To improve production, quality, and risk, industries need to implement industrial automation. The most popular in industrial automation is automation system with PLC programming.
There are a lot of PLC application in industrial, such as industrial automation, system control of the packing of goods conveyor, water treatment, system control of automatic loading machine, recondition control panel, system control of air conditioner and chiller, and many more.
Industrial automation with PLC programming will bring in value to the industry. For instant in warehouse planning & automation it will determine the cost of material movement and storage, such as how much space is truly required? Are the transport distances in the warehouse optimized? Etc.
It also can evaluate and quantify the expenditures of labor, such as value-added and non-value added, repetitive motions, inefficient handling. And it can evaluate throughput and production levels in receiving, storage, order picking, manifest and shipping.
Industrial automation above can be controlled by industrial control system which is called as Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA). A SCADA system consists of the following sub systems:
- A Human Machine Interface or HMI is the apparatus which presents process data to a human operator.
- A Supervisory (computer) system, acquiring the data and send command to the process.
- Remote Terminal Units (RTUs) connecting to sensors in the process and sending digital data to the supervisory system.
- Programmable Logic Controllers (PLCs) used as field devices.