Control system and visualization of production line used for production of sound-proofing materials for automotive industry

The Vest-Izol company is a world-known producer of the sound-proofing materials used in the automotive industry. In 1995 Vest-Izol was bought by the German company STANKIEWICZ GmbH, which belongs to the PHOENIX A.G. transnational company. Since the beginning of 1995 with 15 employees, company has grown to more than 350 professionals in the field of automotive industry.

The Vest-Izol company is a supplier of sound proofing products for middle and luxury class vehicles including sports and commercial vehicles for AUDI, BMV, VW, Skoda Auto, Seat, MAN, Scania, Opel, Mercedes-Benz, Jaguar, Nissan and many more automobile brands.

The sound proofing products of the Vest-Izol company are sold all over the world (Europe, Asia, North and South America). The number of sales prove a great popularity of the Vest-Izol's products among consumers.

A new control system and visualization of the production line used for production of sound-proofing material was put into service towards the end of the year 2001. The first implementation of the Reliance system provided control of the process oil levels in two oil tanks. Through the years, the entire SCADA System was extended and upgraded with new components, subsystems and new technologies. In 2004 a brand new extensive control system was installed which provides control and monitoring of most of processes and states including power-supply, and gas and heating consumption.

The SCADA-based system provides data transfer over

• Modbus RTU and EpsNet over the RS-485
• Modbus TCP/IP over the Ethernet
• Profibus DP, MPI
• OPC servers Simatic MPI, WinCC

According the utilization of all individual users (from service engineer to top management) the system can be divided into these six parts:

• Production systems
• Auxiliary systems
• Tanks
• Power engineering
• Monitoring of systems
• Service feature

Production system

The Reliance system provides displaying of many visualization windows. Visualizations can display for example entire production lines or an individual production machine. Each window provides display and control of many parameters (e.g. temperature, pressure, level, weight, etc.). Visualizations also provide monitoring and control of chemical dosing which are used during the production process. All these parameters can be displayed in the transparent Trends, Reports and the Custom Reports.

Visualization window of the blending machine

Visualization window of the weighing-machine which provides the weighing of the process oil

Secondary system

This section was created in order to be able to monitor the nonproductive systems, which are very important for the production process. The Secondary System provides monitoring of:

• Heating of thermal oil
• Steam production
• Compression system unit
• Air compression
• Water quality
• Cooling water technology

Visualization window displaying heating of thermal oil

Visualization window displaying the water cooling system

Thermal oil heater

Controlling of supplies

The SCADA system was also extended to control supplies of raw materials stored in the reservoirs. Reliance provides control of:

• Processing oil supplies
• Calcite supplies
• Light fuel oil supplies
• Thermal oil supplies

Visualization of the reservoirs with processing oil

Visualization of the reservoirs with light fuel oil

Power consumption

A very important part of the SCADA-based control system is control of the power consumption. The control system provides control of:

• Power take-off
• Quarter-hour maximum power take-off
• Gas venting
• Thermal energy consumption

Control of quarter-hour maximum power take-off

Visualization of the trends displaying power consumption of the electrical substation

Factory and administration buildings

The control system provides control of the factory and administration buildings. The Reliance system provides control of:

• Air-conditioning system of all factory buildings
• Heating system of all factory buildings
• Heating system of the administration building

Service features

Reliance also provides control of the SCADA system service features. For example, the system can display a window with communication stations. Control of every station can be provided through this visualization window. Another feature is the SMS Operator. SMS Operator provides automatic sending of information via SMS and e-mail messages sent to clients' cell phones or e-mail addresses. Sending of these messages is provided through the predefined settings in the Reliance system. These messages are used for warning personnel of any emergency condition or the smallest leaka ge of raw material.

Topology of control system

The numbers of computers connected to system indicate the extensiveness of this SCADA-based control system. The following pictures display the topology of all computers connected to the Industrial ETHERNET and systems with Profibus, Epsnet, and Modbus communication protocols.

Industrial ETHERNET topology

PROFIBUS-DP topology

EPSNET topology

MODBUS topology