“One of the biggest rice companies in the country, with nearly 50 years in the market, automates its process, providing agility to the operation and opening the most technified plant in the country”.
One of the most critical and essential activities that take part in the rice mill is the drying process, it is imperative to have control of the temperature and humidity of the paddy, to obtain better results and rice quality in the threshing zone. The tradition al drying process have basics temperature controls for the oven and manual control of heat to batteries and towers (Drying systems).
The plant is located in Yopal, Casanare, it is the biggest of the Diana Corporation Group, which has a robust drying system, adaptable to ambient temperature and humidity conditions.
Ingetes S.A.S, Siemens Partner Solution, modernized and automated the entire drying system, with a solution that included the technology PLCs S7-1500, S7-1200, TP Comfort, KTP Basics, decentralized peripheries with profinet and profibus, Scada supervision system, WebUX and information server. The technologies used and the possibility of expansion of the system were important to carry out the project.
The system was divided into two topologies, the first implemented in 2015 and the second in 2016. The first topology architecture consisted of a PLC S7-1516 3PN/DP and a periphery IM 155-5 DP ST (56 digital inputs, 56 digital outputs, 64 analog inputs and 32 analog outputs), a TP900 Comfort and a TP1200 Comfort. A pre-installed system with 2 PLCs (each one with 8 digital inputs, 6 digital outputs, 5 analog inputs, thermocouple module, switch CSM 1277 and a USS communication module) and 2 displays KTP600 Basic, was integrated. All the devices were connected to a switch Scalance XB005.
The second topology architecture consisted of a PLC S7-1511 PN and a periphery IM 155-5 PN ST (40 digital inputs, 16 digital outputs, 32 analog inputs and 24 analog outputs) and two TP900 Comfort. A pre-installed system with 3 PLCs (each one with 8 digital inputs, 6 digital outputs, 5 analog inputs, thermocouple module, switch CSM 1277 and a USS communication module) and 3 displays KTP600 Basic, were integrated.
Control panels, programming and commissioning were carried out. The programming has manual and automatic operation, PLCs integration, process assurances, breaks, emergency stops, engineering values, alarms, management reports with the information server software for digitally support and align the process. With the WebUX is possible to visualize the SCADA from any point of the plant in cell phones, tablets and computers, which are in the network.
Some of the benefits obtained after automation are:
- Decrease in operating times.
- Improvement in the quality of the operator’s work and in the development of the process.
- Reduction of costs, drying times, information processing times and the consumption of husk as fuel for the kilns.
- Increase security and protection for workers.
- Autonomous operation of the process.
- Supervision and diagnosis of equipment, facilitating its maintenance.
- Opening information to management levels.
- Registration of process values in SCADA, storage in SQL databases.
- Reports of the values in certain time ranges, graphs and tables, using information server. Generated by event or every certain period programmed.
- Real-time visualization of the drying variables from any network point of the plant using the WebUX tool.