Industrial Automation

We design and build control cabinets for process equipment and skids: component selection, panel layout, power distribution, protection, wiring and terminal arrangement, and the thermal and ingress considerations the installation location demands.

Layout is driven by maintenance as much as by function. A cabinet that is quick to fault-find saves far more over its life than the few centimetres of panel space a tidy layout costs.

• Component selection and panel layout design
• Power distribution, protection and grounding arrangements
• Wiring, terminal marshalling and cable entry design
• Enclosure selection for the installation environment
• Factory wiring, assembly and functional testing

Control software written to a defined functional description, structured so that the next engineer can read it: consistent naming, documented I/O, and logic organised by process function rather than by whatever was added last.

Platform and development environment are confirmed per project. Tell us what the site already runs and we will state plainly whether we work in it.

• Functional description and I/O list development
• Sequence, interlock and regulatory control logic
• Alarm handling and diagnostics
• Communication configuration between controllers and devices
• Simulation and factory acceptance testing against the description

Operator screens are built around what the operator has to decide, not around the tag database. Clear process graphics, honest alarm presentation and consistent navigation reduce the number of calls your control room makes to engineering.

HMI scope — number of screens, platform, alarm and historical data requirements — is confirmed for each project before it is quoted.

• Process graphics and screen hierarchy
• Alarm and event presentation
• Operator controls, setpoint handling and permissions
• Trend and historical data display, to the scope agreed

Bringing field devices, analyzers, drives and controllers into one working system: signal and protocol compatibility, loop checking, and the interface definitions that let a new package talk to an existing plant.

This is also the work that connects an analytical system to the control platform, which is why our analysis and automation practices share the same engineers.

• Field instrumentation selection and loop design
• Integration with existing PLC, DCS or SCADA platforms
• Interface definition between new packages and plant systems
• Loop checks and signal verification

Electrical schematics, panel layouts, terminal and cable schedules, and bills of materials, produced in EPLAN Electric P8 and EPLAN Pro Panel, with mechanical design in AutoCAD and PTC Creo Parametric.

The deliverable list and the standards the drawings follow are agreed at the start of the project, together with the format your site needs them in.

• Electrical schematics and wiring diagrams
• Panel layout and 3D cabinet design
• Terminal, cable and component schedules
• Bills of materials
• As-built documentation after commissioning

Replacing obsolete controllers, panels and operator stations where spare parts have become difficult to source, while keeping the process behaviour the plant depends on.

Modernization work starts with documenting what is actually installed. The existing drawings are frequently out of date, and that survey determines how much of the changeover can be prepared off site.

• Survey and documentation of the installed system
• Migration planning for controllers, I/O and operator stations
• Retention of existing field wiring where practical
• Phased changeover planning to limit production downtime