Case Study: Plastics Manufacturer, Scandinavia

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Leading plastics manufacturere uses live process data to optimize production, saving time and materials

One of Scandinavia’s leading plastics manufacturers has chosen DataHub® software from Cogent Real-Time Systems (a subsidiary of Skkynet) to extract data and interact with their state-of-the-art plastic manufacturing equipment. The firm can now access any desired process data for the purposes of engineering analysis and enterprise-level resource planning.  DataHub software was the only additional piece of software required to realize substantial savings of time, materials, and production costs.

“The DataHub application is exactly the kind we needed,” said the project coordinator. “Our system is extensive, and we need to visualize a lot of production parameters. We looked at other solutions but they were too expensive and more complicated.”

plastics-manufacturer-plantWhen the company installed new equipment recently, the necessary system integration grew very complex. Progress was slow. After almost a year they were facing a deadline and had little to show for their time and effort. The goal was to pull together data from 15 machinery units, and feed it in real time into the company’s business processing systems. And if possible, to enable plant engineers to view and work with the live data as well. When they found DataHub software they were pleased to learn that most of the work had already been done.

The first test was to connect a DataHub instance to an OPC server and put live data into ODBC databases, Excel spreadsheets, and web browsers, as well as to aggregate OPC servers and tunnel data across a network. DataHub technology proved to be easy to use and reliable, and it performed remarkably well. The next step was to set up a test system.

The test system connected all of the OPC servers for the plant’s plastics production machines to a central DataHub instance. Another DataHub instance at a network node in the engineering department is connected to the central instance by a mirroring connection, for tunnelling data across the network. This second DataHub instance is then connected to an Excel spreadsheet to give a live display of the data in real time. When a piece of equipment machine starts up on the production line, the chart comes to life—cells spontaneously update values and bar charts spring into existence.

The engineering department was able to develop a custom TCP application that uses the DataHub C++ API to make a direct connection from the DataHub instance to their SQL Server database. Once connected that database gets updated in milliseconds with any change in the plastic-manufacturing machinery. From the SQL Server database the data is accessed by the company’s ERP and accounting software. Using DataHub software in these ways allows the company to:

  • Aggregate the data from all machinery into one central location.
  • Distribute the data across the network to various users.
  • Do decimal conversions of the data as it passes through the DataHub instance.
  • Put selected subsets of data into Excel for engineers to view and run calculations on.
  • Feed values into a SQL Server database in the company’s IT and business processing system. The OPC points are read-only to ensure a clean separation between the management and production areas.

“This system pays for itself,” said a company spokesman, “and we save money in many ways. We have seen substantial gains in productivity and performance because we can monitor our processes far more effectively. Our accounting and planning departments have, for the first time ever, an up-to-the-second record of actual production variables and statistics. At the same time, our engineering staff can use real-time data in their calculations, and feed the results directly back into the process.”

DataHub technology also saved substantial programming costs. The time alone saved on development work has paid for the system many times over. With a single tool the project coordinator has met the various needs of both the engineers and company managers. “The software is easy to install and it works well,” he said. “It’s at the correct level for our needs.”

Case Study: University of California, Berkeley, USA

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DataHub software integrates data for distributed control of unmanned aerial vehicles

For the past several years, students and faculty at the Vehicle Dynamics Lab (VDL) of the University of California, Berkeley, have been developing a system of coordinated distributed control, communications, and vision-based control among a group of several unmanned aircraft. A single user can control the fleet of aircraft, and command it to carry out complex missions such as patrolling a border, following a highway, or visiting a specified location. Each airplane carries a video camera and an on-board computer, and communicates with the ground station and the other aircraft in the formation. The control algorithms are so sophisticated that the fleet can carry out certain missions completely autonomously—without any operator intervention.

The control system for each aircraft runs on a PC 104 computer with a QNX6 operating system. Control is divided into three kinds of processes: communication, image processing, and task control. All of these processes interact through the DataHub software running in QNX. Each DataHub® instance is a memory-resident, real-time database that allows multiple processes to share data on a publish-subscribe basis. For this application, each process writes its data to the DataHub instance, and subscribes to the data of each other process on a read-only basis. In this way, each process gains access to the data it needs from the other processes, while avoiding problems associated with multi-processing data management.

For example, the communication software comprises three separate processes: The Piccolo process controls the aircraft, the Payload process communicates with users on the ground, and the Orinoco process handles communications with the other aircraft. Needless to say, each of these three programs needs information from the other two, as well as from the video and task control packages. All of this data is transferred seamlessly through the DataHub instance.

“DataHub software has contributed a great deal to our system integration,” said Brandon Basso, one of the VDL team members. “Its ability to restrict write privileges to each shared variable of the owner processes avoids many of the difficulties associated with multi-process management.”

For task control, there are two primary software packages: Waypoint controls visits to specified locations, while Orbit handles the orbiting “patrol” of a group of locations. These processes are monitored by a third, supervisory process called Switchboard. In addition to coordinating these processes, decisions must be made by the different aircraft as to which plane will take on which task. The complex calculations needed for this decentralized task allocation are mediated through the DataHub instance.

Waypoint and Orbit use input from the vision control and vision process. Prior to takeoff, certain algorithms are applied to previously recorded videos, to create a visual profile of the area, which is maintained by the vision control. In the air, this data must be compared to what the plane is currently flying over. A camera on the wing of the plane feeds data to the vision process, which analyzes the content and generates meaningful information about objects on the ground, such as waypoints on a river or road. This live content, along with the stored visual profile in the vision control, is fed through the DataHub software to Waypoint and Orbit.

According to the paper, A Modular Software Infrastructure for Distributed Control of Collaborating UAVs, published by the University of California Berkeley which describes it in detail, this project marks “a major milestone in UAV cooperation: decentralized task allocation for a dynamically changing mission, via onboard computation and direct aircraft-to-aircraft communication.” Skkynet is pleased that DataHub technology has played an important role in the success of this endeavour.

Case Study: Excavator Manufacturer, Brazil

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Key decision makers gain access to live production data

A heavy equipment manufacturing plant near Sao Paulo, Brazil has been producing excavators, track-type tractors, and other earth-moving equipment for many years. Recently upgraded and expanded, the facility currently employs thousands of people and has an outstanding reputation for high-quality production methods.

Several years ago, in an initiative to keep top decision makers informed of current plant status in real time, company management decided to implement a web-based data visualization system. “We needed a way to quickly view the production status in each of our two plants,” said the plant director, “as well as the machinery common to both facilities. So we put out a request for a pilot project for an effective way to present high-level production figures to our key executives in real time.”

Responding to the request, Exata Sistemas de Automação, Cogent’s distributor for the Brazilian market, developed a solution using the OPC DataHub Web Server. Linking a DataHub instance to the facility’s main OPC server, they then created a web page that would display production data from 5 different machines around the plant to people in production and management offices. The plant engineers were pleased with the results, and were ready to implement the system, but they were faced with an obstacle.

“Although the production manager approved our pilot project, the IT Department has strict regulations on what software is allowed on their system,” explained Murilo Bevilaqua, Director of Exata, “So instead of implementing our solution, the company decided that the best approach would be to add this type of functionality to their existing MES system.”

The company’s technical staff asked their MES vendor to create a solution similar to the Exata pilot project. After several months of attempting to do this, they were not able to achieve the same results. So those responsible for the project returned to Exata and asked them how to best implement the system. More discussion ensued between the technical personnel at the company and the automation experts at Exata to address the security and reliability issues raised by staff in the IT department. Finally, when it was clear that using DataHub software would have no impact on the company’s IIS system or anything else in the IT domain, Exata was given the green light to go ahead.

The long wait actually proved to be beneficial for all parties. In the course of the year, a major upgrade of OPC DataHub software was released, now renamed Cogent DataHub® software. This new version included many new features, including DataHub WebView™ HMI technology. Now it would be much easier for Exata to build web pages, the results would be more attractive and robust, and data in the displays would update instantaneously.

“We used our original ASP-based pilot page as a pattern,” said Bevilaqua, “and quickly created the pages we needed in the  DataHub WebView HMI. It was simply a matter of opening a new page, putting in a few labels for the machines, and changing background color for machine status, such as running, stopped, in maintenance, and whether or not it was communicating with the PLC. This was a lot easier to do in the WebView HMI than trying to write a lot of HTML code. We just added a control, set the limits, chose the colors, and then started testing locally and remotely.”

The finished application is accessed remotely from several places around the company, including on a 40″ monitor in the director’s office. It displays 3 different web pages in slide-show mode, changing every 15 seconds, scrolling through production status on various lines. At any location, an operator or a manager can pause on a given page as long as necessary. It is possible to monitor the status from a total of 49 different machines among these three plant areas, with color identification of their current main status, and read more detailed information coming from the PLC.

“We were very pleased with what Exata has done,” said the plant maintenance analyst. “These web pages give us a complete overview of our production at a single glance.”

Case Study: Mukhaizna Oil Field, Oman

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Optimizing OPC connections with the DataHub

In 2005 the Sultanate of Oman issued a Royal Decree to develop the giant Mukhaizna oil field covering a vast expanse of desert in the center and south of the country. A major worldwide producer of oil, natural gas, and chemicals was given responsibility for developing the Mukhaizna field, and from 2005 to 2008 oil recovery rates were increased by more than 600% through the use of a steam-assisted gravity drainage process. As each year goes by, the company makes every effort to continuously upgrade technology and improve productivity of the field.

Eight separate production facilities in the Mukhaizna oil field are using Rockwell PLCs, linked to Iconics HMI/SCADA systems for data visualization and operator control. This data collection and distribution mechanism worked well when first implemented, but as the number of data points increased over time it became clear to the project engineers that they needed a way to improve performance. So they began to look for a way to streamline the data flow. The solution they found not only performed well, but it created other, significant opportunities for real-time data integration.

Software Toolbox logo

At each of the eight locations, Rockwell PLCs are connected to an Iconics Genesis32 HMI through an OPC server. The TOP Server OPC server from Software Toolbox (Skkynet’s Sales and Technical Partner) gathers data from as many as 20 PLCs, and feeds that to the HMI. As new equipment was brought online, the number of tags in the system approached 30,000, which is normally not a problem for TOP Server. But something was clearly different with this system and it became apparent that some sort of optimization was necessary.

Optimization

The problem was that the HMI was forcing the TOP Server to make device reads, which bypassed TOP Server’s optimization at the device level. Device reads by an OPC client are intended to cause the OPC server to get the information and reply back to the OPC client before doing anything else. While these types of calls are useful in critical situations, all communication optimization has to be done through full system design. The HMI was also requesting updates on groups of OPC tags as it needed them, but these groups were often in a different logical order than how the data points were represented on the PLC. The combined effect was forcing the TOP Server to make more requests for smaller amounts of data, slowing the data-gathering process.

“The OPC server seemed to be dying under the load,” said Juan Munoz, Project Manager for the Mukhaizna oil field project. “Even at rates as low as once per second, it was difficult to scan 30,000 tags, and get the critical data changes that we needed.” Based on his experience with the TOP Server in other projects, Mr. Munoz knew the server itself was not the issue, so he searched the Software Toolbox website for a solution and found DataHub® technology.

DataHub software, developed by Cogent Real-Time Systems (a subsidiary of Skkynet), is a highly optimized data integration tool. It is a memory resident real-time database that provides quick, reliable and secure access to valuable process data and makes it available to other production and management systems, database archives, and remote clients.

Once he started configuring a DataHub instance, Mr. Munoz soon realized how it could solve his data flow problem. Acting as an OPC client to TOP Server, DataHub software can request data based on tag value changes (referred to as “asynchronous advise”). This means that instead of 30,000 tags per second, TOP Server only sends data for a tag when it changes value. It is free to poll the devices in the most efficient way, always keeping the DataHub instance up to date with the latest data values. The DataHub instance keeps all the latest tag values in memory, and can efficiently send them to the HMI on each poll.

“DataHub software effectively decouples the OPC server from the client,” said Mr. Munoz. “All the load is on its shoulders  now, and the performance is much better.” The TOP Server is now free to optimize the communications to the device while the DataHub instance protects it from device reads. This has relieved the company from having to redesign their HMI and PLC configurations from the ground up, saving them tens of thousands of dollars in engineering and development work.

When he was satisfied with the results at the first location, Mr. Munoz began installing DataHub software at the seven other facilities. He experienced a similar performance boost, and at the same time created a new data integration opportunity. He now had most of the pieces in place to bring all of the live production data to a central location, using OPC tunnelling.

Tunnelling OPC

Tunnelling OPC is a reliable and secure way to connect OPC servers and clients over a network. OPC DA uses DCOM for networking, which is difficult to configure, does not respond well to network breaks, and can pose significant security risks. DataHub software mirrors data between OPC DA servers and clients through a tunnel using TCP, which is a more robust protocol for networking.

To implement tunnelling, Mr. Munoz installed another DataHub instance on a Windows server at the Mukhaizna oil field central office. After configuring tunnelling connections between that DataHub instance and the remote ones, he was able to access the data from all eight field locations as a single, common data set, without putting any more load on his control system. This data could now be logged and shared at the management level of the company.

Using the DataHub Database interface, Mr. Munoz configured connections to OSIsoft PI and SQL Server databases, to record production data at the remote sites and at the central office. Historical records and reports are now being made available through standard tools such as SQL and Crystal Reports. Mr. Munoz also configured an OPC connection from the central DataHub instance to an Iconics Web HMI to give managers access to the live data from all of the eight field sites. Operators, on the other hand, continue to control the processes from the HMIs running at the remote locations.

Among the critical information that operators and management need to monitor is the available memory and status of programs running at each field location. The company was able to achieve this by configuring the DataHub System Monitor feature, which allowed Mr. Munoz to add points that monitor the available computer memory and status of the OPC server running at each remote location. This data is accessed locally by operators, and is also tunnelled back to the central DataHub instance, so it can be viewed by users of the Web HMI on the management network.

“DataHub software is very easy to use,” said Mr. Munoz. “In fact, at a recent training session we showed some other people at the company what we are doing, and they are very impressed.”

Redundancy

The most recent project that Mr. Munoz has decided to tackle with DataHub software is to implement redundancy. To provide increased availability, the company has installed an additional OPC server at some locations. Working with Win Worrall, Product Support Engineer and Developer at Software Toolbox, Mr. Munoz has implemented DataHub redundancy to monitor the quality of the data coming from the local OPC server.

If the quality of an indicator changes to “Bad” or “Not Connected” on the primary OPC server, the DataHub instance immediately switches to the redundant OPC server and continues collecting data from there. Although this is currently undergoing testing before being implemented in the production facility, Mr. Munoz reports that there is no data loss during the switchover, and that the performance is very reliable.

Scripting

To gain maximum value from DataHub software, Mr. Munoz has developed a working knowledge of DataHub Scripting. “The scripting language did take a little time to learn, but it is very useful for the types of scripts we need to use. We can develop scripts quickly now, because the language is object oriented.”

Starting with a demo script from the DataHub archive, Mr. Munoz has been able to access data from a legacy UNIX system and make it available through OPC. To access the data, Mr. Munoz wrote a DataHub script to read a CSV file every minute and write the values to points in the DataHub instance. Because DataHub software is also an OPC server, this allows points from the UNIX system to be presented as OPC tags to the HMI system.

“I am impressed with how quickly Juan has picked up the scripting,” said Mr. Worrall. “In fact, he’s pretty good at getting the most out of DataHub technology in just about every way.” “We are very grateful to Win and the overall support from Software Toolbox on this project,” said Mr. Munoz. “We haven’t found many problems. In all aspects, DataHub software is performing very well.”

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Software Toolbox and TOP Server are trademarks of Software Toolbox, Inc. Other product names, brand names and company names mentioned in this publication may be trademarks of their respective owners.

Case Study: Minera San Cristobal, Bolivia – 1

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Connecting corporate and control systems

Minera San Cristobal, owned by Apex Silver and Sumitomo Corporation, is one of the largest silver-zinc-lead mining projects in the world. The mine, located in the Potosi district of southwestern Bolivia is expected to produce approximately 450 million ounces of silver, 8 billion pounds of zinc, and 3 billion pounds of lead. In the San Cristobal mill the ore extracted from the mine is crushed, ground, and refined through flotation process to yield concentrates of silver, zinc, and lead, which are then shipped abroad for final smelting. These processes are monitored and controlled using the DeltaV Professional Plus SCADA system. When the system was first installed, managers at the San Cristobal mill initiated a project called “DeltaV External Historian”. The goal of the project was to store vital process data in a SQL Server database, for these three reasons:

  1. To maintain an external backup of the most important process data out of the process control servers (more than 3600 points).
  2. To provide access to the plant information from the corporate network, while avoiding the risk of having office personnel connected to the control network.
  3. To interface with corporate ERP systems like JD Edwards.

To achieve all three of these goals, Sr. Mario Mendizabal chose Cogent DataHub® software and used it to connect his DeltaV system to SQL server. First, he connected a DataHub instance to the DeltaV OPC server on the control network. He then installed a second DataHub instance on the SQL Server machine, which is on the corporate network. Finally, he connected these two DataHub instances over TCP, using DataHub tunnel/mirroring. This connection bypasses firewalls, eliminates the need to configure DCOM, and provides a secure link between the corporate and control systems. The tunnelling connection mirrors the data between the two DataHub instances, putting a complete set of data on both machines. To ensure that the control system is completely independent from any input on the corporate side, Sr. Mendizabal configured the connection to be one-way only-from DeltaV to the External Historian. This avoids any overwrite problems.

“The system has been performing very well,” said Sr. Mendizabal. “The backup data log is perfectly accurate, and the connection to the corporate network is functioning just as we had planned. The managers and accounting staff are very pleased to have up-to-the-second access to the most critical data coming out of our control system. We couldn’t have done it so easily or so well without DataHub software.”

Case Study: Minera San Cristobal, Bolivia – 2

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Using DataHub software to integrate video cameras and expert systems

Minera San Cristobal, owned by Apex Silver and Sumitomo Corporation, is one of the largest silver-zinc-lead mining projects in the world. The mine, located in the Potosi district of southwestern Bolivia is expected to produce approximately 450 million ounces of silver, 8 billion pounds of zinc, and 3 billion pounds of lead.

As described in a companion article, the engineers at the San Cristobal mill used DataHub® software to connect their DeltaV Professional Plus SCADA system to an SQL Server database in the corporate offices. After witnessing the success of that project, the engineers decided to connect their two SGS expert systems to DeltaV in a similar way.

“We saw how well DataHub software transported OPC data across the network,” said Sr. Mario Mendizabal, Production Engineer at Minera San Cristobal, “so we thought it could help us connect to our Grinding and Flotation Expert Systems.”

In the San Cristobal mill the ore extracted from the mine is crushed, ground, and refined through flotation process to yield concentrates of silver, zinc, and lead, which are then shipped abroad for final smelting. These processes are monitored and controlled using the DeltaV system.

Although the DeltaV system allows an operator to input setpoints and other values directly into the system, Sr. Mendizabal and his team wanted to apply an SGS Advanced Systems application to optimize two critical parts of the mineral refining process: grinding and flotation. Each expert system runs on a separate sever. To add to the challenge, the Flotation Expert System also requires real-time data input from two banks of 25 video cameras. These cameras monitor the size, speed, and other qualities of the bubbles as they lift the valuable mineral particles to the surface, where they can be skimmed off as foam. There is one bank of cameras for the zinc flotation circuit, and another for lead. Each of these five systems-DeltaV, the Grinding Expert System, the Flotation Expert System, and the two camera systems-needed to be connected in real time.

Fortunately, each system had an OPC server. What was needed was a way to bridge the OPC servers, aggregate their data streams, and tunnel/mirror the data across the network for the other systems. Based on his previous success using DataHub software, Sr. Mendizabal chose to apply it to this task. He already had a DataHub instance connected to the DeltaV system. So he just installed a DataHub instance on each of the SGS servers, and each of the camera system servers. Then he connected those four DataHub instances to the main DataHub instance running on the DeltaV server.

“It didn’t take long at all to get the system configured,” said Sr. Mendizabal. “Since it is tunnel/mirroring across the network, we avoided DCOM settings and networking issues entirely. The connection is completely secure, and rock-solid.”

When the expert systems are switched on, the plant data flows from DeltaV to the Grinding Expert System and the Flotation Expert System. These systems continuously and intelligently adjust the values of the setpoints, and send them back in real-time to DeltaV, which passes them along to the relevant process. To make its calculations, the Flotation Expert System also takes into account the real-time data that is streaming in from the two Video Camera Systems.

“It is very important to know that when the expert system is controlling the plant we are trusting our production to DataHub software,” said Sr. Mendizabal. “We are very pleased with its performance, and highly recommend it for this kind of mission-critical work.”