Case Study

Integrated Automation Solution for

Banas Dairy at Palanpur, India
(Project is currently in an advanced stage of site commissioning and scheduled to go operational within a few weeks-
Date of publication of this article: 25th December, 2000)

along with Food Business Unit and While similar steps in Powder Plant automation are:
L&T Niro have supplied a fully-integrated automation
solution for one of India’s largest state-of-the-art dairy Milk conveying from liquid milk plant and storage
plants, at Banakantha village near Palanpur in into buffer tanks
Saurashtra.
Provision of mixing - additional
The scope of supplies included The scope of supplies included water, sugar, vitamins in the
automation equipment along with automation equipment along with buffer tanks
auxiliary machinery for the main dairy auxiliary machinery for the main
- whose capacity was 6.5 lakh litres dairy - whose capacity was Processing in evaporators
of milk per day with a maximum 6.5 lakh litres of milk per day with
possible milk flow rate of 30,000 litres/ a maximum possible milk flow rate Scrap surface heaters
hr with ensured losses below 2% - of 30,000 liters/hr with ensured
along with a 60 TPD powder plant. losses below 2 % - along with a Processing in homogeniser under
The integrated automation solution 60 TPD powder plant. pressure
offered by
Control in spray dryers
includes automation of main dairy
along with automation of its by-products as applicable Processing in dehumidifier air dryer section
using a plantwide network of PLCs and PCs over a
100 MB, fast Ethernet. Storage of powder in exit silos
Automation details: Conveying under inert nitrogen with vibrating
feeders to packing machines
Process automation steps in Liquid Milk Plant of the
dairy are: Salient features of the automation package:

Reception of raw milk at the receiving bays Plantwide networking:

Conveying and storage in raw milk silos Automation package for this Banas Dairy Project
consists of total nine PCs and two major PLC stations
Milk processing lines – reconstitution option, butter - one for the liquid milk plant and the other for the
oil mixing and cream separation powder plant.

Pasteurization process
Storage of pasteurized milk before packing
Conveying and packing
CIP (Cleaning-In-Process) of each and every vessel
used with associated pipelines to maintain hygiene
Apart from these two main PLC systems, there are
other medium-size PLC stations which are supplied by
other manufacturers, each for automating refrigeration
plant, butter/cheese plant, nitrogen plant and several
packing lines. Each of the PCs and PLCs is spread all
over the dairy plant for specific functions and is
integrated using a plantwide 100 MB Ethernet network
for data exchange.

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 Plantwide Networking
The plantwide Ethernet at 100 MB forms the level-3
of the network and serves as a major backbone for the
supervisory control and data exchanges under Human
Machine Interface (HMI) and Management Information
System (MIS) packages.
Around 1 km fibre optic cable links are used for wiring,
which needs to be done outside the building in fields.
There are two other sub-levels networks, provided to
improve the plant efficiency and achieve faster data
transfer at lower cost:
Level-1: Remote I/O PLC network to ensure
reliable plant control with the help of strategically
placed PLC remote I/O stations to save cabling
costs.
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Level-2: 19.2 kb baud rate serial links connecting
various third-party equipment like front-end
operator data entry stations at reception bays,
laboratory instruments like acidometers and Milk-
O-Scan, density meters, clarifier and separator
machines, and transducers.
In this serial link communication, most of the third-
party interfaces communicate with the parent PLC
or PC over an industry-standard MODBUS
protocol using gateway hardware. Appropriate
driver software was developed using C++ for the
conversion of other proprietary protocols used in
some equipment.
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 PLCs, Pentium-III PCs,
100MB Ethernet and good
RDBMS engine. (Earlier the
umbrella MIS concept was not
feasible due to technology
limitations and systems tended
to slow down when reports
were requested.)

Human Machine Interface

(HMI) – (typical screens)

While the supervisors /

managers like to know and
analyze plant operations using
MIS, plant operators need
graphical interfaces to control
the plant. Redundant server
Typical MIS Screen PCs are provided in the form
of main and back-up machines on which MMI/HMI
software runs on-line. Refer to the typical MMI page
Management Information System (MIS) – enclosed herewith illustrating the interface screen,
(Typical MIS Screen) developed based on Process and Instrumentation
This system was implemented using relational database
management software platform using industry-standard
Oracle along with front-end data entry / monitoring
forms developed using Visual Basic. MIS system in
this project - called Umbrella MIS - as it covers entire
operations in the plant including various PLCs,
transducers like energy transducers used in MCC panels
and weigh bridge transducers. Data from various
pockets of the dairy plant gets collected, over the three
levels of networks, and stored in an exclusive MIS
Server PC hooked on the 100MB Ethernet.

This collected data is then made available to the various

client machines kept at manager’s cabin, reception lab,
dispatch section, weigh bridge, stores, etc., for reporting
and analysis. There are nearly 50 supporting forms
through which this on-line data can be viewed from
various angles and analyzed. This exhaustive and
elaborate MIS system helps in online viewing of
complete plant operations of a dairy from control room
client PCs instead of taking field rounds to check the
various operations of the plant. Real-time
implementation of the umbrella MIS is possible only
because of the integrated combination of fast scan Typical HMI Screens

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 Third-Party Interface (configuration)
Diagrams (PID) of the plant using high-end HMI
software platforms like Process-Window. More than
25 graphic screens are available to the operator to
monitor and control operations of liquid milk plant and
similar number of screens are available for the powder
plant. Screens for liquid milk plant and powder plant
form separate databases and run on different exclusive
machines in their respective control rooms. However,
it is technically feasible to integrate the two databases
and make them available on any HMI workstation,
taking advantage of the Ethernet network. Data for
the HMI screens is collected on-line from the respective
PLCs.
Using the HMI interface, it is feasible to get all
equipment status reports along with various diagnostic
messages and alarms. All kinds of alarms can be
generated from the available data for the attention of
the operator so that timely preventive measures can be
taken. Online report and alarm printing is possible using
the connected printers.
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Third-Party Interfacing (configuration)
Various equipment manufacturers supply the machinery
required for various sub-functions of dairy plant control
and automation. Integration of such third-party
equipment to the parent PLC system or the plantwide
Ethernet is possible using gateway or interface cards.
These gateways also help in converting the third-party
data into proper format so that it can be utilized in HMI
or MIS system.
Without successful integration of all such scattered third-
party equipment, it will not be feasible to achieve total
plant control in HMI and MIS systems. Details of third-
party interfacing are described in Level-2 networking
above.
In Banas dairy project, apart from Modicon’s Quantum-
based system, interfacing was done with other Siemens
and Allen Bradley PLCs of the other sub-plants.
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 Sequencing and Interlocking Operations
using PLC & Ladder Logic:
Processes in the plants are controlled using PLC system
which is loaded with customized ladder logic software,
developed based on the process and instrumentation
diagrams along with process write-ups.
There are closed loop software PIDs to control the
process parameters like temperature, pressure, flow
rates and levels in the various vessels. These PIDs are
tuned for optimum operations during the site
commissioning work.
Major successes of the plant operations and overall
control of plant losses depend on the accuracy of the
ladder logic program. PLC ladder logic developing
tools are used to develop and debug such programs.
These programs are also tested under simulated
conditions to filter out the errors, if any, even before
the actual on-site commissioning.
The details of the typical main PLC systems used in the
Banas project for liquid milk and powder plant controls:
Details of the PLC systems offered:
For Plant CPU Memory/Scant T Dig /Ana I/O
Liquid Milk Quantum 64 K/0.1 Ms/K 2032/152
Powder Plant Quantum 64 K/ 0.1 Ms/K 1200/ 144
For Liquid Milk Plant:
Main PLC station is placed in control room-1, remote
station-1 is put in control room-2 and remote station-2
is put in MCC Room
For Powder Plant:
Main PLC Station is put in evaporator section area,
remote station-1 is put in spray dryer area, and remote
station-2 is put in conveying/packing section.
With such an arrangement of PLC, main and remote
stations spread over the plant area, there is considerable
saving in the cost of signal cabling. Design similarity is
maintained between the liquid milk plant and powder
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plant PLC stations to ease out the operational and
maintenance problems.
Data collected over the PLC input/outputs is available
online over the Ethernet for usage in HMI and MIS
software. All the PLC stations and associated PCs at
various locations are connected on the uninterrupted
power supplies (UPS) with 30-min back-up periods
for safe and reliable operations.
Control of DM water plant is also put under powder
plant PLC to achieve further cost-effectiveness.
With all there implanted features Banas dairy project
has revolutionized the automation level in the food
industry. Future enhancements, which may emerge, are:
Future Challenges and Solutions
for Dairy Automation:
For more reliability and fail-safe continuous
operations – Dual hot stand-by redundant
configurations with dual remote I/O connectivity
and more smaller remote stations will be a necessity
in future.
With Indian electrical power conditions prevalent
Rtd
in rural areas - Redundant UPS supplies with more
112 than 30-Min battery back-up will be a common
72 feature
Connectivity of the plantwide networks with
Internet, which is growing in India day by day, so
that remote monitoring / MIS and plant control
become feasible.
Access control security system using card readers
– Identity cards to each incoming tanker and barrier
gates to control access.
Ethernet network connectivity with 1 GB speed.
Real-time plantwide MIS system moving towards
ERP concept.
G. M. Beri C. Srikanth
cna-gmb@asc.ltindia.com cna-csl@asc.ltindia.com