Page 9 - EngineerIT October 2022

AUTOMATION AND CONTROL

the system before they take any action. automated, in this case the various containers are still connected manually using
In addition, the operators’ RFID chips hose connections. It is another area in which the automation engineers rely on RFID
have been retrofitted with RMD ASICs, technology, as this provides a reliable way of detecting incorrectly connected hoses or
making them compatible with the system missing end closures. Tags on each hose and RFID readers at the line connections make
that controls access to the building. all the components and their position in the process uniquely identifiable, ensuring
“The tags don’t just allow the employees consistent quality and process control.
to log in at the operator stations and For each production process, the visualisation and control systems store all
receive their authorisation releases – the hose connections that employees have to establish by hand, in a way that is
they also provide access to the building comparable to recipe instructions (“take hose five and use it to connect nozzles four
and the production areas approved for and eight”, for example). Only when all hoses (tags) are located at the correct nozzles
the employees,” says John. (RFID readers) does TwinCAT enable the next process step: for instance, pumping a
Working alongside Stefan Maßmann, batch to the storage tanks for the filling and packaging lines one floor below. “We can
Andreas Wieners and Jürgen Bolte, even use the tags on the hoses to check things and make sure we’re only using hoses
Rüdiger John defined a total of ten that are suitable for the media and have been cleaned beforehand,” explains Stefan
user profiles on the basis of the tasks Maßmann. If an employee does happen to make a mistake in connecting everything
associated with each, and implemented together, TwinCAT recognises this immediately on the basis of an invalid tag ID and
them in the TwinCAT HMI. The profiles interrupts the process step until the employee has made the correct hose connection
cover everything from packers and plant and acknowledged it.
operators to systems engineers and The plan is to install some of the 50 RFID readers in the hose station. “We want to
laboratory technicians. tackle that in the near future,” states Rüdiger John, looking ahead to the next stages
of expanding production. His road map also includes areas such as linking production
Manual hose station integrated planning to campaigns and demand forecasts from the higher-level ERP system. “At some
into control system point, we want to implement recipes from within SAP,” adds John, explaining one way

With regard to safety, Rüdiger John has in which things are set to expand. In his view, the open and flexible PC-based control
come up with something particularly platform will also make this integration a breeze. n
special for a sensitive area of the
plant: the hose station. Even though For more information visit www.engelhard.de/en and www.beckhoff.co.za./process.
everything else is almost completely All illustrations in this article are the copyright of Beckhoff. www.beckhoff.com/process

“With Beckhoff, everything
just works – you have
technology, flexibility,
professionalism and the
human factor,” sums up
Rüdiger John (centre), head
of engineering at Engelhard
Arzneimittel, shown with
Stefan Maßmann (left) and
Andreas Wieners (right),
both from Beckhoff Systems
Engineering.

EngineerIT | October 2022 | 7