Putting safety first for an automotive manufacturer
Thursday, August 07, 2008
ICT was recently engaged to upgrade the safety features on a 20-year old production facility for a leading automotive manufacturer. The iron-casting line is of considerable size and complexity, running two daily 8-hour production shifts and a daily maintenance shift.
The brief was to retain the existing process controller of several thousand I/O but integrate new safety features by adding a separate safety control system. The safety system needed to be interfaced with the original controller to provide full process integration. A new SCADA based operator interface was also to be provided for the whole system.
ICT consulted extensively with plant operators, maintenance and management staff to ensure a functional design which would maximise safety and at the same time provide facilities to enable improvement of plant operation and hence improve productivity. The result is a fully-compliant safety PLC system with over 500 IO (input/output) points distributed over 16 remote locations along the line. The system combines Siemens, Sick and other third-party components with ICT's high-calibre integration design.
A key challenge for the design was accomplishing clear communication between plant operators and the safety system. The ICT team responded by integrating the new safety messages into the legacy technology – the safety system talks to the process alarm display system meaning that operators can quickly and readily identify and resolve safety issues using familiar technology.
Preparation, planning and scheduling were critical to this project which was installed incrementally during shut-downs and maintenance shifts, thus achieving minimum impact on ongoing production.
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