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Food & Beverage · Retrofit

Legacy Bottling Line Retrofit

Problem

A bottling line running on an obsolete PLC-5 platform was losing 40+ minutes a shift to unplanned faults, with no in-house engineer able to safely modify the logic.

Engineering Solution

Migrated control logic to Rockwell Studio 5000, rebuilt the HMI with rationalized alarms, and re-fabricated two UL 508A panels to correct thermal derating issues.

Measurable Outcome

Unplanned downtime cut from 40 minutes a shift to under 6. Line rate held at spec through three consecutive changeovers.

+14% OEE
overall equipment effectiveness, 90 days post-commission
86%
reduction in unplanned downtime

The client's bottling line had run on the same PLC-5 platform for over eighteen years. The original programmer had retired, spare processors were sourced from the secondhand market, and every unplanned fault meant a call to a contract programmer with a four-hour minimum response window.

We migrated the control logic function-by-function to Studio 5000, preserving every process behavior the operators already trusted while rebuilding the alarm hierarchy from the ground up. Two panels were re-fabricated to correct a thermal derating issue that had been silently shortening component life for years.

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