Ecava IGX’s 3-in-1 Manufacturing Automation System

Ecava IGX的三合一制造自动化系统

How It Started

The involvement of SCADA in manufacturing industry is nothing surprising nowadays. Such involvement can be acquisition and observation for processes, controlling production operations, managing pre-process setups, power monitoring, data assessment, and etc., or in short, the manufacturing automation. And guess what, Ecava IGX can achieve all that for the entire factory in one single configuration file, with less than 2 MB file size.

如今，SCADA在制造业的参与并不令人惊讶。这种参与可以是过程的获取和观察、生产操作的控制、预处理设置的管理、电力监控、数据评估等，或者简单地说是制造自动化。你猜怎么着，Ecava IGX可以在一个配置文件中用不到2MB的文件大小来实现整个工厂的所有功能。

Georg Jordan is one of the many manufacturing organizations originated in Germany, and has a subsidiary in Malaysia. Back in year 2014, Georg Jordan Malaysia intended to automate their industrial ovens operation, and thus Ecava IGX was brought in to provide the solution. Note that Georg Jordan Malaysia is producing insulators for multiple purposes such as electrical usage.

乔治·乔丹是起源于德国的众多制造机构之一，在马来西亚设有子公司。早在2014年，乔治·乔丹马来西亚公司就打算实现其工业烘炉业务的自动化，从而引入了Ecava IGX来提供解决方案。请注意，马来西亚乔治·乔丹公司正在生产用于多种用途的绝缘子，如电气用途。

The Kickstart and Challenges

So the project kickstarted with industrial ovens monitoring and control system. Everything is installed based on the design, in which there are total of seven (7) PLC (Siemens S7-1200) addressing to each oven, meaning 7 PLCs for 7 ovens. SCADA supervisory by Ecava IGX is connected via Ethernet to all the PLCs, talking to each other over Profinet protocol. Georg Jordan requested the SCADA to manage their ovens with the following basic functional scopes:

因此，该项目启动了工业烤箱监控系统。所有设备都是根据设计安装的，每个烤箱共有7个PLC(西门子S7-1200)，这意味着7个PLC用于7个烤箱。通过以太网与所有PLC连接，通过PROFINET协议相互通信，通过Ecava IGX对SCADA进行监控。Georg Jordan要求SCADA管理其烤箱，其基本功能范围如下：

– Input pre-process setting parameters into the system (eg. time period for particular oven to produce a batch of insulator products)
– Control operation (start/stop/abort, etc.)
– Temperature and oven status monitoring
– Alarm
– Trend / graph
– Reports (per process and per day)

-向系统输入预处理设置参数(例如，特定烤箱生产一批绝缘子产品的时间周期)
-控制操作(启动/停止/中止等)
-温度和烤箱状态监测
-警报
-趋势/图表
-报告(按程序和每日计算)

One of the many ovens used to heat up material mixtures to produce end products insulators, in Georg Jordan, Selangor, Malaysia.
Note: Its appearance may seems harsh, but it shall be due to the high temperature tough environment. They can function well without any doubt.

马来西亚雪兰莪州乔治·乔丹的许多用来加热材料混合物以生产最终产品绝缘子的烤炉之一。
注意：它的外观可能看起来很刺眼，但应该是由于高温恶劣环境造成的。毫无疑问，它们可以很好地发挥作用。

These requirements are satisfied during the first phase of the project. But the happy times hit the intense moment when an issue occurred. The SCADA server machine which located nearby the high temperature ovens often bumped into overheating issue and automatically shutdown itself. However, the solution is easy, Georg Jordan agreed to shift the server machine to a safe and sound server room with sufficient cool air ventilation. In fact, such approach shall be taken earlier as practically any server machines shall be placed in proper server room.

这些要求在项目的第一阶段得到满足。但是，当一个问题发生时，快乐的时光却在紧张的时刻到来。位于高温烤箱附近的SCADA服务器经常遇到过热问题，并自动关机。然而，解决办法很容易，GeorgJordan同意将服务器机器转移到一个安全可靠的服务器室，有足够的冷空气通风。事实上，这种做法应较早采取，因为实际上任何服务器机器都应放置在适当的服务器室。

Ecava IGX furthers the impression by extending more automation operation

The project carried on to the next phase, the automation of mixers. These mixers’ role is to prepare the compound mixtures before sending them to heat process in the ovens. Therefore, an additional PLC is configured to handle the mixers’ control logic. While Ecava IGX extended its services to append the following functions in the same project configuration:-
– Monitor each materials’ weight before mixing (on a weighing scale)
– Control each mixer’s operation (start/stop/abort, etc.)
– Monitor each mixer’s status
– Alarm
– Trend / graph
– Reports

该项目进行到下一阶段，搅拌机的自动化。这些混合器的作用是在把混合物送进烘箱加热之前，先准备好混合物。因此，配置了一个额外的PLC来处理混频器的控制逻辑。Ecava IGX扩展其服务以在同一项目配置中附加以下功能：
-在混合前(在称量秤上)监测每种材料的重量。
-控制每个搅拌器的操作(启动/停止/中止等)
-监控每个搅拌机的状态
-警报
-趋势/图表
-报告

Digital weighing scale is one of the instruments involved in the mixer automation for material preparation

数字衡器是用于物料准备的混合器自动化的仪器之一。

In order to truly achieve the purposes of automation and convenience for both operators and supervisors, Ecava has decided to invest more effort in customizing the basic configuration to another approach which seldom taken for other projects. Such approach is to integrate with Georg Jordan’s existing material inventory databases, and retrieve the required material’s formulation. These formulation are required as the comparison standard while performing mixer operation. Therefore, discussion has been carried out between all the parties and Georg Jordan has granted the access for Ecava IGX to retrieve the formulation information, so that operator wouldn’t need to input the formulation once again before mixing the materials.

为了真正实现操作人员和管理人员的自动化和方便，Ecava决定投入更多的精力，将基本配置定制为其他项目很少采用的另一种方法。这种方法是与Georg Jordan现有的材料清单数据库相结合，并检索所需材料的格式。在进行混频器操作时，要求这些配方作为比较标准。因此，所有各方都进行了讨论，而Georg Jordan允许Ecava IGX检索配方信息，这样操作人员就不必在混合材料之前再次输入配方。

Mixer automation system screen used by operators during material preparation

操作人员在物料准备过程中使用的搅拌机自动化系统屏幕

The second phase completed with the mixers automation up and running. But still, it is not the end yet. Georg Jordan continues to extend the requests to rely their entire production line’s power monitoring on Ecava IGX. For this task, Ecava IGX is responsible to guard the power usage in Georg Jordan’s production site. Anything unusual will trigger and display the alarm on front-end HMI screen, for example high voltage, power limit exceeded, etc.

第二阶段完成了搅拌机的自动化启动和运行。但是，它还没有结束。Georg Jordan继续扩大要求，以依赖其整个生产线的电力监测的Ecava IGX。为完成这项任务，Ecava IGX负责保护Georg Jordan生产现场的电力使用情况。任何异常都会触发并显示在前端人机界面上的报警，例如高压、超过功率限制等。

Additional panel is being installed to integrate the existing power supplies system with Ecava IGX power monitoring system

目前正在安装额外的面板，以便将现有的电源系统与Ecava IGX电力监控系统集成在一起。

Generally speaking, manufacturing automation has grow to such an important extend where hardly any factory doesn’t implement it. After summing in the power monitoring, now Georg Jordan’s insulator production can be operated in the automated way by depending on Ecava IGX’s 3-in-1 manufacturing automation system.

一般说来，制造业自动化已经发展到如此重要的程度，几乎没有工厂不实施它。在总结电力监测后，现在乔治乔丹的绝缘子生产可以通过依附性Ecava IGX的三合一制造自动化系统的自动化方式进行操作。

The Hardware / Software:

Server Machine: Hewlett-Packard Server (Intel(R) Xeon(R) E3-1220 @3.10GHz)
OS: Windows Server 2012 R2 Standard

PLC (Programmable Logic Controllers): Siemens S7-1200
Protocol: Profinet

SCADA: Ecava IGX
IO tags: ~800 tags

Database: Microsoft SQL Server 2012 Database