Centralized Control & Monitoring eliminates operator rounds, improves furnace performance!
Last month UPC put an end to clipboard rounds for a south central US energy equipment supplier. The company who depended on operators to check local furnace readings and record data manually opted instead for a major upgrade of its heat treating operations that included new multi-furnace controls and a more efficient data collection setup.
The furnace control systems equipped with Protherm 400 controllers manage twelve furnaces – continuously controlling, monitoring and archiving furnace and oil temperatures, carbon, as well as maintenance functions such as agitator and fan motor currents, and quench transfer time. To maximize data reliability and meet strict data retention requirements, data logging is performed both locally at the furnace control panel by the Protherm 400s and at a central location by the Protherm 9800, a production management software that gives users online access to real-time data from the furnace control systems. Users can also view and analyze historical data from each furnace, and monitor and address alarms.
About the upgrade: Furnace control systems incorporate UPC Protherm 400s, KD-7 paperless chart recorders, and RE-19 controllers.