One of the food packaging industry’s leading suppliers recently chose FACTS to upgrade their obsolete controls for a co-extrusion line that is used to supply rigid pvc to an in-line thermoformer. The upgrade involved replacing an obsolete Welex Ultima control with the FACTS FCS process control solution. FCS is a third generation process control solution that has been targeted and developed specifically for co-extrusion applications. FCS uses an industrial pc assembly and a real-time operating system as its “brains” and can be adapted to a wide variety of plc and IO subsystems. In this case, the FCS control was integrated with the X20 IO subsystem from B&R Industrial Automation to provide PID closed-loop control of xx temperature zones, and coordinated, closed-loop line speed control for five extruders and one roll stand. The FCS system was also supplied with a communications gateway interface to xxx gravimetric feeder controls.
DC to AC Conversion
Regardless of the technology that you use in your facility- you have a control system. If this is a man with 15 years of knowledge, or a kid with a clipboard and discrete controls, or an automated solution – you have a system.
The principal function of ANY control system involves the monitoring and control of a wide variety of process and product parameters.
- Barrel Temperatures
- Extruder Speeds
- Melt Temperature
- Melt and Screen pressures
- Drive Load
- Coordinated Feeders
- Coordinated Down Stream Drives
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- Are the settings optimal?
- How does one setting affect another?
- Are we sure they are set at the right points?
- What if our operator leaves for a competitor?
- Can we trust each shift of operators to operate the same way?
- Are we sure that settings are adjusted between products appropriately?
All of these questions are answered- with great benefit, with an automated control system. A centralized operator interface allows the operator to MANAGE through a consolidated view of the process, and not just respond to it.
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