A new control system, yet able to start up the production process without fear of risks? The migration of operating systems within a production environment is a fascinating and challenging process for the designers and those who implement the migration. For the Production Manager on the other hand, this is a necessary evil which, if it can at all be avoided, must be realised with the least possible loss of production. In short, this is a potential problem that you as a client are likely to encounter on a regular basis. Nothing new for you so far, but all that is about to change! Moekotte has, as a System Integrator, found an important tool within the WinMOD software package that...

GAMP – Traceability from powder to pill The increasingly stringent regulations relating to production within the food and pharmaceuticals industries have led to the requirement for automated systems to be designed and implemented according to a set, traceable and verifiable process. Terms such as tracking and tracing are not unknown to pharmaceutical and food production companies. A producer needs to be able to demonstrate which ingredients have been incorporated into a certain batch of product and in what quantities, as well as who the supplier of those ingredients was. Furthermore, it must be possible to determine who is responsible for the realisation of a quantity of product,...

How safe is your production process? As a manufacturer of an end product and / or as a machine engineer within the supply industry, you will constantly be seeking ways to optimise your production process with a view to increasing production, reducing waste flows and minimising disruptions to that process in so far as possible. There are numerous things that will afford the manufacturer a better market position, even during the improvement process. In addition to the aforementioned improvement processes, all of which are directly linked to production, European legislation also requires you to deal with indirect issues, such as safety and failure rate calculations. These are terms...

Migration or one-by-one replacement? Two factors which are often taken into consideration when replacing (outdated) control systems include the condition of the control panel and the availability of reserve materials. It also goes without saying that budgets must be taken into consideration. If a customer chooses to retain the existing control panels and just replace the PLC hardware, we can then ask whether the existing software programs need to be transferred one by one, or whether these need to be rewritten. The second of these options is known as migration and comprises replacing the existing PLC configuration with a new one, potentially developed by another manufacturer, as...

From conventional to bus technologies In many of the control systems of today, a switch has been from conventional cabling to bus technology. This is because bus technologies offer a number of benefits with regard to the quantity of cabling and, in the case of Profibus, in the form of the additional data that can be collected from instruments. The application of bus technologies, on the other hand, requires more knowledge than conventional technologies and special equipment must be purchased in order to ensure a correct analysis and implementation. Whether your Profibus network will function properly is dependent on having a good design...