Legacy Controls Migration Archives - Quantum Solutions Inc.

The Necessity of Proactive Upgrades to Your Control Systems

Eric Casciaro — Thu, 14 Nov 2019 17:57:32 +0000

Nothing lasts forever.

Especially our consumer goods from decades ago.

Do you remember that t-shirt you bought at your first rock and roll concert? It’s most likely disintegrated by now, separated into components by hundreds of wash and dry cycles.

What about your first car? Maybe it was in the early 90s, or even before. Probably 10 years old then, and even more tired now, some of those may still run, but there’s a good chance they have more duct tape than metal.

Some things do hold up well in their original state. Stradivarius made quite a name for himself with his instruments that have stood the test of time. However, in order to make anything that long-lasting, you have to give up flexibility and adaptability to the future. Those violins are great, but they’re only good for one thing – making music.

Today’s modern manufacturers look to be to not just reactive, but proactive to new situations and opportunities. Which means designing control systems that can be, and will be, flexible and adaptable. To take advantage of advancements in technology and keep up with industry shifts as they happen, then, usually means upgrades to those systems.

Are Your System Controls Up-to-date?

If you are anything like the typical manufacturer, agricultural processor, water treatment plant, or virtually any other facility, you have system controls. These are the processors and associated programming that run each and every production line, packager, or pipeline.

The most popular of these in the last quarter-century, by far, was the Allen Bradley PLC-5, introduced in 1986. The time has come, though, to move past this staple of the industry. The PLC-5 was discontinued as of June 2017. Rockwell Automation will no longer support the PLC-5, in exchange for moving to the next generation of controls, the ControlLogix system.

Current PLC-5 installations may continue to work for a while, years even. Ultimately, though, users will no longer be able to ignore the necessity of upgrading.

But if it’s not broken, you might ask, why take the time and expense to fix it now? We could just wait until it fails.

That’s a fair question. It’s important to note, migration often gets you onto the latest and greatest platform for a cost similar to replacing the PLC-5, if you can find one.

Then again, you might be able to get along for a while with the outdated PLC-5.

But what happens when the last refurbished control panel stops working? That shuts down your production line … idles your employees … eats up precious resources as you scramble to find a replacement … stacks up your raw materials as you wait to resume processing … and on and on and on.

None of which is good for your bottom line.

Experts were talking about this coming change as early as 2014. For half a decade we’ve known that upgrades would be necessary, and still, many did not migrate their controls to the newest version. This puts them at significant risk of failure.

There Is Hope After All

The fact that the PLC-5 is no longer supported is a concern, but there are solutions. Quantum Solutions will work with you to develop a plan for migrating your existing controls, whether the PLC-5 or another, to a more modern system like ControlLogix. It’s not about getting ready, it’s about staying ready.

This way, you won’t get hit by plant down time when the controls fail. And you won’t be scrambling to find an untested, questionable replacement on eBay or from some other disreputable remanufacturer.

Take a look at this case study to see how the upgrade process worked for the Kraft-Heinz Company in Granite City, Illinois.

And get more information here about the legacy control migration process. Contact us today to get started with planning your upgrade.

Remember, at this point, it’s not a question of IF your PLC-5 will fail (either outright, or, due to obsolescence, fail to perform as you need it to), it’s WHEN.

Migrating your controls before they do just makes sense.

The post The Necessity of Proactive Upgrades to Your Control Systems appeared first on Quantum Solutions Inc..

Controls Migration vs. Controls Modernization

Eric Casciaro — Mon, 27 Nov 2017 18:02:17 +0000

Migration Versus Modernization for Process and Packaging Systems: What’s the Difference?

The choice between controls migration versus modernization for process and packaging systems for an outdated controls system rests on many factors, such as system performance, system challenges or pain points, whether the manufacturer is satisfied with overall functionality and productivity of the system, and budget availability.

Controls migration for process and packaging systems consist of replacing one or more hardware devices (typically starting with the PLC) in the overall control system to avoid the risk of failure, costs, and downtime associated with out-of-production parts. Modernization is designing and programming a brand-new system, in place of the old system. The brand-new system is custom built to the manufacturer’s needs and consists of the most up-to-date hardware, software, and programming practices available at the time.

Migration Simply Averts Risks

Migration averts or minimizes the risks associated with outdated hardware, but still leaves manufacturers with the same system functionality once migrated. By contrast, modernization essentially leaves a manufacturer with a brand new control system tailored to their process needs. Modernization is the only way to achieve maximum productivity and product quality from the system.

Forward-Looking with Modernization

Controls modernization for process and packaging systems is a forward-looking plan with immediate performance benefits. This prepares the company for the next 10-20 years of manufacturing. Migration alone is replacing obsolete hardware, and often times the company misses out on the opportunity to improve their systems. Migration is more like applying a Band-Aid to hold the obsolete system together for a period of time.

Migration Leads to Modernization

Inevitably, migration has to be done, as hardware nears End-of-Life, replacement parts and people trained to work on the systems are scarcely available and costly. When a migration is needed, manufacturers face:

long replacement times
lost production
huge price tags to obtain unsupported or discontinued hardware

Without migrating the hardware to an updated version, the same problems and breakdowns will continue to happen, while also increasing in frequency. While migration helps to avert risk, migration should be considered as just one step towards a full modernization strategy.

Migration eliminates the risk of outdated hardware, but still leaves manufacturers with the exact functionality once complete. Often times the PLC and HMI applications manufacturers are using are decades old and contain large segments of unorganized or unused logic. Often, they have been edited with minimal oversight multiple times over the years by different maintenance or support resources. This coupled with general limitations in the original software makes it very difficult for the manufacturers to automate the desired functionality needed to deliver an efficient process. It is common to see a process run differently depending on the operator, often with varying productivity results and product quality.

While completing a migration is a step towards full modernization, it is not typically the most efficient approach to reaching the modernization end goal. For instance, migration is similar to renovating a home that was built many years ago to fit someone’s current needs, as best as one can.

Modernization, by contrast, is like custom building a brand-new home, perfectly designed for one’s needs. The decision whether to migrate initially or to rip and replace for a full modernization generally depends on both budget and the customer’s tolerance for a shutdown window, as modernization requires more startup time before returning to full production.

Benefits of Controls Migrations for Process and Packaging Systems

Migration can provide different benefits for manufacturers, with the most important being improving reliability and minimizing the risk of failure. By replacing the obsolete hardware, a manufacturer can ensure that the part of the control system won’t fail. By eliminating failures, manufacturers can require less additional maintenance and downtime to repair a failure or break. This is a benefit of migration versus modernization for process and packaging systems.

Migrations do cost less than a full modernization. Migrating a part of a system requires much less downtime to implement. Often times, migrations can be completed with remaining budgets or maintenance dollars instead of requiring a full capital expense with an approved line item for it in an annual capital budget. For these reasons, many companies like the staged approach to migrating and then eventually modernizing.

Modernized Process and Packaging Control System Benefits

Modernization ensures that manufacturers have the most modern and up-to-date hardware and software across the complete control system and the best benefits of design, programming, HMI standards, and data logging. A modernized automation control system is fully optimized and allows manufacturers to take advantage of the full functionality available in a modernized control system.

Modernizing a control system leads to a variety of overall benefits for the plant. When modernized, a manufacturer will experience improved plant-wide control and optimization. The new, updated technology available allows for easier and more extensive visibility, data acquisition and analysis, as well as a more secure system that is open and information enabled.

Modern, optimized systems are scalable and modular, allowing them to easily accommodate for manufacturing changes and plant growth. By modernizing, manufacturers gain the ability to integrate with a wider variety of control and information systems.

Modernized control systems allow for decreased maintenance and downtime. With a modernized system, there is a wider variety of more flexible resources for maintenance and support on the control system, making upkeep costs more affordable and manageable. Modernized systems also experience fewer failures and breakdowns, leading to increased productivity. With the overall data acquisition and visibility over the entire system, potential errors or issues can be avoided or mitigated before requiring a shutdown of the system.

Modernization as the End Goal

Manufacturers should look at obsolete control systems as an opportunity to improve and optimize their entire control system with a modernization. There are cost savings to modernizing in the first place as opposed to initially migrating and then eventually modernizing, depending on a manufacturers’ downtime tolerance, budget, pain points, challenges, and need.

Every manufacturer should aim to modernize their control automation system and implement data-driven manufacturing in order to:

increase production
minimize product changeover times
eliminate variability in production
optimize the entire production system

The post Controls Migration vs. Controls Modernization appeared first on Quantum Solutions Inc..

Kraft Heinz PLC-5 to ControlLogix Migration

Eric Casciaro — Mon, 09 Oct 2017 19:51:03 +0000

PLC Migration Challenges

Migrating systems can be a challenge for any manufacturer. Some companies find it difficult to work migration into their budgets, while many manufacturers can only offer a limited amount of downtime to allow for the migration or upgrade.

However, migrating system technologies can help mitigate future risks associated with the system.

Arc Advisory Group reported on the Global DCS Migration Market Outlook:

Very often, manufacturers are producing their products and materials on outdated systems that are even nearing the end of life. Therefore, these manufacturers lack the range benefits of updated manufacturing technology.

Not only are outdated systems cumbersome, they also can cause some disadvantages to the manufacturing, packaging, and inventory processes that can be mitigated by implementing an updated technology.

Use of Obsolete PLC-5s

Continued use of obsolete systems, such as PLC-5s and other equipment, can be very costly to an organization. Obsolete systems result in higher spare part costs, such as maintaining a larger inventory for process system materials.

Obsolete systems cause manufacturers to be unable to reach their full production and packaging capacities, resulting in lower production and efficiency.

Limitations of Outdated Production and Packaging Systems

Another issue with utilizing outdated PLC-5s is the limitations associated with the system. As technology evolves, communication networks become limited, causing additional costs to work with or around the limitations.

Support with the systems becomes harder to find and more costly. Breakdowns and issues increase, and maintenance becomes cumbersome.

The Kraft Heinz PLC-5 Conversion

The Project Goal: PLC-5 to ControlLogix Migration

Quantum Solutions Inc. (QSI) was chosen to provide complete design, programming, implementation and commissioning to replace three outdated Allen-Bradley PLC-5 processors for The Kraft Heinz Company in Granite City, Illinois.

These outdated, nearing end of life PLC-5s were converted to the newer, upgraded Allen-Bradley 5570 ControlLogix processors. Two 4 stream in-line blending systems and a batching system were all to be converted.

Challenges in the PLC-5 Conversion

While converting an entire PLC system is never a simple task, there were a variety of challenges that Quantum Solutions needed to overcome and find solutions for in order to ensure project success in a timely manner. For example, it was critical to project success and business operations that Quantum Solutions perform the upgrade and migration with a minimal window of downtime available.

Kraft Heinz was not able to provide much downtime due to the production requirements. It was important to minimize downtime so that Kraft Heinz did not see a large impact on production. QSI engineers were able to engineer an implementation plan that was capable of decreasing the amount of downtime needed for the conversion.

Another challenge associated with minimizing downtime was the utilization of existing wiring. In order to minimize the overall downtime and make the conversion more efficient, QSI had to utilize existing wiring while updating both the PLC and the outdated communication networks.

To maintain the goal of minimal downtime and outages during implementation and install, QSI designed and engineered a method to minimize the total amount of wiring changes necessary for the conversion.

The PLC-5 Conversion to ControlLogix & the Results

Quantum Solutions provided a complete conversion for the three outdated Allen-Bradley PLC-5s to the updated Allen-Bradley 5570 ControlLogix processors. Following the complete design, engineering, and programming, Quantum Solutions commissioned and implemented the new platform with only one-weekend outage for the company. Due to this, Kraft Heinz experienced minimized downtime in production for the facility.

With modernized Kraft Heinz’s control systems, they will be able to continually upgrade communication networks and device IO to the latest communication protocols as they change. Previous to the PLC-5 conversion to ControlLogix, Kraft Heinz was not able to complete these upgrades.

The plc-5 conversion gave Kraft Heinz the flexibility and visibility to easily set up for the newest Industrial Internet of Things (IIOT) technologies in manufacturing.

Kraft Heinz was able to lower maintenance costs by eliminating the need to maintain a large inventory of spare parts for outdated systems. Kraft Heinz now has greater production visibility to quickly respond to demand and production changes. Kraft Heinz can now easily ensure regulatory compliance and minimize security risks with the visibility now available over their processes.

What Kraft Heinz is Saying About Us

“We have worked with QSI in this particular facility for more than 18 years, and through every transition, there has never been a doubt that we would keep that relationship despite all the other qualified system integrators we meet. It’s amazing how everyone on the QSI team, both new and long-standing employees, are just a really good people–the kind you like to be around. The engineers are very experienced with both legacy systems and the latest technologies which allows them to find innovative ways to balance cost and value as our plant operations grow and change. We trust and rely on the QSI team because they have always been straightforward in completing projects with a level of service that exceeds our expectations.” Mark Coleman, The Kraft Heinz Company

Quantum Solutions can create an entire conversion plan for a PLC-5 migration for your company. Contact us today to get started migrating your legacy systems.

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