Design and Implementation of a Custom Automation System for a leather Factory.

The Challenge: Automating the whole leather process of a factory with Labview DSC and NI equipments by developing a flexible and extensive control and monitoring system with production statistic capabilities, in order to maximize productivity while reducing inputs. The Solution: Design the automation system with NI cRIOs and digital/analog modules as well as the development of Modbus and Profibus communication for already available Devices and PLCs. Create a Scada interface with remote panel access for HMI using Labview. Authors: Thomas Collet & Diner ztrk KONTROLMATIK ( www.kontrolmatik.com ) +90 212 659 24 41 Introduction: The leather manufacturing process sequence is divided into 4 sub-processes: Preparatory, tanning, crusting and surface coasting. It uses water and chemicals heavily as well as several different machinery (drums, press, cutting, painting, etc..). The list of operations that the leather must undergo depend on the type of leather that the client desire and requires a special recipe that the workers must follow. For this reason, the factory is divided into several floors, each with different automation and scada requirements, and in addition, a water treatment and a boiler room also need to be controlled and monitored. System Description: In order to improve the whole manufacturing process and the working condition of the operatives, we set several goals: reduce inputs, errors and chemical handling by the workers, decrease power and water consumption and increase productivity. The project finally consisted on developing the following automation systems: 1. Water Treatment Room: Until now, it was required for a worker to enter the water system room several times a day to check on the water system, activate the refinement process, clean the filters, empty the surge tank, etc.. and no accurate statistical information concerning the amount of water processed and the operating time of all the devices were available. The water required by the factory comes from 3 different sources and is pumped into an unrefined tank. 3 levels allow us to know if this tank is empty or full to activate those pumps accordingly. The water refinement process requires 3 different filters: sand, active carbon and softening agent (2 of this last one, set to work in parallel or in sequence in the scada). 2 pumps, working separately or together according to the pressure in the pipe , send the unrefined water through those filters. Those filters each have 4 working modes, and 6 vans to direct the
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water accordingly. This is due to the fact that after a certain amount of water went through the filters, they need to be cleaned. Finally, this refined water is stocked in a tank and sent to the factory according to the production needs. This tank also have 3 levels in order to display the amount of refined water available, to start/stop of the refinement process and to give an alarm if needed. 4 pumps are used to send the water to the factory, separately or together and with one of them using a PID, in order to have an optimal pressure in the pipe. A surge tank pump, a emergency fire pump and a fan are also monitored and controlled according to physical levels and parameters configured in the scada.

The daily, weekly, monthly and total operating time of every devices is calculated for maintenance, as well as for the refined water production for information. Furthermore, all the data (vans, pump, filter working mode, etc.. included) are saved in a citadel database and can be accessed directly from the water system scada. All the parameters concerning the pipes pressure, the filters modes, the pumps Auto/Manual mode, which pump currently uses the PID, etc.. can be configured in the scada as well. 2. Boiler room

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3.Drying Tunnel This tunnel is used to dry the processed leather. It runs through the whole factory and can be controlled manually or automatically. It is composed a hanger connected to a motor, 2 main tunnels, each with 10 heaters with fans and 3 humidity fans.

The desired temperature, humidity and motor direction are set parameters and the program activate the heaters, fans and vans accordingly. Furthermore, the operative can choose to use all, half or none of the heaters in each tunnel. 4. Drum Area There are 20 Drums, some of them used for the preparatory stage and others for the tanning process. The 12 oldest drums uses Siemens PLCs and need to be controlled and monitored through profibus communication while the 8 newest are controlled with digital and analogue input/outputs. A common scada system for all the drums and all the different operations had to be designed and implemented so that the operatives only need to learn how to use 1 program. This way, all the specificity of the drums and process operations are handled by the program in the background. A protocol for displaying and handling the recipes according to the operatives as well as their managers' permissions and needs also had to be designed. A) Drums control and process operations There are 26 operations, from loading leather, sending water, adding chemicals, turning the drums, setting temperature, etc.. to PH or color control. Each of those operations have 1 or more parameters (chemical name, quantity, time, temperature, speed, etc..). Those operations and their order of execution are written down into a recipe sent to the automation system by an ERP program by mean of 1 csv file per recipe. This recipe is then modified for an easier reading and is displayed to the operatives according to the protocol defined earlier. The ERP system being designed at the same time as our system, any change they made in their protocol affected us; for this reason, a conversion software and a conversion language were developed to easily convert their csv into our system and back. This way, any changes from the ERP system would rapidly be dealt with by our automation system. The workers then only need to follow the recipes and if needed, prepare the next operation before sending the commands.
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B) Mixing Area Handling chemicals and acids is an important part of the leather manufacturing process. Operatives previously used weights and buckets to carry those products around. The accuracy of this method of work, even if within tolerance limits, does not take into account the difference between the theoretical amount of leather from the recipe and the actual weight inside the drums. For this reason, a platform with 30 tanks containing the liquid chemicals and acids was assembled above the drums. From this platform, a system of pumps, vans and pipes send the required products to the drums directly. Depending on their size and the type of chemical they hold, the tanks can have a system for circulation mixing, air mixing or both, that are activated several times a day. The parameters concerning the tanks specificity are defined in the scada. Depending on the complexity of the tanks, the air and circulation mixing parameters can also be set. Furthermore, different settings concerning the vans and pumps working time and condition are also available. Those are necessary and were defined for a more accurate process, in order to compensate for the viscosity of the different chemicals as well as the size of the pipe and the distance between the tanks.

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They are connected to 2 mixing tanks whose process are started by commands from the operatives. Those tanks rest on weights using modbus communication. The chemicals from the previously described tanks are sent 1st, one at a time, then water is added from 2 sources (hot and cold) in order to reach a certain degree set in the recipe. The mixer then starts until it reaches a set speed for a set amount of time. This mixture is then transferred to the drums and more water is added to the mixing tank. This is done to wash it and the mixer. This water containing the remaining chemicals is also sent to the drums, followed by high pressured air injected into the pipes to empty them completely. Finally, the mixing tank are filled with hot water for a final cleaning which is then pumped out. Only then can this mixing tank be used again for another operation.

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C) Aquamix One of the most important operation during the leather manufacturing process is to send tons of waters to the drums, at a defined temperature. The purpose vary depending on the type of leather, the section of the recipe or the drum type. The previous system, built on siemens PLCs needed to be improve so that the operatives could still send the appropriate commands without having to switch from places and monitors. Furthermore, the configuration of the commands where simplified to a maximum while keeping the previous poka-yoke protocol . This was done by 1st reprogramming the PLCs in order for us to be able to control and monitor them through profibus. The next step was to programmatically send all the settings and commands in the same fashion than the operatives would, thus reducing the operatives inputs to only 2 buttons: Prepare and Start. Furthermore, an error handling protocol and a database were added to the previous system.

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D) Acid The 3 main acids used are ethoxylated alcohols, formic and sulfuric acids. Each are handled differently but the scada interface is designed so that the operatives do not see any difference and are able to send the same commands independently of the needed acid. Formic acid and the ethoxylated alcohols based product are each controlled by a weight under their container, a pump and 2 vans (one is a bypass to the pump for a more accurate transfer) on the tank side and by another van on the drums side (one van per drum). The pipes are always filled with acid so that we know the amount that has been transferred through the difference in the container weight. On the tank side, the weights use modbus communication while the pumps and the vans are controlled and monitored through basic DIO. On the drum side, the vans are connected to the Siemens PLC of the drums and are controlled through profibus. Furthermore, the ethoxylated container can be filled up manually whereas the formic one is connected to a main tank through a pipe and is filled up automatically when it reaches its lower limit. The sulfuric acid on the other hand is fully controlled by the previous system, similar to the one controlling the Aquamix. For this reason, we used a similar procedure to implement and improve the transfer of this acid by 1st reprogramming the Siemens PLCs and then programmatically send the settings and the commands to the PLCs while reducing the inputs from the operatives to a minimum. Furthermore, the sulfuric acid needs to be mixed with water by following a certain pattern prior to being sent to the drums. This can now also be done directly from the scada.

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5. Machine Interface 6. Patent Leather 7. Finishing Room 8. Energy Monitoring 9.Modbus Profibus An application designed as a windows process always run in the background on the server. This program continuously access the 50 Modbus devices and the 15 profibus PLCs in order to monitor their activity. The data are stored into network shared variables, and can be accessed by the other programs. They are also logged into a citadel database for post-processing. The Modbus part communicate with several 485/Ethernet converters while the Profibus part send commands to the fpga program of an ethernet RIO that contains the Profibus module. 10. Scada system This project is designed to run on a server and to be remotely accessed by any computer on the network and concurrently, several computers have been set up in every sectors of the factory. However, a single application containing the whole project would have a size of several hundreds Mo. Furthermore, each group of operatives have different access privileges and most workers only need to access the program that was designed for them. On the other hand, the directors, managers and supervisors need to access all the programs to control and monitor the whole factory. For this reason, we decided to develop one main application for this last group and several smaller ones for the operatives, with each program using a different WebServer port.

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A) Login Program In order to remotely send the right interface, depending on the operatives' privileges, we developed a login program that runs on the server side. This program is the 1st application that the computers on the network remotely connect to. It accesses the NI security domains and groups in order to get the user's privileges and send the corresponding WebServer port and vi name back to the workers' computer, which then remotely access the right application. Another reason we developed this program was to workaround problems we faced when using NI security for control buttons and remote panels so that the last person to log in does not interfere with the privileges of the other users.

B) Main Program This program contains everything except the for the programs that are specific to the operatives' job. However, like the login application, it can send command to the user computer in order to remotely access those programs. The main part of this program consist on a map of the factory that summarize the actual state of each sectors and machines. Clicking on those areas or on the machinery either shows the corresponding subvi or remotely access the adequate application.

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C) Database Management D)Alarms and Errors E) Connection Program A small program which can be install with labview basic run-time engine as been developed to allow the computers on the factory to remotely access the applications running on the server. This program first connect to the login application and a system composed of shared variables has been designed to allow the programs and the different computers to communicate with each others. Furthermore, this connection program keep running in the background of the user computer even after the connection is established. This allow us to use it for several features such as saving pictures and excel files directly on the user's computer, opening folders from the server, changing privileges if someone else log into the application (for example if a manager uses an operative's computer) or even to center the panels on the monitor, as this function does not work with remote access. Finally, this connection program stops itself when the user closes the last remote panel. 11. Start-up Program In case if the server shutdown unexpectedly, a start-up program was implemented. Its main purpose is to deploys all the libraries and starts all the process and applications that are not already deployed or opened and then to close itself.

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