Case Study | Boiler Manufacturer
Mesa’s System Integration team was hired by a boiler manufacturing facility located in middle Tennessee to engineer a new boiler test station solution for the company. The project scope required the system to retrieve test parameters from a remote SAP PI system located in Ohio.
The Scope
Mesa’s System Integration team was hired by a boiler manufacturing facility located in middle Tennessee to engineer a new boiler test station solution for the company. The project scope required the system to retrieve test parameters from a remote SAP PI system located in Ohio. Using the unit’s serial number, the system queries the SAP database for the specific test parameters needed. The scope also requires the production test stands to be separate from the SAP PI interface to maintain network security. The test stand interfaces with a high-accuracy PLC system monitoring flow meters and flow switches supplying gas flow to the main test boiler. Flow rates for the system are in the 3 to 5 million BTU ranges and have to maintain an accuracy of 1% of reading. Communications to the PLC is through Modbus TCP/IP.
Project scope also required the new system had to be
easy to install with the recovery files consisting of two
or fewer files to store the project. The solution also
had to be easily expandable with a way to monitor the
connection to the SAP PI web services.
The Solution
Mesa viewed several SCADA packages offering
possible solutions utilizing web services interface.
Each solution required a main server system complete
with either thin manager or coupled with an ERP
system in order to provide a web services access
point. This approach to the solution drove the project
cost out of the budget range Mesa was given to
complete the project. “Most standard SCADA
packages we reviewed had a subset of Visual Studio
capabilities or a trimmed down version of VBA.
FactoryStudio from Tatsoft was finally selected due to
the full Visual Studio compliant features and low I/O
point count cost”, according to Project Manager Greg
Dixon.
The project consists of a main web server with
dedicated internet access outside of the plant. This
approach allows multiple access to the web services
without allowing internet access to the plant floor. The
web server has a Web Services interface to the SAP PI
system. Request for recipe queries are made through
a simple directory change event monitored by the
web-service program at each test stand. This makes a
secure link exchange between the web server program
at each test stand. Data is exchanged in a structured
text format.