Visualization and control of mill processes in the city of Pardubice

Note: In 2012, the operation of the visualization and control system came to a stop due to the termination of production.

Pardubice Automatic Mills belong to the UNIMILLS company, which has been successfully conducting business in the flour-milling industry since 1993. The large mill is equipped with high end flour-milling devices, which guarantee high quality flour-milling. The mill ranks among the ten largest and most powerful mills in Czechia.

The mill consists of several parts. The most important are the wheat mill with 180 tons of production per day and the rye mill with 90 tons of production per day. There are also independent production lines for blending special flour mixtures for bakers and confectioners and gluten-free mixtures.

Other important equipment of the mill is: silo and pre-cleaning machine, screening room, flour mixing machine, testing laboratory, and the company's transport and maintenance system.

Control system

In 2003, a new system for the control of mill processes was implemented by Jiri Machek (now ASSORTIS Electric). The implementation was split into two phases. In the first phase, a new system for the control of the rye mill production line was implemented. The rest of the flour-milling devices were connected to this control system in the second phase.

All production lines are controlled by a Tecomat NS950 PLC. The PLC is connected to a computer equipped with the Reliance 3 SCADA/HMI system.

The control system provides

• Control of the rye mill
• Energy consumption monitoring and load shedding control

The SCADA/HMI system provides

• Monitoring of production
• Control of production
• Setting of process parameters
• Generating of alarms
• Logging of data
• Creation of special protocols

The control room

Example of a visualization window

Visualization of the rye mill's production processes