Automation of a semolina production system using PLC and scada

In this study, the renewal efforts in the electricity, command and control units in parallel with the capacity expansion of the mill unit of a midsized macaroni production plant have been done.Since spaghetti is produced from semolina, the efficiency of the mill unit of a spaghetti plant is critical for the overall cost of the plant. Because, not only yielding a high throughput and high-quality semolina from the input wheat, but also saving the energy as much as possible from the consumed electricity depends on the controlled and effective operation of the mill. Such an operation can only be achieved by using a well-designed and a well-programmed PLC and SCADA system.The operation of the mill unit of the plant is fully automated. In the automation system, VIPA CPU 318?2 and DP300V are used as the PLC software, and Wonderware InTouch V9.5 is used as the SCADA software. As the communication protocols, MPI (Message Passing Interface) is used between PLC and SCADA, while PROFIBUS (Process Field Bus) is used between CPU 318?2 and DP300V. The total number of inputs and outputs are 261.Renewal operation on the semolina production system has been done on the following of 6 principal production groups:?In the 1st group, the input wheat is cleaned (isolated from its cover, and the stones, dust and soil in it) roughly and stored into silos,?In the 2nd group, the wheat taken from the silos is washed and tempered for the first time,?In the 3rd group, the wheat is softened and tempered for the second time,?In the 4th group, thoroughly tempered wheat is cleaned for the last time and prepared for grinding,?In the 5th group, the wheat is grinded and poured on the semolina conveyor,?Finally, in the 6th group, produced semolina is stored into semolina silos according to its quality.As the result of this renewal operation, the semolina throughput of the plant was increased from 58% to 61% and the continuity of this throughput was ensured. The quality of semolina was improved. The time required for the stable operation of the mill was decreased by amount of 66%. The 50% of the consumed energy was saved. The number of faults and unnecessary stops were reduced. The number of employees responsible for observing the system and fixing the faults was decreased by 50%.Key Words: PLC, SCADA, automation, semolina, mill