News | April 22, 2008

Kepware's OPC Server Utilized Within The Plastics Industry

Portland, ME - CRG Logics, Inc., implemented KEPServerEX as their standards-based OPC server technology to meet their customer needs. This manufacturer of machinery and controls for the plastics industry continuously strives to improve performance of their products and the software needed to allow for integration with other systems, and provide reliable access for future expansion. Kepware, known as a world leader in communication software for automation, provided the connection for performance within the CRG software system.

As an OEM plastics industry supplier of auxiliary blending and material handling equipment, with close to 200 SIMPLICITY blending systems to offer, the equipment must be reliable, simple to operate, yet accurate and affordable. Besides specializing in integrated, PLC-based control of continuous loss in weight gravimetric blending systems, CRG also supply PLC-based control retrofits of blenders produced by other manufacturers. Regardless of whether it is a new system or retrofit, Kepware fulfill their application and connectivity needs.

While searching for a server, the engineers identified the following technical requirements:

Application needs:

  • For quality assurance and verification of blend percents, customers need to log data and then turn that data into useful information using trending tools.

Connectivity needs:

    For new feeder and blender systems produced by CRG Logics, Inc., they typically use Allen Bradley ControlLogix or CompactLogix PLCs.
  • In retrofit applications, connectivity to non-Allen Bradley controllers is usually required.
  • Often times a PLC-based blending system needs to be integrated with custom OEM applications (developed in C++ for example) which are performing line control.

After reviewing their options, CRG engineers chose KEPServerEX with a single server and driver-plug in design. This maintained a consistent access to PLC data regardless of the type of PLC in the feeder/blender system. KEPServerEX would also serve data to off-the-shelf OPC client products like those produced by Canary Labs, as well as custom applications developed in a range of programming languages.

Products by Canary Labs allowed CRG to incorporate the interoperability benefits of OPC by providing trending and data logging technology. CRG Logics, Inc., bundled the Kepware Technologies and Canary Labs packages together to provide a user-friendly but robust trending and data logging package for their customers.

SOURCE: CRG Logics, Inc.