Case Studies

R&D PlantPAx Implementation

R&D PlantPAx Implementation
Posted in Allen Bradley PLC, Chemical, Manufacturing Automation and Intelligence

Summary

DMC developed a PlantPAx system for an R&D hydrogen conversion process utilizing a ControlLogix PLC and FactoryTalk SE SCADA. To meet the customer’s aggressive commissioning schedule, DMC leveraged Application Code Manager (ACM) to rapidly deploy device control modules so that onsite IO commissioning could be done quickly while remote sequence development could be done in parallel. 

Solution

When the client brought DMC to the project, the automation portion was already behind schedule due to a previous integrator’s lack of Rockwell experience. DMC expedited “manual mode” development by using ACM, along with Rockwell’s provided PlantPAx control module templates, to quickly instance all the required device-level logic for the system. Once the control module layer was built, a DMC engineer downloaded the manual mode program onsite and began performing loop checks while the rest of the DMC team focused on higher-level sequence development. 

To keep the onsite and offline programs consistent through the device commissioning, daily status updates were provided to the DMC team and customer outlining commissioning status and changes made that need to be reconciled to the offline project. 

Once the offsite sequence development was complete, DMC imported the sequence routines to the onsite program and provided function testing and start-up support for the system commissioning. 

In addition to using the built-in FactoryTalk SE datalogging capabilities for local data collection, DMC installed and commissioned a Kepware OPC server to push data to the client’s cloud-based enterprise historian. 

By leveraging Rockwell’s PlantPAx libraries and tools like Application Code Manager, DMC was able to meet the client’s aggressive commissioning timeline while also keeping the project on budget, demonstrating DMC’s core values of “Share Information” and “Make Things Happen.” 

Learn more about DMC’s Rockwell Programming expertise and contact us with any inquires.

Customer Benefits

  • Completed the project on time and on budget by leveraging Rockwell’s PlantPAx libraries Application Code Manager.
  • Saved time by doing onsite IO commissioning and remote sequence in parallel.
  • Stored data in a cloud-based enterprise historian using a Kepware OPC server.

Technologies

  • PlantPAx V4 
  • ControlLogix PLC 
  • FactoryTalk View SE 
  • Application Code Manager 
  • Kepware OPC Server