An agricultural and industrial products producer needed a PCS 7 Safety Integrated Systems (SIS) upgrade at their facility in Blair, NE. However, this upgrade was no easy task. It required expertise of the Siemens systems and knowledge of the inner workings of our client’s facility. The industrial products producer therefore called on EAD to get the job done, knowing that they were local experts already familiar with the site who had the ability to get the job done in a timely, “boots-on-the ground” fashion. EAD was tasked with upgrading our client’s old XP machine to the Windows 7 standard, completing the SIS system upgrade while ensuring that the integrity of our client’s safety matrix remained intact.
Meeting Production Deadlines
In order to meet their production deadlines and reduce downtime costs, our client gave EAD a strict deadline in which to perform the upgrade and an equally tight window to get the system back up and going. Our controls systems engineers worked 12 hour shifts to monitor the system and to cut-over software revisions. We coordinated with Siemens to develop a plan and ensure all due diligence requirements were met. EAD also had to figure out a way to compile live so that the plant did not have to cut down on their production requirements.
As a result of our understanding of the system and strategic planning, EAD was able to seamlessly execute the system upgrade in just one try. After EAD completed the standard four days of systems testing and validation, the upgrade was finished and the system ready to go live. EAD continues to provide our client with yearly validations to ensure this system is robust and performs well to this very day!
Client: Leading Producer and Distributer of Agricultural Products
Location: Blair, NE
Market(s) Served: Agricultural and Industrial Products
Services
- Controls and Automation
- Engineering