Product category:
Monitoring and sensor equipment and systems
News Release from: Able Instruments and Controls | Subject: Electronic data recorders
Edited by the Manufacturingtalk Editorial
Team on 31 March 2006
Electronic data recorders improve
casting
Adopting latest electronic data recorders has proved beneficial for DC-casting of aluminium alloy billets, which requires close monitoring of temperature and of tempering.
Adopting ABB's next generation SM3000 electronic data recorders has proved beneficial for Workington-based company, Alcan, which supplies aerospace manufacturers with extruded aluminium billets for making - among others - aeroplane wing parts These billets are made from a combination of virgin aluminium sows and recycled process scrap via a melting and solidification process called DC-casting
This article was originally published on Manufacturingtalk on 9 Jul 2008 at 8.00am (UK)
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The entire process requires close monitoring of temperature and of the tempering of aluminium to ensure high quality levels.
In the past, Alcan's Workington site used paper chart recorders to monitor and collect process data.
Focusing on the need to optimise performance and retrieval of information, the plant engineering team decided to work with ABB Instrumentation Alliance Partner WH Good.
On the basis of in-depth analysis and counselling, Alcan decided to take positive action to replace its paper chart recorders with ABB's SM3000 recorders to record and monitor both the temperature and other important process parameters.
To familiarise Alcan's engineers with the SM3000, WH Good provided a two-day training course, explaining how to configure and operate the units and how to set them up on Alcan's own Ethernet network.
The course also covered ABB's DataManager software, which enables easy downloading and review of all process data files recorded by SM series data recorders.
A major benefit of using the SM3000 recorders has been the ease with which process data can now be viewed and analysed online by a number of key personnel, making it easier to identify and solve any potential issue.
Data security has also been enhanced by the SM3000's range of built-in security features, which includes automatic logging of any configuration changes, who made the changes and when.
"We have had high maintenance contact with the paper charts over the years," said John Beck, Control and Instrumentation Engineer at Alcan Workington.
"We were aiming to optimise our capturing data process.
The SM3000s proved to be exactly what we were looking for.".
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