Mid Sweden University

This work has been done at the Kubikenborg Aluminum AB (KUBAL) Sundsvall, “the sole producer of primary aluminum and largest industrial facility in Sweden”. The aim of this project was to get a Human Machine Interface (HMI) which can visualize the process of Anode mounting. The process data has been visualized and it has assisted facility to reduce downtime by calculating stoppage of the machines and helped in streamlining the production by showing total no of Anodes produced in each shift in a day. The data has been retrieved from the Programmable Logic controllers (PLC) placed in the Anode mounting facility. After retrieving data, the task was to analyze the data and from all the data, describe the process performance. The HMI is counting and displaying time in minutes in case of system failure. Moreover, an effective way has been established for communication between the Siemens S7-300 PLC’s with the Wonderware InTouch HMI using the DASSIDIRECT data access server.

In the past, the system have had several shutdowns and then the PLC data has not been possible to retrieve. There was no digital record for how long the machines remain stopped. All relevant process data were collected manually on paper, no automatically retrieved process data was available back then. Therefore, this new automatically retrieved data will be quite beneficial to the organization, as well as to operators for short term period but for long term conservation, a database server should be attached with this HMI which has not been covered in this project.

At last stage, a survey has been conducted about the functionality of the HMI with operators at the facility to validate the claims made earlier which is giving positive feedback about its working and effectiveness but certain improvements needed for future prospects.