Stramit is a major manufacturer of steel building products. Mobile Automation interfaced and modernised several roll-forming mills — bringing them onto the plant network, adding PLC control and encoder feedback, and improving machine safety.
The challenge
The mills needed their machine data brought onto the local network, PLC control and encoder feedback added, and their safety circuits corrected — the guard and E-stop had been combined on a single input.
Our approach
Mobile Automation networked the mills, installed and programmed the controls, and re-engineered the safety circuits to current practice.
Scope of works
- Data cabling and unmanaged network switches installed to each mill (including Heritage, Stile, Novataur and D-panel mills), with connectivity verified
- Siemens PLCs installed in new control enclosures, with an encoder and analogue card for drive communication, sheet-detection proximity sensors and a touch-screen HMI
- PLC code written including a handshake between the new Siemens PLC and the existing Omron PLC
- Machine safety improved by separating the guard and E-stop into individual inputs and adding safety contactors; new GPOs, RCBOs and data points at the operator areas
The results
- Networked, PLC-controlled mills with encoder feedback
- Machine data available on the plant network
- Improved machine safety — separated guard and E-stop inputs
- Modernised operator-area power and data