Online Process Data Registratie System

EverZinc Nederland B.V. (formerly part of Umicore) is a producer of zinc materials, i.a. zinc powders and zinc oxide. Despite their far-reaching automation, it was not possible to establish a link between setpoints and process values on the one hand and product quality or production failures on the other hand.

Although the relevant data is available on the central visualization system during production, it was not possible to store all such data as historical data. Moreover, viewing and analyzing the available data was limited to the system on the production floor.

Online Process Data Registration System

For this purpose, van Daal engineering has developed a Dot-NET application with individual functional modules. Additionally, the existing WinCC application solving the communication between the production process and the relational database has been extended.

The developed application automatically saves all settings and process values available on the central visualization system (total of 450 units). Specific events (Log on/off, settings change) are also registered by the WinCC system.

The data is made available to a preselected group of employees. This is made possible by a link between the relational database server and both the industrial and the office Ethernet.

They now have access to the following functions:

• Configurable formatting of the available data (composure of own groups)
• Display of process data in a (live) graph.
• Exportation of the process data to Microsoft Excel for further analysis (per group over specific period of time).
• Display of specific events.
• Configurable reports showing the registered process data (average/maximum/minimum).
• Straightforward online expansions/modifications of the process values/settings one wants to register.