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Partnering October, 2016
ty into production. This is especially true when a company, like Inert Technologies, creates highly-cus- tomized solutions for each of its OEM customers. Managing multiple con- trollers complicates procurement, manufacturing and support. Inert Technologies is a manufacturer of gloveboxes, gas management and sol- vent purification systems. The com- pany provides its inert atmospheres and equipment to customers that in- clude some of the world’s top univer- sities, Fortune 500 companies, and fabricators of semiconductors, photo- voltaic cells, LEDs, lithium ion bat- teries, and many others. After careful evaluation of al-
Siemens Upgrades Inert Technologies’ Control Systems M
By Bill Ellsworth, Account Manager, Siemens
anaging multiple PLCs from different manufacturers can introduce needless complexi-
tion (TIA) portfolio. Combined with Siemens’ TIA Portal platform, Inert was able to completely overhaul its control systems and reach greater levels of quality and flexibility dur- ing production. Upgrading outdated and unwieldy control systems allows production to be run by a single engi- neering framework, speeding time- to-market, providing significant sav- ings in time and cost, and gaining flexibility in product customization.
Legacy PLCs Limit the Future Despite Inert’s systems being
ternatives, Inert chose Siemens as a strategic supplier of SIMATIC S7- 1200 controllers and HMI panels from its Totally Integrated Automa-
integral to the work of its customers in some of the most innovative indus- tries, its own innovations were limit- ed by the company’s existing PLC platform. The situation was ironic, according to Daniel Clay, Inert’s CEO, because innovation has always been at the heart of the company’s mission. Founded in 1981 as Innova- tive Technology, the company recent-
ly rebranded in order to express a more clear identity as a provider of inert atmospheres and equipment. “Inert’s value and the source of
our competitive edge has always been making great products and con- tinually working to improve and ex- pand the features and performance they provide. Flexible engineering for our OEM customers has also been critically important,” says Clay. Unfortunately, Inert was discov-
ering shortcomings with the PLCs it was using in its systems. Sourced from two different vendors, procurement was becoming more and more com- plex. “With three controllers from two different suppliers and two different voltages typically used worldwide, we had to manage six different controller platforms,” says Timothy Michael, head of engineering at Inert. “That complicated our engineering and man- ufacturing as well as downstream sup- port and service.” Michael recalls that over the
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years, engineering became more com- plex as well. Inert continued driving its own product innovations, while customers came forward with requests of their own. “It started turning into a bit of a spider’s web in terms of differ- ent code,” he says. “To make matters worse, we were on our third outside developer, and because everyone does PLC programming their own way, making a change in one place could cause unintended effects in code else- where. That makes debugging and troubleshooting issues extremely te- dious and time-consuming.” As a result, Inert’s engineering
and support costs were rising, and time-to-market was increasing. And according to Michael, it was because of the back-and-forth communica- tions between Inert, its customers, and third-party developers. “We had reached a decision point with our legacy PLC platforms and needed a more modern one to carry us for- ward,” he says.
SIMATIC and TIA Dittmann & Greer, Inc., a
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Siemens distributor, brought in an engineer from Siemens to assess Inert’s legacy PLCs and to determine the code migration requirements needed to install SIMATIC compo- nents from its TIA portfolio. “Siemens made it extremely
easy for us to move to its TIA plat- form,” Michael says. “The TIA portfo- lio and common software engineering framework, called the TIA Portal, were extremely compelling and showed the potential to solve the is- sues we had.” He goes on to say that Siemens even offered to help Inert up- date its existing code and other sup- port, without any extra cost. It was a big change for the company, since Michael states that they did not re- ceive much, if any, support from the other suppliers. “From the start, Siemens made it clear that it wanted our business and did everything we could imagine to earn it,” Clay says. The experts from Dittmann &
Greer and Siemens worked closely together to create a project specifica- tion and plan. Time was tight, as the debut of Inert’s rebranding at the American Chemical Society (ACS) was less than two months away. Both Clay and Michael wanted to im- press attendees of the industry trade show with their new brand identity and improved PLCs. “The engineers from both compa-
nies were on top of their game,” Clay says. “We had our code completely converted in six weeks and were able to bring our updated products to the trade show with a fully updated look and feel,” Michael states. For its new PLC platform, Inert
chose the Siemens SIMATIC S7-1200 controller, one of the most advanced in the company’s TIA portfolio, which supports a broad range of applica- tions. But the source of the “fully up- dated look and feel” is the brilliance of the SIMATIC HMI color panels, also in the TIA portfolio. Both compo- nents are programmed using the TIA Portal.
Flexibility Today and Innovation Tomorrow
Both Clay and Michael agree
that the switch to the Siemens SIMATIC S7-1200 PLC and HMI from the TIA portfolio was a great move. “The Siemens TIA components and common TIA Portal opened the door to all kinds of efficiencies, pro- viding us with significant cost- and time-savings,” Clay says. Michael states, “We can now
bring our software programming in- house. Troubleshooting and develop- ing new features will be much easier and faster. Fewer parts need to be or- dered and held in inventory, and training of Inert’s service team only took about four hours before they were up to speed.” Remote diagnostics are another
improvement, as the company dis- covered recently with a customer in Japan. “Our top technician flew there to discuss a sizeable upgrade. Whenever he needed advice, he called up the Siemens engineer who helped convert all our code and pro- gram the HMI. The engineer dialed into our machine in Japan from his office in the U.S. and they had inter- active work sessions as if they were sitting side-by-side.” “While simplification improved
our time-to-market, we now have ca- pabilities that give us even more flex- ibility in the customizations we pro- vide,” says Clay. “For example, we can now offer Modbus and Ethernet communications that we couldn’t be- fore. And we can program energy- saving features and many other ca-
pabilities, too.” Contact: Inert Technologies,
Inc., One Industrial Way, Ames- bury, MA 01913 % 978-462-4415 fax: 978-462-3338 Web:
www.inert-
technology.com and Siemens Indus- try, Inc., 5300 Triangle Parkway, Norcross, GA 30092 % 1-800-241- 4453 E-mail:
info.us@
siemens.com r
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