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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: City of Montreal, Canada

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The City of Montreal uses DataHub for data connectivity in 10 billion dollar project to upgrade the quality of drinking water production and distribution.

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Case Study: TESS Engineering, Japan

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Remote Monitoring for Boiler Systems

A hot topic in Japan right now is energy production, use, and conservation, with a renewed concern for the environment. Industrial and commercial users are looking seriously at implementing alternative energy systems, and making the best use of their resources.

One company that has built a solid reputation in this arena is TESS Engineering, in Osaka. TESS provides installation and remote monitoring for solar generation systems, co-generation systems, boilers and other equipment. They are always looking for new ways to save energy, reduce costs, and preserve the environment.

TESS logo

A major challenge facing TESS has been monitoring and maintaining boiler systems for large, decentralized companies. Site visits are expensive, particularly at remote, out of the way locations. Each visit requires shutting down the boiler, taking readings of up to 500 data points, and then restarting. This approach can lead to inaccuracies, since in a rapidly-changing system environment the data may be out of date even by the time the engineer returns to the home office.

For some time TESS had considered remote monitoring via the Internet, but there were drawbacks. “Some of our client’s remote locations don’t have Internet access,” said Mr. Kinya Oji, General Manager at TESS, “and for those that do, creating a process visualization system would require a significant development effort over a long period of time. If we were going to make such an investment, we wanted a complete solution.”

Nissin Systems logo

Through Cogent’s partner in Japan, Nissin Systems Co. Ltd., TESS learned about the Cogent DataHub®, as well as a new service that Cogent has started offering on a limited basis in Japan: remote, real-time data access through cloud computing. Engineers at TESS determined that this approach might be sufficiently flexible to meet their needs, and easy enough to implement that they would not need to embark on a lengthy development project. So, TESS assigned an engineering team to investigate.

Working closely with Nissin Systems, the TESS engineering team began by creating serial I/F links between each boiler and a number of device servers (typically 10 or so), and then brought all that data to a gateway device. In locations where the gateway device had access to the company LAN, it was then connected to a DataHub on the LAN. In locations too remote to connect to the company LAN, the gateway device was connected to a 3G phone network. In both cases, the data was sent from the gateway device―via LAN or 3G―to a DataHub running on a cloud server.

“When everything got connected, we were able to aggregate all the information coming from each boiler, and access that data in real time from the DataHub running on the cloud server,” said Mr. Oji. “The next and most important part of this system was an HMI. We needed something simple and intuitive for operators to use, without investing a lot in development costs. Using WebView™ we were able to create a user-friendly monitoring system in reasonable time, and not too much effort.”

Case Study - Tess Engineering, Japan

The complete, functioning system not only provides web-based access to data from every boiler in the system, but TESS is realizing additional benefits from a fully integrated middleware solution. Live and archived data is currently being used for analyzing boiler performance, keeping regular records of operations, and for sending out alarms and emails to operators and managers.

“We can view our historical data trends graphically in WebView,” said Mr. Oji, “while at the same time using the DataHub’s Data Logging and Historian features to connect databases and store the data. During monitoring, if any abnormal conditions occur, we can generate alarms and send out emails. We also use the DDE feature to automatically generate spreadsheets for our daily, monthly, and annual reports.”

“By networking through the cloud, we have been able to establish an effective method by which the customer can monitor the changing states of all of their boilers, in real time. Now the company operators and managers can respond quickly to boiler conditions at individual sites.”

“Our customer was very satisfied by this solution. They can now operate their system efficiently and safely, and plan to install this system in more than 100 more boiler sites in the near future. Here at TESS, we are looking forward to using the DataHub and WebView to develop this kind of solution for other customers.”

Case Study: PowerData, Caribbean

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Caribbean resort facilities and power stations use DataHub to monitor system output and performance

Even on the lush tropical beaches of St. Maarten, Suriname, St. Kitts, and Antigua, where the sunshine sparkles on the deep turquoise waters of the Caribbean, access to real-time data is vital. While tourists lounge on white sand beaches, the managers and engineers at resorts, shopping centers, and power plants work round the clock behind the scenes to ensure a smooth experience. Operators and managers in the public institutions and private facilities at these remote destinations need to know what their processes are doing at any given time, from any location. They must be able to react quickly to changing conditions and make key decisions.

To meet this need, PowerData Limited of St. Maarten provides real-time and historical online data reporting services. They supply managers and engineers in power plants, resorts, and commercial facilities in the Caribbean islands with the data they need to monitor their power generation equipment, instrumentation, and other machinery. Recently, PowerData started using the DataHub® to give their customers a real-time data display using a standard web browser.

“Now our clients can open a web browser from wherever they are, and see exactly what is going on,” said Mr. Cameron Burn, CEO of PowerData. “The DataHub’s Java applets lets us feed large quantities of data to a page at high speeds, with no refresh necessary.”

st-maarten-caribbean-system

Cameron is using the DataHub’s Table applet to display multiple DataHub points. His web server provides the page, and loads the DataHub Table applet. The applet then creates a direct TCP link to the DataHub, which is connected to the PowerData monitoring equipment’s OPC server. The DataHub streams the data from the PowerData equipment to the web page in real time. The processing load on the web browser is very little-there’s no need for screen refresh-and the data is always up-to-the-second accurate.

st-maarten-caribbean-web-page

“Remote monitoring of our engine installations has been one of the most valuable aspects of this new system,” said Mr. Jeff Close, MAN Support Services Engineer at Needsmust Electricity Power Station in St. Kitts. “This is so much easier, and much more reliable, than the manual monitoring and logging methods we were using in the past. It gives us the ability to combine all engine data for the station into one page, therefore making it easier to assess the station status.”

“We are very pleased with the convenience of obtaining our data reading automatically from the PowerData web site,” said Terrence Simmon, Power Station Operations Manager of the Sonesta Maho Beach Hotel in St. Maarten. “It has increased our reliability significantly.”

As the benefits of real-time data monitoring from a web browser become more apparent, Cameron Burn expects to see a growing demand for this use of the DataHub.