A manufacturer of plastic bags for food packaging that operates a factory in Poland has been using Delta automation technology on its production lines for years. The company has recently expanded their facility and installed additional machines. As a result of the expansion, the manufacturer decided they had too many machines to continue monitoring and controlling them individually. The company needed to deploy a centralized control and management.

The vacuum and high-barrier plastic bags produced at the plant are used in the food and beverage industry. Several heat sealing machines and conveyer systems were in operation at the factory before the expansion. Until now, there was no way to collect and analyze production data from the machines from a single location. A new, customized solution would need to have the ability to collect and aggregate data from all machines, including the new ones, and generate the corresponding reports and graphs.

Since the manufacturer was already using Delta automation hardware, Delta’s DIAView SCADA solution was an obvious choice to implement centralized control and visualization. Delta’s trusted partner in Poland, Induprogress, was able to deploy a powerful combination of DIAView SCADA and SQLServer to collect production logs and statistics and aggregate that data inside a central database. Induprogress has been the official and exclusive distributor of Delta Electronics industrial automation solutions in Poland since 2010.

The system implemented for the packaging factory allows users to choose individual machines and generate reports that span the selected time period without requiring an operator go to the physical machine and use the HMI. The reports can be generated from the factory’s control room or anywhere else within the plant. The functionality of each machine’s HMI is now also available from within DIAView, allowing remote control and operation. The DIAView system accesses the production information hosted in the SQL database to generate charts and reports.

The Delta solution is built around a standalone instance of DIAView, which is also available in client/server and a browser-based versions. Additional Delta equipment in the plastic bag plant includes  an Ethernet switch to enable communication between DIAView and the machinery and four units each of the following:

In addition, ASDA-A2 servo drives have been installed to enable the bag making and filling processes. VFD-E series Delta motor drives come into play for sealing tasks.

The manufacturer now uses the new DIAView SCADA system to control individual machines and monitor the production line. Trend graphs are available and operators can check for anomalies and generate reports. Some of the metrics available include total machine running hours, average production speed, and machine efficiency. Users can receive different levels of permissions and an operator log stores the history of each user’s actions, making it possible to monitor operator performance. The software interface has also been localized into Polish to make operation even easier for local workers.

The project involved close coordination between the customer, Delta, and Induprogress. Delta offered the same high level of technical support during implementation that Induprogress has come to rely on already over the last decade of collaboration. Of course, implementing DIAView was very straightforward since the Delta automation equipment already in operation at the facility was completely compatible. The benefits were so obvious for this project, no other solutions were even considered. Should the customer install more machines in the future, they plan to acquire additional DIAView licenses and incorporate them into the existing system.

“This is a perfect example of how Delta’s broad portfolio of industrial automation solutions can really benefit new and existing customers,” said Ufuk Ozer, Product Manager at Delta Electronics. “The breadth of our portfolio allows a factory choose Delta products almost exclusively, like the customer did in this case. That makes things a lot easier when it’s time to implement a monitoring and control solution like DIAView. Everything is compatible right out of the box.”