The Client upgraded a 25-year-old PLC control system in the Edible Oil Refinery of their Soybean Processing Plant. The project involved the replacement of three Allen Bradley PLC5 controllers and all associated I/O with a complete Allen Bradley ControlLogix system. In addition, the HMI system which consisted of six operator workstations running out of date software on old computers were upgraded to state-of-the-art computers running Rockwell FactoryTalk View Site Edition software.
TAI designed a custom PLC-5 to ControlLogix Conversion system which allowed a phased in panel-by-panel approach. Existing panels where reused. Field wiring was left untouched to minimize possibility of wiring errors. The conversion was accomplished over multiple weekends during the plant’s downtime, which minimized production outages.
TAI developed the drawings and construction documents needed for a panel shop to build the replacement I/O subpanels as well as for the electrical installation work. TAI wrote all the PLC code to convert the code from PLC-5 to ControlLogix and to communicate with the new Ethernet-based I/O. TAI converted all the HMI graphics from the old RSView format to FactoryTalk View and brought the graphics to state-of-the-art quality. TAI also provided and configured report generation software to provide automated shift reports.
