Production Control System
Anglian Home Improvements are industry leaders in the manufacture of uPVC doors and window frames. From its pioneering work in the early 1960's through to its present state-of-the-art manufacturing facilities, the company has constantly strived to produce the highest quality products at affordable prices. As part of this continuous improvement process, Anglian Home Improvements have invested in a Prodigy based production control system.
Key System Goals
The over-riding aims of Anglian’s Prodigy SCADA system were to;- Increase production capacity
- Improve product quality
- Reduce product variability
- Improve production control & planning
- Improve operating efficiency
- Increase overall profitability
The company realised that the key to its goals lay in first obtaining a better understanding of the existing production processes.
Whilst much of Anglian’s manufacturing equipment made use of modern control electronics it was all designed to operate in a stand alone fashion. A complete picture of the production process would only be possible once information from a number of key areas was made available at a central point.
The automatic collection of process information was made using a number of network communications links to new and existing monitoring equipment. These links obtain various temperatures, pressures and flows etc. from the initial materials preparation in the compound plant through to product manufacture on the extruder lines.
Versatile Data Collection
The collection of continuous process measurements, though important, only gave part of the overall picture. A number of QC measurements are made using manual techniques. To aid understanding of the entire process it was important that these measurements could be viewed seamlessly with the automatic measurements. The control system was therefore designed to use a number of shop floor terminals to allow direct operator input/output to simplify information flow and reduce paperwork.
Accurate Machine Utilisation Information
In order to gain a better understanding of the reasons for production stoppages, the company has made use of Prodigy's Downtime Monitoring facility. This uses shop floor terminals to obtain stoppage codes from the machine operators at the time of any production disturbance. This method of automatic downtime monitoring provides an accurate picture of machine utilisation in a way that traditional paper based systems can never hope to achieve. From the raw data, Prodigy automatically prepares detailed shift/daily/weekly production reports with production rates, totals and efficiencies being shown as summary reports.
Plant Overview
As well as providing a valuable tool for the analysis of the mechanics of the extrusion plant, Prodigy also plays a role in the smooth operation of the plant by providing a detailed picture of the entire plant from any PC screen connected to the system. From this, the user can see an overview of key process information, or click on any item of equipment for a more detailed view.
Remote Data Access
By using the Prodigy Interconnect package, information from the main Prodigy server can be accessed by any PC which is connected to the local area network. This allows the information to be made available throughout the company making it easier for senior management to exercise better production control.
Features
- Factory-wide production control and monitoring
- Operator terminals at each machine
- Product/run length counting
- Continuous chart recording
- Automated data capture with manual input capability
- Alarm monitoring
- Automatic production reports
- Maintenance scheduling
- Production recipe handling
- Network data transfer
Benefits
- Gain an understanding of what’s really happening on the shop floor
- Reduced production disturbances
- Increased production output
- Automatic quality records
- Reduced machine downtime
- Overview of the whole manufacturing operation
- Improved product quality control and consistency
If you have a production control system application and would like more information please contact us.
