Custom Rubber Mixing

A manufacturer of custom compounded rubber was looking for a way to more accurately produce and track over 2000 recipes, utilizing about 2000 different raw materials. As many of the raw materials are hand additions to the mix, the main task was to prompt the operators to add the material at the correct time, in the proper amount. Two Wonderware workstations were used; one for recipe development and the other for batch scheduling. A recipe is scheduled for production with the number of batches to be run by the production supervisor. The schedule can be queued up for days in advance but modified anytime. The next-to-run recipe is automatically downloaded to an Allen Bradley PLC 5/40, where the operators are prompted by 5 Panelview 1400E's and the automatic ingredients are dispensed to the mixer. Completed batches are logged to a batch report database where custom reports are configured by the client as required.