 colour screen. |
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Triple Circuit CIP Set - States of Guernsey Dairy |
Three separate Mitsubishi F2 PLCs to control a "three route" CIP cleaning system, each PLC being interlocked with each
other by digital I/O The system was fairly complicated as it cleaned virtually every piece of process equipment within the dairy, each one requiring a different set of parameters. |
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Single Circuit CIP Set - Farmers and Dairymen, Cardiff |
Design, build and commission of a dedicated CIP set control system. The CIP set was a fairly old unit which used an obsolete PLC
to control it. The new Mitsubishi F1 PLC was designed and installed in a new panel, (with extra instrumentation), then the control was changed over and commissioned over a weekend period. |
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Documentation for Existing Control System - Farmers and Dairymen Cardiff |
Analysis and updating of a second hand CIP set that the company had bought and installed, complete with an older Mitsubishi F40
PLC.Modification of existing programme |
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Bulk Product Hoppers, Weight Control and Cleaning - Express Foods |
Two Mitsubishi F1 PLCs - pumping of product into the hoppers, release of product into the filling machines Bofors load cell
units for weight analysis, plus all the automatic cleaning of the system from an automated CIP set. |
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Auto Packers, Conveyors, Rotary Tables - Express Foods |
Replacement of obsolete Siemens PLCs with modern Mitsubishi F1 PLCs. Auto Packers modified for double stacking. Various conveyer
systems, rotary tables, reversible conveyors, line splitters / counters and intelligent conveyor carton monitoring. PLC controlled sensing station for lost lids and tamper bands. |
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Automation of Effluent Plant Blowers - Taw Valley Creamery |
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The first project involved the automation of the off loading valves and large blowers for the lagoon type effluent plant. This was
linked into an oxygen monitoring system and a data acquisition system which enabled remote control and analysis of the plant as well as local "automatic and manual" control. |
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Raw Milk Silos and Lines CIP Farmers and Dairymen |
Design, installation and commissioning of a complete automatic CIP system to clean all the raw milk silos, bulk tankers and raw milk
lines. A relatively small project by normal standards. |
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Aseptic Filling Machine Manifolds and Cleaning - Severnside Creamery |
This project was completed in conjunction with Alfa Laval and Bosch, and involved the control and cleaning of aseptic valve manifolds
to supply UHT product from an Alfa Laval Steritherm to 3 off Bosch aseptic filling machines. Four off Mitsubishi F1 PLCs were used, one PLC for control of each Bosch filling machine and one for dedicated
control of the CIP set that cleaned all the lines, manifolds and fillers. |
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Ultra Osmosis Plant - Taw Valley Creamery |
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The second project involved the design, installation and commissioning of the the valves, pipework and flowplate system for a
"second user" Ultra Osmosis plant which had been moved from another site within the group. The plant was controlled by a Mitsubishi FX PLC which checked all the routes and carried out all the
automatic cleaning and process operations. |
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Major Yogurt Process Control PLC BV Dairy Shaftesbury |
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Following on from the complete Project Engineering of a new yogurt factory, the final part of the project involved the full PLC
control of the new tanks, valves, heat exchangers, pumps and CIP set. A major control system, which enabled the heating and cooling of cultured products from incubation tanks to heat exchangers and filling
machines and bulk fillers. Overall, 58 valves, 12 tanks and 6 pumps were used. The PLC control utilised a dedicated Mitsubishi FX PLC to control the CIP set and a "greatly extended Mitsubishi FX PLC to
control all the process items. |
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Replacement of Existing PLC - BV Dairy Shaftesbury |
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An existing 12 year old F-12 PLC was replaced with a new FX PLC to control other CIP functions more accurately. |
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Silo Levels and Services Monitoring System BV Dairy Shaftesbury |
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Utilising an FX PLC with analogue input modules to monitor silo contents and services variables. Addition of MAC E700 colour display
and interlocks to other PLCs |
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Replacement of obsolete Satt PLC - Farmhouse Cheesemakers |
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This project involved the replacement of an obsolete (faulty) Satt PLC with a Mitsubishi FX PLC. The new PLC was installed in a
separate panel, complete with field wiring terminals, then this panel was "multi-cored" to the existing panel to pick up the various inputs and drive the various outputs. |
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Control of Mixing Vessels, Agitators and CIP |
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The project involved the automation of the process functionsof several mixing vessels and the cleaning of these tanks. Product
delivery to filling machines was also included. This project was unusual /awkward given that access to the plant was only available when the plant was not in production. |
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Extension and Modification of Tofu Process Plant - Cauldron Foods Portishead |
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This project involved the addition of a high speed centrifugal decanter to an existing process plant previously installed by others.
The software for the process was totally re-written as the original software was poorly documented and almost impossible to modify. The PLC used was a Mitsubishi A1S-S1 and elements included analogue
control of rotary valve speed (based on time period analysis of load cell readings), product batching (based on analogue meter information),temperature analysis. ladder logic maths, CIP cleaning of multiple
routes with cyclic pulsing of these routes and analogue decanter speed control. |
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Re-writing of Smoker Oven Software - Cauldron Foods Portishead |
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Re-writing of FX PLC software to give better control of smoking oven, namely humidity control, temperature control and smoke
generation control. |
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Filling Machine CIP Set and Process Control - Dairy Crest Yoplait, Yeovil |
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This project involved the complete design and build of an FX PLC panel to control a three tank CIP set (complete with high temperature
sterilising function as well as the more normal caustic and rinse functions).A Mac 50 interface allowed operator information to be displayed, and a small serial printer allowed process variables to be
printed out for quality control reasons. The CIP set was used to clean a brand new, PLC controlled filling machine. Interfacing between PLCs allowed control of the CIP set from the filling machine operator
panel. |
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Beer Line Cleaning System |
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This trial system was designed several years ago and was very similar in principle to a standard CIP system, but designed on a
much smaller scale. Effectively, it consists of a small caustic tank and a small fresh water tank with associated solenoid valves, level sensors, supply pump and caustic dosing pump. The original system used
a Mitsubishi F1 PLC, but this has now been replaced with a Mitsubish FX0 PLC (smaller size), resulting in a much smaller panel and better use of I/O. The system comes complete in two panels is designed to
allow automatic cleaning of draught beer lines whenever the keg (and therefore lines) runs empty, thus saving the beer that would normally be in the lines if the system was cleaned when the lines were full.
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Design of Control System for Automated Dairy Effluent Plant Milk link Crediton |
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Using a Mitsubishi A1S PLC with MAC E700 colour display screen to control a Puriflo dissolved air flotation effluent plant at Express
Dairies, Crediton. The system allows for full auto or manual operation from the colour display and has analogue contol of levels, PH values and chemical dosing pumps.. |
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