Case Studies

Tire Conveying Control System

Posted in HMI and SCADA, Manufacturing Automation and Intelligence, PLC Programming, Siemens PLC

Summary

As the tire and rubber industry incorporates more automated equipment on the product floor, product material handling systems are crucial to successful process automation. Production flow control and traceability can be a serious challenge for high volume manufacturers since each machine provides a highly specialized function.

Often, the primary mode of transit for a tire in production are custom conveying systems. These systems solve a significant problem by eliminating manual handling of large products but also require customization to support OEM equipment or workstations at either end of the transit.
 

Solution

As a leading automation software service provider, DMC was able to support the custom deployment of a tire material handling system responsible for managing product in transit from curing to final finish work cells. In partnership with mechanical design and service providers, DMC served as the primary software developer for control of the Siemens PLC and HMI platforms. By developing flexible and reusable conveyor module controls, DMC rapidly supported the successful deployment and commissioning of a mission-critical system.

The conveyor management system utilizes tire grouping for improved transfer by balancing OEM integrations to communicate with upstream devices and flow controls for downstream feeding. Grouping also reduces hardware complexity by deploying longer stretches of the belt as opposed to traditional single tire motorize drive rollers (MDR). 

In summary, custom conveying control solutions provide numerous benefits for tire and rubber end-users, but they also require a great deal of care and expertise to deploy successfully. DMC is committed to providing expert solutions in dynamic manufacturing environments by helping reduce risk in the deployment of complex custom solutions.
 

Customer Benefits

  • Support for high volume production process
    • (22) curing presses generating demand
  • Integration with existing material handling systems
  • Integration with OEM equipment
  • Simple controls and ease of use in production

Technologies