Caterpillar Award MacDonald Humfrey (Automation) Major Parts Store: - ASRS Crane & Conveyor Control System Upgrade Project.

MacDonald Humfrey (Automation) Ltd has been awarded a major new contract by Caterpillar (UK) Ltd for the complete turnkey controls and automation upgrade of the existing Parts ASRS warehouse at their Desford plant inclusive of the associated conveyor system.

The existing automated warehouse consists of six automatic ASRS cranes all adopting black box technology and utilising troublesome infra-red communications and old DC drive controls.

The upgrade of the crane control system undertaken by MacDonald Humfrey (Automation) Ltd incorporates new S7 Siemens PLC equipment, new Siemens DC drives, TCP/IP Radio Communications, and Laser measurement for X/Y positioning.

The existing conveyor PLC’s which are Siemens S5 PLC’s are also part of the upgrade project and will be updated to the S7 Siemens range of PLC equipment with the existing SCADA system upgraded to the Siemens WinCC SCADA System.