Wednesday 6th July 2022

SENCON ADD OPC-UA SUPPORT TO ITS CANMAKING GAUGES

Providing manufacturer-independent data exchange for Industry 4.0 and the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT)

Sencon were approached by a canmaker and long term customer and user of Sencon products to help reduce issues related to out of specification cans at the front end. To achieve this they needed to identify and automatically stop suspect bodymakers immediately when a defect can was found. The solution was OPC, which provides a standardized way for manufacturer-independent data exchange allowing access to machines, devices and other systems within the industrial environment.

OPC stands for Open Platform Communications, it is an extensible, platform-independent standard which enables the secure exchange of information within industrial systems – the UA in OPC-UA stands for “Unified Architecture” and is the latest specification of the standard.

Sencon's customer wanted their Master Series™ front end gauge to communicate with their Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) system which would in turn communicate directly with their bodymakers allowing them to be automatically stopped as soon as an out of specification can was identified by the Sencon gauge. Sencon began a project to assess the feasibility of using an OPC-UA server on the gauge PC to communicate with the customers SCADA system. The project resulted in a successful rollout of the Sencon Process Master™ OPC-UA communication interface within the customer's plant.

In this installation a Front End Gauge was used to send a notification to stop an individual bodymaker, but the system can be used with any Master Series™ gauge and, depending on the canmakers process control software, it can be used to stop individual neckers or decorators when out of specification cans are detected.

FULL CONTROL

An output from the Sencon gauge is sent via OPC-UA with data flags changing from 0 to 1 to indicate an out-of-spec measurement. Measurements taken while the flag is 1 have no influence and will not change the flag back to 0 – flags have to be manually reset once corrective action has been taken at the bodymaker by an operator. A separate flag is broadcast for each bodymaker in the plant which means that monitoring of cans continues even when one bodymaker has been stopped. Any actions taken based on the flags are controlled by the customers SCADA system. The results from the Sencon gauge sent via OPC-UA indicating out of specification parts are a recommendation to take action, but the decision to take action remains with the customer. Restarting of the bodymaker is controlled by the operator.

If you would like more information on Sencon's OPC-UA communications interface and how it can automate your plants quality assurance please contact your regional Sencon office or agent.