The main challenge that FieldTurf faced was to reduce the downtime on their tufting machines, whether that was waiting for raw material or other faults on the machine.
They wanted their maintenance to be able to walk up to any non-running machine and to troubleshoot it without having to go online with the PLC or pull out a meter to debug any electrical faults. Therefore they needed all possible diagnostic faults to appear on a HMI panel, with clear instructions for the operator, as well as a way to data log the reasons and lengths of downtime on a machine. They also needed a cost effective control solution with the functionality they needed.
Application:
Tufting Machine Monitoring and First Out System
Description:
Application allows any maintenance personal to walk up to the machine and be able to troubleshoot if the machine is down electrically. The HMI will display what’s holding the machine out. On the monitoring side of the application you can keep up with each machines’ efficiency and look at all your different downtime codes.
Key Business Activities:
Manufacturer of artificial turf systems, specialized for football, baseball and soccer fields,
golf, residential and commercial landscaping, playgrounds, pets and even airports.
To meet their challenges, FieldTurf selected the S71214 PLC, KTP600 Basic Panel, along with local digital and analog I/O cards.
These products were selected because the PLC and HMI panel provided the features and functionality that Fieldturf required at a competitive price. In addition, they were engineered and commissioned inside one project using the TIA Portal engineering software, which made the whole process much easier.
The main feature for FieldTurf in the TIA Portal was the ability to have all the PLCs and HMIs for all their tufting machines inside one project.
This made the management of these projects much easier. The Device and Networks
editor allowed for easy communication setup via simple drag and drop functions between the PLCs, HMIs and Client PC collecting the downtime data. The integrated Modbus blocks also allowed for easy communication. The diagnostic and alarming features built in to the PLC and HMI engineering software made it easy to troubleshoot down machines, with all possible faults displayed on the HMI.
