Client : Toyota
Duration : 4 Months
Budget : R860,000
While most of the new paint plant was imported from Japan, now allowance was made for the utilities functions, which were to be done locally. This involved all power, gas, air, and water utilisation and control together with the air purification and humidity control. CSS was selected as the systems integrator to integrate the PLC control, based on the Mitshubishi Q-Series, and Wonderware Archestra with Industrial SQL Server as the data historian.
The project was divided into three plant areas:
- The power control and monitoring including the standby generator and UPS control.
- The HVAC (Heating, Ventilation and Air Conditioning) control which included the boilers, chillers and fresh air ventilation system.
- The Reverse Osmosis (RO) plant was added to the project at a late stage, as this was originally a stand-alone system that was completed by another supplier.
During the design phase the CSS engineers defined new software structures for PLCs, ArchestrA and the InTouch View station. New tag name conventions in line with the ISA standards were implemented to be more descriptive of plant areas and devices.
Plant operators and production personnel were consulted to ensure an operator-friendly graphical interface and navigation screens.
To enable reporting, all critical plant data was logged to the IndustrialSQL Server real-time historian. The reports were generated using ActiveFactory and Microsoft Excel and then shared via ActiveFactory WEB to other ActiveFactory users on the network. The reports, which focus on power, air, gas, water and effluent, include shift information as well as daily, weekly and monthly summaries.
Final acceptance testing (FAT) was completed during the thin slice testing in the design phase and was redone at various stages of the rollout phase. Final commissioning was completed on a progressive basis as this was dictated by the availability of the plant.
The scheduled start-up date for production was November 2006. However, Toyota Japan decided to surprise everybody by launching the new Hilux IMV earlier than scheduled. The market demand was such that it forced the launch date to be brought forward by two months, which forced the completion of priority areas earlier than intended in order to support the start-up process. All other areas were completed during the next two months after start-up and despite these hiccups, the project was completed within the original time period.
