MCC / Control Panel Design

The most fundamental part of a control system's architecture; We believe that the design of a robust, easily maintainable and safe control system has to start with a well designed, control or 'MCC' (Motor Control Centre) panel. The designs we produce for panels, and equipment enclosures accommodate all of the pre-requisites that you'd expect to be furnished with, more importantly so, when your maintenance technicians are under pressure to identify equipment and wiring under fault conditions, where in the majority of cases, costly plant downtime is unfavourable.

We work closely with our clients during the design and specification of control panel hardware and wiring as part of a collaborative overall system design, to suit operating and environmental conditions, and plant specific design requirements.

All of our designs are accompanied with the highest quality AutoCad and/or pdf generated layout drawings, schematic wiring diagrams, and materials requisition documentation to suit any vendor specific or plant control preferences. Our knowledge of the automation controls industry has been evolved over several years of engineering experience in the automation industry, to make certain that our designs not only meet our clients expectations, but consistently exceed them.

As a compliment to our panel design service, we partner with a locally based expert company who can be commissioned to build your MCC or local control enclosure, prepared and fitted, ready for delivery and installation on site.

Hardware & Controls Design

Well prepared and documented electrical controls drawings are of paramount importance when considering what the future may hold for your plant control system. In the case of upgrades, including minor or major modifications to your existing system, without good quality, easily understandable documentation, you could have a lengthy, difficult process on your hands.

As part of our ongoing commitment to good design practice, we keep up to date with the latest in computer aided design technology to aid straight forward implementation. All of our designs are produced, primarily using Autodesk® products to ensure that we have transparent portability for integration with other products and formats

We appreciate that most of our clients have in-house standards that are derived from years of research, testing, suitability studies etc, all specific to their equipment or product. One of our initial tasks is to take on board these requirements, vendor preferences, component type, wiring color standards to name but a few. This approach keeps our designs consistent with our client's standards and corporate branding.

SCADA & HMI Software

"SCADA & HMI capabilities will provide you with the interaction you need at your fingertips, an insight into your current plant status, and an entire world of control over your process".

There are several methods which we can use to achieve this for you; Human Machine Interface (HMI) units located strategically throughout your facility to control localised equipment or processes, or global interaction at a centralised location using PC based Graphical User Interfaces which will give you runtime information pertaining to alarms, events, processes and fluid routing etc. We have experience with most market leading SCADA platform suppliers such as Wonderware® InTouch®, GE Cimplicity®, Movicon SCADA®, Siemens WinCC® and Rockwell Automation RSView®, along with many other suppliers of small application interfaces to suit every possible localised requirement.

Programmable Logic Controllers

These highly versatile and discrete systems bring a new lease of life to any productive environment. Well designed and deployed process control, brings speed and efficiency to maximise productivity. PLC's can facilitate the qualities needed to meet a safer, more streamlined production criteria, and in today's manufacturing industries, PLC’s are indispensable by their very nature, and this alone makes process control software the most important ingredient in any automation project.

We offer a service which will encompass any requirement for bespoke software application, from small stand alone systems, to larger multi-drop type networked PLC's controlling distributed I/O and field interface panels or SCADA and HMI terminals. Our experience in writing and maintaining functional code for Programmable Controllers helps us to ensure a premium level of service and support to our customers, and endorses our commitment to quality engineering.

Machine Safety

During the lifecycle of any machine design, there will always be a requirement for consideration of machine hazards and risk assessment. The list of possible machinery-related injuries is as long as it is horrifying. There seem to be as many hazards created by moving machine parts as there are types of machines. Safeguards are essential for protecting operators from needless and preventable injuries.

We work closely with industry experts, both specialist vendors and compliance auditors in areas where unfamiliar specialist attention may be required in a bespoke machine arena. Even though we have years of experience in the design, specification and integration of safety systems, we adopt the attitude that a second 'specialist' opinion is without doubt a second line of defence, to protect our clients and ourselves from missing the smallest of considerations, and to ensure an absolutely unrivalled level of safety integrity.

We would normally expect the risk assessment procedure to be carried out by the machine builder, we offer guidance and recommendations based on British & European standard requirements, including, but not limited to:

BS EN ISO 12100:2010 (Safety of machinery-General principles for design, risk assessment and risk reduction)

BS EN ISO 13849-1:2015 (Safety of machinery-Safety related parts of control systems)

BS EN ISO 13850:2015 (Safety of machinery-Emergency stop function-principles for design)

From decentralised safety, to programmable/configurable systems, we have a wealth of experience with most mainstream vendor products including PILZ, SICK, Festo and most PLC vendors that offer integrated safety systems.

Distributed I/O Systems

In many of todays automation systems, especially in larger plant process environments, there is an ever growing need to collect field data at a remote location, and broadcast it via fieldbus technology to centralised PLC and/or SCADA systems that could be hundreds of metres away. The alternative impact with 'hard-wired' I/O systems is the costly exercise of installing hundreds of metres of signalling cable, containment equipment, and an underlying risk of data quality transmission losses over long distances.

Regardless of whether you are dealing with analog or discrete devices, devices in hazardous or zone classified areas, devices that collect temperature, pressure, flow, or simple devices that signal level or pushbutton requests, reliable real-time data retrieval over distance is predominantly achieved with well implemented fieldbus technology by way of I/O racks placed strategically in the field, or bus compatible devices connected directly to the network.

We have extensive knowledge of most fieldbus technologies and their implementation techniques across varying platforms; Mostly derived from mainstream PLC and automation equipment vendors, these technologies operate over industry standard communication bus infrastructures. We commonly implement the most suitable communication protocols, with selection based on the hardware we are implementing.

Profibus® DP/PA, PROFINET®, DeviceNet®, CC-Link®, GeniusBus®, CAN bus®, ASI®, are all examples of the most commonly implemented protocols that we build into our designs to accommodate fieldbus communication between field devices and centralised logic processing hardware.

Software Design Specification

Behind the success of any well designed and implemented software application, there is almost always likely to be an underlying software design specification. This document amongst many others, is instrumental in developing coding methods and structures before the coding process begins, and ensures that both the client, and the software developer are familiar with how the software will be structured, assignment of memory, naming conventions, hardware, I/O distribution and allocation etc are all of paramount importance when considering a scope for future expansion or modification.

We produce SDS documentation for every software project we entertain, it gives us the opportunity to review our software designs with our clients before we start coding, to ensure that we have fully understood the project requirements. After agreeing and finalising the design with our client, we release the specification for use in the software development process.

Recipe Management

In many of today's batch processing systems, recipe management is critical in order to maintain batch-to-batch consistency, quality, and to keep the sufferings of waste to a minimum.

Not every process requires the complication of a fully-blown batch management package, in some cases the requirement could be to manage only a handful of recipe variations at a time, each comprising only a handful of parameters. In these cases, most mainstream SCADA system vendors integrate on-board recipe handlers of their own, or indeed in some cases, it is more desirable to build recipe handling into PLC logic. For more complicated batch processing environments, there are more substantial systems available which cater for bigger security, more administrative control, multiple production output management, and formulation history.

We provide guidance and implementation in these areas based on our experiences with recipe management systems.