Control system used for testing electrical circuits and brake systems of custom-made trailers

Pacton B.V. is the largest manufacturer of custom-made trailers in the Netherlands. Its manufacturing plant is located in the eastern part of Holland in Ommen. With a team of 275 employees, the company produces about 2,500 trailers per year. With such high production, Pacton is a leader in the national and international transport business. The portfolio of Pacton is really impressive. The company manufactures curt insider trailers, ferry trailers, semi-lowloaders, special vehicles, chassis, backsides and container chassis. The motto of the Pacton Company is: "Meet your expectations as far as possible and preferably to exceed them."

The Reliance SCADA/HMI system is used to test the electrical circuits on new truck trailers and to control the Anti-lock Brake System (ABS) test software.

Electrical Circuits

After a trailer is build, all electrical circuits are tested for errors like a missing or broken light bulb or short circuitry in electrical wires. For every new series of trailers that is being built, a recipe is created. This recipe contains all settings and reference values for that specific series of trailers. The settings are used to specify which circuits should be tested and the reference values specify the amount of current that should flow through a certain circuit.

Testing ABS Breaks

After all circuits have been successfully tested, the brakes of the trailers are tested. This test is vital for a reliable Anti-Lock Brake System (ABS). The Reliance application starts an external test program and interacts where needed.

Trouble shooting

In case of an aberration, an alarm is triggered. The operator can use his remote control to manually activate the circuit in question. This gives him the opportunity to determine the exact cause of the failure while he is on location with the trailer. Alarms can only be dismissed after entering commentary.

Quality Assurance

As part of the quality assurance process, a report is printed for every trailer. It indicates every test value and it proves that the trailer was checked OK.

By automating the test procedure the operator is enabled to work more efficiently and it allows for less human error. On top of that, the speed of the quality assurance process has been increased significantly. The Reliance SCADA/HMI system plays a key role in this process and provides all necessary tools on a cost efficient base.

Examples of visualization windows

Main window

This visualization window is used for automatic testing & measuring of the electrical circuits

A visualization window with manual testing of the trailers