Northern Combustion Systems (NCS) Ltd has more than 35 years’ experience as a market leader for furnace manufacturing and the provision of process heating solutions. It is known to its customers around the world as a company that delivers excellence. So, when one of the NCS Ltd’s walking beam furnaces needed a new control system, a company that delivers excellence would certainly be a company that expected excellence. Despite the efficiency and ease of use of modern human-machine interface (HMI), there are some situations where they are not going to be fit for purpose such as a dusty manufacturing environment, for example, where conditions are likely to affect performance. This was the problem NCS Ltd encountered when they decided to install a control system for a walking beam furnace. They needed a system that would enable full mobility of the equipment allowing the operator to easily raise and lower the beam furnace, move it forward and backward, and open and close the door to the furnace. The challenge was that the team on the factory floor works with heat treatments and is required to wear gloves, rendering the use of an HMI touch screen an impossibility. Underwoods, one of Siemens valued distribution partners, had worked with NCS Ltd prior to this project, so were pleased to be able to quickly offer a solution to the problem. Stuart Lorriman, Sales Engineer, Underwoods, said: “I went straight to SIRIUS ACT with PROFINET from Siemens as a solution. It’s unique to the market, no one else offers anything similar, and it delivers cost and time benefits from a quick installation process. Its remote pushbutton station was ideal for this situation.”

Martin Brown, Product Manager for Siemens in Manchester, said: “Our SIRIUS ACT with PROFINET was the ideal solution for NCS Ltd in this circumstance. It is a robust and durable product that has the highest ingress protection rating, which means it has the best possible level of sealing against dirt, dust, and moisture, so it’s ideal for a heavy manufacturing environment. It is also extremely easy to control, even when the operator is wearing gloves. “Part of NCS Ltd’s specification was that they required their pushbutton station to be located a distance from the programmable logic controller (PLC), but they also wanted to avoid the need for civil works during the installation that would be essential if there were running cables underground. They had also specified there were to be no overhead cables with the setup either. Stuart Lorriman, Underwoods, said: “This is where the benefits of SIRIUS ACT with PROFINET start to become apparent; with this solution there is just one cable which, straight away, dramatically reduces the amount of cabling required in comparison with other products. That one cable runs from the PLC to the PROFINET gateway then the pushbuttons are wired from the gateway. It’s simple, cost-effective, and time-saving. ”The pushbutton station itself had 14 buttons including an E-Stop – the failsafe version. A couple of the devices had additional inputs and outputs (IO) and NCS Ltd used two of the digital inputs for limit switches on doors that, without the IO, would have had to have been wired back to the panel. They also wired a potentiometer into the analog input to use as speed control on some of the pumps. This solution also delivered the potential for up to 21 signaling devices as well as the pushbuttons and E-Stop to be connected to Siemens’ Totally Integrated Automation (TIA) Portal. The TIA Portal provides instant feedback on cable faults with accurate diagnosis for fast resolution.