FEATURE PLCS, INDUSTRIAL PCS & HMIS
SCOTT BADER’S PLANT IT INFRASTRUCTURE IS MODERNISED USING A VIRTUALISED SOLUTION
virtualising the system using VMware and turned to its strategic partner, SolutionsPT to deliver the architecture platform. A key partner to the system integrator
community in delivering OT solutions for industry, SolutionsPT has over 30 years’ experience as a provider of manufacturing IT solutions. The company works closely with system integrators to enable them to deliver end user solutions which reduce manufacturing costs and improve operational efficiency. SolutionsPT’s System Architecture team
S
cott Bader was established in 1921 and today is a £227 million-pound global
chemical company, employing more than 650 people worldwide. With manufacturing sites located around the world it manufactures, sells and distributes a wide range of synthetic resins and polymers to many different markets and has built a reputation for innovation, quality and excellent customer service. The infrastructure at Scott Bader’s
plant was installed in 2002 and centred around a legacy Rockwell SCADA system comprising of ProcessLogix PLC equipment and deployed on a single server with three PC clients out in the factory. The SCADA platform has been obsolete for several years and official technical support for this system was withdrawn in December 2012. All of Scott Bader’s machines were also running Windows 2000 Server, an obsolete operating system now unsupported by Microsoft. Critically, replacements and spares for the hardware could no longer be reliably sourced. The ageing hardware environment was
being pushed to its limits daily, maintenance costs for the system were rising and, due to their age, their reliability was in decline. Scott Bader was also finding it increasingly hard to find personnel qualified to troubleshoot and repair the older machines. Failures in the night or at the weekend left Scott Bader with no access to technicians or hardware spares, bringing production to a halt. Scott Bader recognised the need to conduct a site wide upgrade of its control systems and infrastructure but knew that a full migration would need a carefully phased approach and that, in the interim, the business would require a solution to extend the life of its existing control system until the upgrade could be safely completed. Industrial automation expert, Exabyte Solutions, who has worked with the company since 2005 suggested
42 JUNE 2018 | AUTOMATION
“We needed to deploy virtualisation in a simple but robust way, striking a balance between enabling the long-term upgrade project, whilst solving today’s problems.” - Paul Rimmer, technical director of Exabyte Solutions
identified the resource needed for the optimum operation of the virtual machines and recommended a robust fault tolerant platform - Stratus’ Fault Tolerant Server (ftServer) - to be combined with ThinManager as an availability solution for the deployment of critical industrial applications. Stratus ftServer - complete with
hardware, software and service - is an operationally simple platform designed to keep applications up and running with no downtime or data loss. Leveraging the latest Intel processor technology and supporting Windows, Linux and virtualisation technology VMware, ftServer’s always-on capabilities are achieved with advanced lockstep technology and real-time management and monitoring. Crucially, for Scott Bader, ftServer is easily installed and is
serviced by system generated replacement parts ordering. ThinManager is management software
allowing the simplified delivery of centralised applications to any device, in a format that reduces management and maintenance costs while delivering increased security. In partnership with SolutionsPT’s
architecture team, Exabyte Solutions virtualised Scott Bader’s system using VMWare deployed on the Stratus ftServer, enabling Scott Bader to continue to run its existing software programmes on a virtualised fault tolerant server. The virtualisation of Scott Bader’s system effectively addressed the hardware obsolescence of its legacy servers and operator client PCs, allowing the company to kick off its long-term migration plans whilst maintaining business as usual. The Stratus ftServer was an appropriate solution for its business as it provided an always-on platform allowing staff to focus on production. Used in conjunction with ThinManager - which is used to deploy the applications into the environment - it provided a robust, secure solution for managing Scott Bader’s system which required minimal engineering.
Stratus Technologies
www.stratus.com
STEP INTO INDUSTRY 4.0 WITH MQTT U
nitronics, a leader in the programmable logic controller arena, features MQTT in the latest
release of UniStream, its award-winning PLC+HMI series. Lightweight, simple, MQTT (Message Queueing Telemetry Transport) runs over TCP/IP, based on a publish- subscribe structure. UniStream supports MQTT as a ‘client’ that can both publish and subscribe to messages. UniStream can: • Publish data to a defined broker according to a configured topic. For example, the topic may be machine; the messages can include application data such as temperature or pressure. UniStream can publish periodically, according to a time period set in the configuration or a periodically, according to event. • Receive data from a defined broker on a defined topic, to which UniStream is subscribed. In addition to MQTT, UniStream series programmable controllers support a range of communication channels and protocols that supply the connectivity required by Industry 4.0 including SQL, built-in webserver that enables the controller to be accessed via any browser, and more. The rich feature range of UniStream includes
auto-tuned PID, datalogging, data tables and recipes, data sampling displayed via built-in trends and gauges, alarms, multi-level passwords, multi-
language support including Asian languages, and communications with any device via CANopen, CAN Layer2, MODBUS, EtherNetIP, and more. All-in-One UniLogic software is said to cut setup and programming time. The built-in design and re- use paradigm enables you to build Ladder and C functions, design HMI screens, and create web pages in multiple languages, and save it all in a Library to reuse in other projects. Another benefit to the bottom line for the OEM and system integrator is Unitronics standard policy of customer care – no hidden costs, no paywalls or tiers. All software, utilities, and support, including membership in Unitronics’ Community Forum, are provided at no additional charge.
Unitronics
www.unitronicsPLC.com /AUTOMATION
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60
