DCS & PLC

IES Lean Systems Ltd.  has 20 years experience of supplying DCS (Distributed Control Systems) into Global Markets for Continuous and Batch Control. Now with higher functionality, greater power and lower economic thresholds DCS have greater application across the industrial landscape.

From FDS generation to plant commissioning and lifetime service ies are the ideal partner for DCS installations. We have successfully upgraded many older DCS installations on both Partner and Non Partner Platformshere.

DCS Examples:

Dispensary

The System illustrated was used to automate a Pharmaceutical Company Dispensary with Batch Control to SS80.01. The interface between the recipe software and the database allows recipes to be run and also control physical plant items.  Batch screens provide details of the current batch and indicate the operating status of all of the phases. The operator can perform limited batch control operations i.e. Holding and Restarting batches from them.  We built the System Software in Visual Basic provides an interface between the Dispatcher terminal and the SQL database to set up Campaigns and schedule batches.  The software facilitates performance testing of the scales.  An IBatch Server generates event records that are recorded in the Event Journal Data and sent to VB via IBatch Publisher simultaneously.  VB provides the data to the SQL Database and all 3rd Party Subscribers and Applications.

Mining

We have multiple DCS reference installations in Minerals and Mining at home and overseas.  The example illustrated was supplied via a UK Contractor to an Irish Mine Mill Concentrator. The IES Lean Systems Ltd. contract was for design manufacture, installation & commissioning.

The System Features:
Dual Redundancy
Client/Server architecture
UNIX based servers
Seamless link to third party PLCs

The system provides full control and monitoring of all plant items including inlet feed, grinding circuits, reagent management and reagent addition rates, water and effluent treatment, start-up and shutdown sequences.  To provide ultra high control system availability of the dual redundant processors, servers, Control LAN Ethernet networks and I/O Serial Bus networks were provided. The hardwired I/O are marshalled through an ies supplied suite of control panels.  Third party vendor systems are integrated to the DCS via a PLC Server allowing monitoring and control of all plant items from a central control room. PLCs from 4 different manufacturers were integrated.  The system includes a Historian Database Server connected via OPC link, providing operations and maintenance personnel with readily available, up-to-date plant information at their workstations.

DCS Upgrading

This project was awarded on a very demanding programme and due to the “essential services” nature of the end product an innovative and practical project plan and method statement was required as a condition of award in order to minimise plant down-time.  In total, over the three sites and four systems, a total I/O count of some seven thousand points was involved with 15 full operator workstations and 5 operator interfaces.  The systems were replaced with no disturbance to field cabling and a maximum plant downtime of only 12 hours. These replacements also included interfacing with existing telemetry systems and a full test and validation programme on site. Concurrently with the second system replacement an independent back up control system was installed. The contract included the preparation of the FDS, design and build, testing, installation and commissioning.
Each system required the interpretation of existing software, interfacing with existing equipment, the preparation of management reports of product unit costs, and extensive on-site installation works.  A full functionality and efficient remote access system was put in place on the two sites to provide operator assistance or interrogate and modify software via a telephone modem link.

Cement Plant

Cement Plant Control.
IES Lean Systems Ltd.  has been a leading supplier and service resource to the Cement Industry for over two decades and understands the prevailing economics and arduous operating conditions well.  From plant wide DCS & MES applications to individual loops IES Lean Systems Ltd. is the ideal partner.  IES Lean Systems Ltd. was awarded a contract to complete the construction and commissioning of a plant wide DCS for a new Cement plant located in Kenya.  The project involved a large DCS for process control of the main kiln and process areas. Ancillaries and utilities are controlled by a PLC network using two different manufacturers PLCs. The PLC's are supervised by and integrated with the DCS. The installed I/O is in excess of 3000 and multiple plant and control room based operator interface stations are provided. Local Area Networks were established and installed for process control, telemetry and Management Information Systems. The project as a whole was funded through a World Bank aid programme and included a CEMS (Continuous Emissions Monitoring System) package - another speciality area for IES Lean Systems Ltd. After completion of the project IES Lean Systems Ltd. were retained to carry the optimisation of specific areas of instruments and instrumentation systems to deal with variable process demands and local conditions

Glass Bottle Plant

Installed on a Greenfield Glass Plant, the system controls the recipe, furnace temperature, delivery systems and production lines.
This must be done accurately and reliably if repeatable quality is to be achieved. More fundamentally, get the temperature too low and the molten glass solidifies in the plant causing irreparable damage. Too high and the refractory material itself could be destroyed. The integrated control system operates both the furnaces and their associated hot end plant. It comprises five operator stations, almost 3500 input/output (I/O) points, furnace, forehearth/ distributor, lehr (glass-annealing oven) and utilities control. Local operation of the lehr equipment is also available through a separate operator interface. A Profibus fieldbus network provides communication at plant level while data from the operator stations is carried across an Ethernet TCP / IP network interfacing to the plant MIS. The System is used to control and operate what is termed the 'hot end' of the manufacturing process plus the site utilities. This covers everything from the recipe control including introduction of raw materials into the furnaces and on to the forehearths and lehrs. The System was extended to include the Waste Plant.

PLC

PLC / SCADA systems are the workhorse of industrial applications large and small. From simple single machine automation to vast networks and communications to higher level systems. With two decades of PLC applications behind us IES Lean Systems Ltd. is a market leading SI and will ensure trouble free implementation of systems large and small and undertake forward development and upgrades of existing installations. Our engineers are familiar with most Hardware, Software and Network Products from our Partners and Non Partner Manufacturers.

PLC Examples:

Line Monitoring

IES Lean Systems Ltd. is a leading supplier of Management Information Systems (MIS) and Management Execution Systems ( MES).  One widely applicable area of this technology is Line Monitoring Systems (LMS).  Typically such systems gather & use production information to produce real time production efficiency information to Management and Staff.  Such systems provide a driver for continuous improvement in quality and throughput.  The Line Monitoring System illustrated was developed for a Major International Frozen Food Producer.  The system utilised the existing Plant LAN for communicating Target and Performance information to the production line displays.  The system graphically shows the outputs from the shaping machines and the production lines. PLCs collect data from the machines. The LMS interrogates the PLCs for their data. Active X drivers are used to interface with the PLCs.  The system calculates product totals and makes accurate predictions of end-of-shift and end-of-day totals. The actual and predicted values are displayed on large displays around the production areas.  LMS also produces daily spreadsheets that show detailed and summarised production data. These spreadsheets are used by the customer for future production planning and for optimisation. 

Sewerage

IES Lean Systems Ltd.  has supplied many combined MCC, PLC and SCADA systems similar to the one illustrated to Sewage Treatment Works installations in the UK, Ireland and Overseas. This system was supplied via a UK Contractor to a major UK Water Authority The scope of supply was to design, manufacture, test & commission the MCCs as listed below along with PLC and annunciator systems to facilitate the monitoring & automatic control of the plant. Communication systems such as Device net, DH+ and Radio links were used to transfer data between the MCCs, Control Panels & equipment. The Panel shown was manufactured from Stainless Steel for housing in an H2S environment.

Panels & MCCs included:
Inlet Works
Wetwell
East Substation,
RAS Pump-house
Bridge Control Panels 1-6
West Substation
Blower House Power
Sludge, Storm/Sludge Storage Tank and Offsite Pump-house
PST Tank Bridge Control Panels 1-6
Tanker Loading local control panel
High Level Screen-house Panel 

Vial Filling Line vial filling line

The Project was sanctioned to enhance security on a vial filling line and provide 21CFR11 compliance in a Sterile Manufacturing Department. It provides greater supervisory functionality with higher reliability and user friendly data logging, alarm handling and user interface. It illustrates ies’s capability to upgrade and retrofit systems economically using combinations of bespoke and standard software and engineering. The existing control system was retained with upgraded PC hardware & SCADA software.  Security was addressed to include more levels and to force logon to change parameters etc. and to limit access to operating system. Separate logins were provided for each person using the system; all login and user actions are logged to the database. All logins adhere to policy. Existing data is captured in database format (.dbx) and restored in excel format. All alarms, events and operator actions are captured in the audit trail. Only Engineering and Admin have access to the system diagnostics.

DCS Replacement

We were awarded the contract for the instrumentation and control element of the this Gas Production project. It involved the replacement of an obsolete Foxboro DCS together with almost all of the field instrumentation with a PLC based control system with an SCADA based Operator Interface. The project was to be completed within a very restricted timescale and involved some very careful project management in the removal of existing equipment and at the same time the generation of “As Found” to ensure the functionality of the replacement system matched the current operations. The project plan involved setting up independent work teams developing and installing the new system alongside others removing the old: all managed logistically by ies’s project manager. The project was completed on time & within five percent of the fixed price cost originally submitted. Since project completion the plant has operated satisfactorily and ies has undertaken several smaller projects connected with it such as system expansions and modem linkages to other sites. This approximately 600 I/O system is networked by leased PSTN line to another of the client's units elsewhere and to their Technical Support Centre located in another country.

Water Plants

We were contracted to design, install and commissioning the Control System for two Water Treatment Plants in Ireland as part of a Water Augmentation Scheme. The control systems were PLC based with computer based MMIs. The systems were similar in architecture and interfaced to the plant instrumentation, valves and drive systems via intelligent communication networks. Thirteen independent links were provided with four different communications protocols. Communication between the PLCs & SCADA network is via a fibre optic, fault tolerant ring main which is distributed throughout the plant buildings. Additional operator interfaces are provided by colour touch screen MMIs located in each panel and in the laboratory. Remote dial-in facilities are provided for operator/supervisor control out-of-hours. Alarm Notification is provided to inform operators of plant alarms/ faults. Actual alarm details are transmitted to operator mobile phones using GSM technology. The Main Plant PLC controls 12 outstations via radio modem. Each outstation includes PLC, touch screen MMI and radio.