Cloud-Hosted Enterprise SCADA for Large Provider of Aggregate Material and Cement

Project Scope:

• Tags: 1,000
• Screens: 5
• Clients: Many company associates
• Alarms: 0
• Devices used: Web Browser, iPhone, iPad, iPad Mini 
• Architectures used: Ignition Perspective running in Azure. Plants utilize Ignition Edge with MQTT Sparkplug B.
• Databases used: Microsoft SQL Service
• Historical data logged: Yes

Project Summary:

Dolese Bros. is a large provider of aggregate material and cement throughout the state of Oklahoma. Over the past several years, Dolese has upgraded many of its quarries with advanced automation, networking, and operational systems. A key component of this strategy is the deployment of Inductive Automation’s Ignition platform at each quarry, and then a cloud-hosted enterprise-level Ignition system to provide reporting, visualization, and business system integration at a corporate level. Dolese enlisted the help of Industrial Networking Solutions (INS) to accomplish their goals. 

The project includes tools and features such as edge computing, MQTT Sparkplug B, store-and-forward, cellular SD-WAN, private LTE, and cloud-hosted Ignition Perspective. 

Problem:

As the Ignition projects were rolled out for each quarry, Dolese wanted to take advantage of the Perspective Module’s mobile-responsive capabilities to allow plant operators to view the status of quarry operations anywhere. The initial goal of the project was to focus on downtime, OEE, and real-time production reporting. As more information became available, and Dolese began to see the power of providing information to everyone, they requested the ability to view even more. The plant’s legacy SCADA solutions allowed only a limited number of viewers to see what was going on with the equipment. Dolese asked INS to provide them with the capability for anyone in the organization to monitor processes from anywhere, and that everything be mobile-responsive.

Solution:

INS delivered Inductive Automation’s Ignition Perspective Module to create a fully web-based, dynamic system with fast response time and with enough flexibility to include mobile devices. INS looked at the spreadsheet that the plants were using to gather production data, and built a dynamic reusable page that allows the user to enter data that could not be automatically collected, such as item codes and downtime data. With this page, operators can view the data gathered from scales during shifts. 

INS built the page so that it could be reused from site to site. All that is needed is to populate a database table with the information about the various entities within the system, such as work centers, conveyors, or environmental parameters. Once the data table is populated, the page essentially builds itself with the use of query bindings that populate the table, and accordion and flex repeater components. Once the production run is started, the data is sent via MQTT up into the cloud where it is integrated into their ERP system in real time. At the enterprise level, other users can view all this data, including downtime data, over time using the downtime report. This report allows the user to select a work center or entity from the chart, and further drill into things such as a particular production run or a piece of equipment to view downtime data for that selection.    

Results: 

Dolese initially began their Ignition journey wanting to capture downtime events and replace reporting spreadsheets with real-time reporting. Since then, multiple areas of integration were identified, transforming the original proof of concept into a holistic enterprise solution. This includes real-time inventory and production data, downtime tracking and reporting, and plant monitoring in real time for mobile interfaces. As Dolese scales their operations, they plan on using Ignition to integrate plant-to-plant transfer systems with RFID, real-time integrations to their data warehouse to help facilitate ticketing and sales data more efficiently, and begin migrating legacy control systems into Perspective HMIs.