Food and Beverage
Filling, capping, labelling and case packing, usually in a wet environment, usually built up over several years from several suppliers.
Application example
A Control Panel and HMIfor a Packaging Line
Panel Design & Build • PLC & HMI • Line Sequencing • Dubai • Sharjah • Abu Dhabi
- Four separate machines: interlocked by, Line controller
- Fixed-speed conveyors: driven by, Accumulation drives
- Four operator panels: joined into, One line HMI
- Each machine's own controls: kept for local mode, Nothing fitted
Packaging lines are rarely bought as lines. A filler is ordered one year, a capper the next, a labeller and a case packer after that, and each arrives with its own controller, its own operator panel and its own idea of what a start button means. They are connected by conveyor and by an operator who has learned in what order to press things. When something jams, every machine keeps doing what it was doing, and the pile-up is cleared by hand.
One panel over the line makes the machines into a line. A single controller sequences them, holds the interlocks between them, and presents one screen an operator actually runs the line from. The machines keep their own internal controls; what changes is that they now stop for each other.
On the line
One sequence over the machines you already have
The filler, capper, labeller and case packer stay where they are and keep their own controls. What goes in is the wiring that lets them stop for each other, and one screen to run them from.
- Product
- Signal
- FMeasuring point
- What we fit
- XSRun, fault and readyTaken from each machine's own controller, hardwired or over fieldbus, so the line controller knows what every machine is doing.
- LSBackup photocellsThey see product backing up on the conveyor, so the machine feeding it stops before the jam reaches the floor.
- SCConveyor speedAccumulation drives set each conveyor's speed, so the line is balanced rather than run flat out and jammed.
- HSEmergency stopStop circuits that reach across the whole line, designed to the assessed safety requirement rather than machine by machine.
- ZSGuard interlocksGuard doors proved closed before the line will run, and wired into the same stop circuits.
How it works
Four machines behaving as one line
Nothing inside the machines changes. What is added is a controller above them that reads what each one is doing and decides what the others should do about it.
- Each machine's own controlFiller, capper, labeller and case packer keep their own panels and local mode
- Run, fault and ready signalsThe line controllerHolds the sequence and the interlocks between machines
- Speed referenceConveyor and accumulation drivesThe line is balanced rather than run flat out and jammed
- EthernetOne HMIStatus, alarms in plain words, recipes and format changeover
Every machine keeps a local mode so it can be run alone for cleaning, setting and fault finding. A design that only works with every machine present makes maintenance harder than it was before.
What is in the panel
Built to the site's electrical standard and to the environment it will live in, which on a wet packaging hall is a bigger constraint than most specifications admit.
The controller and I/O
A PLC sized for the line with room left for the machine that gets added next year — because one always is. I/O covers the interlocks, the photocells that detect a backup, the conveyor drives, and the handshakes with each machine's own controller over hardwired signals or a fieldbus, whichever the supplier equipment supports.
The HMI
One screen showing the whole line: what is running, what is waiting, what stopped and why. Recipes and format changeover parameters live here rather than in a folder of laminated sheets, and the alarm page names the device and the location rather than showing a numeric code that has to be looked up.
Drives and motor control
Conveyor and accumulation drives with speed control, so the line can be balanced rather than run flat out and jammed. Starters, protection and isolation to the site standard, laid out so a fitter can isolate one section without shutting the whole hall down.
Safety and stainless
Emergency stop and guard interlock circuits designed to the assessed safety requirement, with safety relays or a safety controller as the assessment demands. On a washdown line the enclosure is stainless and rated for the hosing it will actually receive, not the hosing the specification imagines.
How it runs
Built on a bench, not on your floor
Almost all of the risk in a line control project can be moved off site and into a workshop, where a problem costs an afternoon rather than a shift of production.
01 / 04 STAGES
- Define
Write down what the line does
The sequence, the interlocks, what happens on each stop condition, what an operator is allowed to override, and what a format changeover involves. This document is agreed before anything is drawn, and it is the thing that arguments at commissioning get settled against.
- Design
Electrical design and approval
Schematics, panel layout, cable schedules and the I/O list, issued for the client's approval before the build starts. Changing a drawing costs nothing; changing a wired panel costs a day.
- Build
Manufacture and factory test
The panel is built and wired in the workshop, then powered and tested with the program loaded and every input and output exercised. The client is welcome at that test, and it is the right moment to say the sequence is not quite what was wanted.
- Install
Install, integrate and hand over
The panel is set, field wiring landed, and the machines are brought under the sequence one at a time rather than all at once. Then dry runs, then product, then operator and maintenance training, with drawings and the source program left with the site.
A factory acceptance test with the customer present is the cheapest place in the project to change your mind.
What the line does differently afterwards
The machines stop for each other, so a jam at the labeller no longer means clearing product off the floor behind it.
One operator interface replaces four, which shortens training and removes the knowledge that only lives with the person who has run the line longest.
Format changeovers become a recipe selection instead of a set of manual adjustments remembered differently by each shift.
Stoppages are recorded with a reason and a duration, which is the raw material for finding out where the line actually loses its output.
Adding the next machine is an extension of an existing sequence rather than another island with its own start button.
Where it fits
Lines assembled one machine at a time
Pharmaceutical
Packing lines where the sequence, the batch record and the changeover procedure all have to be documented and repeatable, and where an undocumented operator workaround is a finding.
Warehousing and Logistics
Conveyor, sortation and palletising sections that need to be interlocked and accumulated rather than simply run at the same time and hoped for.
Questions
Common questions about line control panels
Usually neither. Most packaging machines expose enough to work with — a run signal, a fault output, a remote start input, sometimes a fieldbus connection — and the line controller works through those. Where a machine offers nothing at all, a small amount of interfacing at its own panel is generally enough. Replacing a working machine to integrate it is almost never the right answer.
Yes, and it is worth insisting on. Every machine keeps a local mode so it can be run alone for cleaning, setting and fault finding, with the line sequence selectable separately. A design that only works with every machine present and healthy is a design that makes maintenance harder than it was before.
Days rather than weeks, when the panel has been properly factory tested — the on-site work is setting the enclosure, landing field wiring and bringing the machines under the sequence in turn. The design and build before that is where the calendar time goes, and it is time the line spends running normally.
Get in touch
Tell us what is on your line, and we will design the panel that ties it together.
A line survey and a written scope covering the sequence, the panel, the HMI and what the installation needs.