Case studies from the plant floor.

The problem

A high-speed servo assembly machine was stopping intermittently, and the cause wasn't being recorded.

What we're doing

• Reviewed and documented the motion and PLC programs.
• Listed the possible causes and planned how to tell them apart.
• Set up data capture on the machine so the analysis is based on measurements.

The problem

A fiber plant's traverse winders run on obsolete, undocumented drives. Repairs weren't holding, a single power event could take out several drives at once, and no current drive is a drop-in replacement. Working through a partner integrator, we were asked to find a way forward.

What we did

• Reverse-engineered the drives' serial protocol and proved how the commands map to parameters, verifying the full parameter map against the hardware.
• Traced the drives' lineage. Dale helped develop the traverse “pattern disturbance” function on the original drive family, which helped here.
• Translated the Japanese drive documentation and consolidated everything into one specification.
• Designed a capture rig on a real-time industrial PC to log the live serial traffic, and a gateway architecture so current inverters can stand in for the old drives, section by section, before the controller is replaced.

The problem

A penetrant inspection line depended on an aging custom supervisory application from the line builder. The line can't be stopped for testing, so a replacement had to be right before it was installed.

What we did

• Built a page-referenced knowledge base from the line's 4,850-page manual set.
• Decoded the iQ-R program (97 program units, about 8,600 labels) and ran the real logic against a model of the plant.
• Designed a modern HMI with sign-in roles, plant navigation, OEE, ISA-18.2 alarm management, maintenance tickets, a mobile maintenance app and email notification.
• Built generators that produce the screens for either Ignition or ICONICS from the same configuration, so the platform decision doesn't mean starting over.

An earlier engagement with the same client set up a redundant OPC server.

The problem

A large automotive transmission line needed its data collection to be faster. The plant funds a yearly data-collection program with us, and performance on this line was the priority: the data has to keep pace with the machines.

What we did

• Bridged the PLC network directly into a PC at high speed, so data is collected at sub-millisecond resolution instead of waiting on conventional polling.
• Improved the performance of the existing OPC data collection, including diagnosis of OPC timing and network routing problems.
• Connections to robots, vision and leak testers; operator call-button screens on GOT HMIs.
• Migration of older AnS-Series equipment and replacement of retired data systems.

Dale has supported this plant since his Mitsubishi years, including firmware work that earned a Mitsubishi Electric “Going the Extra Mile” award in 2012.

The problem

A differential test machine ran only in manual mode. The client wanted a full automatic inspection sequence, but the only program was the one uploaded from the PLC: no comments, and printouts that no longer matched.

What we did

• Decoded the uploaded program and wrote English names and comments for every device.
• Designed the automatic cycle as a step sequence (SFC-style) in ladder, with clear interlocks between manual and automatic operation and latched fault causes.
• Proved it in simulation against 13 scenarios before a single rung reached the machine, and delivered an illustrated “how it works” document for the client's team.