SUCCESS STORIES – INDUSTRIAL AUTOMATION

THE PROBLEM

Our client, a Latin American steel production company, operates a lime production plant consisting of two calcination lines, a transportation system, and two mills for fine lime production. These facilities process a total of 1500 tons of lime daily, primarily for the steel industry.

Since the plant’s control system installations date back to the 1970s when the plant was constructed, they used analog controllers and relay logic. This made maintenance, control, and fault tracking extremely cumbersome. The poor state of the installations limited production, preventing them from achieving a performance higher than 70% of their total capacity.

THE SOLUTION

A complete replacement of the old control system was carried out, replacing it with a Programmable Logic Controller (PLC) architecture. The system’s architecture is supported by six controllers, each handling a sector of the plant. In a second phase of the project, the drives were conditioned, modifying their communication stage and adding additional functionality to facilitate their management from the installed controllers.

Regarding control and communication networks, redundant communication was implemented using Modbus-TCP and Modbus-Plus. Communication between each controller and the SCADA system also occurs via Modbus-TCP.

The project included the provision of specialized labor for the installation and configuration of all instrumentation. The old instrumentation was completely replaced with Endress & Hauser equipment with HART communication. In total, around 350 analog signals were managed throughout the plant, adding up to about 2500 inputs/outputs controlled by the system.

The control system also included the provision and commissioning of twelve (12) panels with dimensions of 2000 x 800 x 600 mm.

RESULTS

The project was delivered on time, leading to explicit commendation from the client for the comprehensive project management and adherence to delivery schedules. As a result, production indicators for which the plant was designed were achieved in record time. These indicators were recorded within twenty (20) hours of starting up the new control system.