System Design - Case Study 3 (On Going)

A client employed our services to modernise their 40 year old Effluent Treatment plant control system. We designed, installed, programmed, and commissioned a distributed, redundant PLC system employing redundant Fibre Optic media. The system was designed to allow future expansion without interrupting process operation. The installation and commissioning was phased as to allow new and existing equipment to be integrated into the new system without any disruption to the manufacturing process. Due to the success of this project we are currently tendering for the next phase of this project.

As the Effluent Treatment Plant is mission critical to our client the system employs redundancy in all major components. Part of our control system design included the provision of an interface to an existing MCC for all pump and valve control. The PLC main panel and remote I/O panels were designed, manufactured, FAT Tested, and commissioned at Hornbill HQ.

A significant portion of the project was the design and implementation of the process control hardware architecture and the writing of the PLC and SCADA software. The control architecture comprised two servers running independent SCADA licenses both independently communicating with the redundant PLC pair. Each server is capable of running the plant independently. As part of the project we were able to offer substantially increased levels of control and automation as opposed to the original system. The SCADA system is based on a plant MIMIC and provides access to Current Plant Status, Alarms, Alarm History, Trending, and Data Logging. The software has been designed to allow expansion as more hardware in integrated into the controls system. As the treatment plant outfall is to a river all relevant treated water data is stored in a retrievable format to enable client reporting to authorities.

We provided the client with a comprehensive documentation and staff training package, additionally during the initial phases of operation we provided 24hr standby support. We currently provide the client with onsite and telephone technical support.