EOSYS Revitalizes Idled Filler to Plant Floor in Limited Time

With production needs escalating, a large dairy manufacturer required an integrator with extensive experience and expertise to revive, integrate, and startup a replacement filler that had been idled and moved into storage several years ago. Due to the failing state of their current filler, the timeline for this project was short and didn’t allow for the OEM machine builder to assist in the efforts. Using EOSYS’s understanding and proficiency in the dairy industry and technical expertise, EOSYS was able to facilitate relocating, upgrading, programming, and startup of the replacement filler quickly and efficiently, allowing the customer minimal downtime.

EOSYS’s scope for this project was the complete integration of the replacement filler into the customer’s facility. Filler hardware was upgraded for compatibility and obsolescence avoidance which included discrete and analog I/O, safety I/O, Allen-Bradley Control Logix Safety PLCs, and Kinetix 6500 Servo Drives. The electrical installation was completed by EOSYS’s full-service panel shop and field services group. EOSYS completed a full system I/O check of the 1368 points of safety and standard I/O on the filler to verify the machine’s operational status. EOSYS also integrated the filler controls system into the customer’s plant control hierarchy, utilizing the required customer standards. This included updates to the OEM filler’s Allen-Bradley PLC logic to be compatible with the existing plantwide CIP system and logic updates for the communication to both the packaging line PLCs and processing PLCs. The HMI was converted to the AVEVA Wonderware platform, again to meet the standards of the customer. The project was completed successfully during the small timeline requested with minimal downtime, meeting the customer’s escalating production requirements by utilizing the increased throughput of the replacement filler.