DMC was hired by a major supplier of beverage dispensing equipment to modernize and improve their end of line test station. Their line of sophisticated beverage dispensing valves utilize internal flow and pressure monitoring and adjust for varying syrup and water pressures producing the perfect mixture every time. These complex valves undergo an extensive testing and calibration procedure before being shipped to the end customer. Their old test system was nearing the end of its usable life and needed to be modernized.
DMC was asked to completely redesign and modernize the test system while increasing its throughput. After meeting with the customer to determine their needs (and to find out what they liked and disliked about their old system), DMC redesigned the new test stand from the ground up. We started the mechanical design with a 3D model to ensure that all of the components could be fit into the required footprint. The control system was designed to utilize all off-the shelf industrial components to facilitate maintenance and upgrades. A PC-based Data Acquisition and Control System based on National Instruments hardware and software was developed to control and monitor all of the equipment within the test station.
The test procedure is entirely customizable by the end-customer, providing them with a huge improvement in flexibility over their previous test stand. As the test is running, data is continuously logged to a database for reporting and statistical analysis. Since the test sequence is highly configurable, it is important that the test sequence is managed by a version control system. DMC incorporated Subversion (an open source revision control system) into the software to manage the versioning of the test sequences. This ensures that they are always running with the most recent version of the test sequence.
Learn more about DMC's test and measurement automation services.