Our client, a MNC pharmaceutical company at Hyderabad, has a large finished goods warehouse measuring 80 m x 32 m . The goods are stored in 18 racks of 10 metre height. To ensure product quality, it is important to maintain the RH and T of the warehouse at the desired levels on an ongoing basis. Radix provided a sophisticated Warehouse Datalogging System to measure and record this data in compliance with the regulatory requirements.
Our client sought to measure the Mean kinetic temperature (MKT) measurement of warehouse racks independently. Rackwise temperature measurement enabled our client to better gauge the overall effect of temperature fluctuation during storage.
Relative Humidity and Temperature Transmitters (Radix model SC807) were placed at three points and heights on each rack. A total of 54 transmitters were fitted. The 4 to 20 mA signals for RH and Temperature were transmitted to the Data Acquisition Panel located at one corner of the warehouse. The use of 2-wire transmitters ensured that there was absolutely no signal distortion or interference, regardless of the distance over which the signal was transmitted.
To measure the 4 to 20 mA signals, instead of a PLC system, Radix used its own Analog Input Module SCM201. SCM201 has a universal input, and all the RH and Temperature signals were connected to it. This is a very cost-effective way to measure analog signals. A total of 14 units were installed in the Data Acquisition Panel, to handle 108 channels.
Using RS485 MODBUS RTU, the RH and Temperature data was transferred to the Elipse SCADA. This was running on a SCADA server located in the control room some distance away. This 21CFR Part11 compliant software is licensed and certified, and thousands of applications worldwide run on Elipse. Radix developed the application to the customer’s specifications.
Additionally, our client sought to measure the Mean Kinetic Temperature (MKT) for the warehouse as a “bunched” parameter that condenses the large amount of RH and Temperature data collected over a large period into a single value. This was computed in the SCADA and displayed on a large, 4” LED display in the warehouse. The display was specially designed to work as a RS485 MODBUS RTU slave device.
The Data Acquisition Control Panel as well as the signal cable and the communications cable were manufactured by Radix.
The SCADA software application was written by the Radix Automation Centre as per customer specifications.
It can be seen that the diversified manufacturing of most of the products needed for this system enabled Radix to provide an “end-to-end” integrated and cost-effective Automation solution to the customer.
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