Boral Quarry Invests in Intelligent Motor Control Solution

The Allen-Bradley® CENTERLINE® 2500 Motor Control Centers (MCCs) offer optimal safety, performance and reliability to help quarries meet their production requirements. Modern motor control solutions need to be able to integrate with existing systems and provide advanced diagnostics capabilities. The CENTERLINE 2500 meets these requirements with premier integration and reduced engineering time.

“The quarry required a MCC solution that would meet the highest standards and also one that would be cost effective as well as adopting some of the integration benefits,” explained Matthew Treeby, account manager, Rockwell Automation.

SS Electrics worked with Rockwell Automation and their distributor NHP Electrical Engineering Products to select the smart components which are at the heart of the 12 column MCC including the E300™ Electronic Overloads, SMC™ Flex soft starters, POINT I/O™ modules, Guardmaster® safety relays, Stratix® switches, ControlLogix® control system and PowerFlex® 525 variable speed drives for the crushers, conveyors and processing equipment.

“The MCC provides a reliable solution for motor control in Boral’s Charlton quarry. The MCC is a ‘best of both worlds’ solution because it is not only high quality, fully tested and compliant, as would be expected from a global supplier, but the customer was also able to customize the solution to meet their unique requirements because the design and project management is done locally,” explained Treeby.

Intelligent Software and Safety

With a strong commitment to employee safety, Boral chose to include ArcShield Technology in the MCC. ArcShield helps to reduce arc flash hazards and provides increased protection against internal electrical arcing faults.

Offering a scalable safety solution, the MCC’s Guardmaster safety relays (GSR) addresses both the compliance standards and functional safety requirements for the quarry.

Boral’s MCC also features IntelliCENTER® technology, which enhances the intelligence of the MCC by using built-in networking to capture information that can be used for predictive maintenance, process monitoring, and advanced diagnostics. Connecting motor control devices over Ethernet allows operators and maintenance to realise the benefits of The Connected Enterprise by monitoring and analysing operations from anywhere at any time.

Hassle-free Installation and Commissioning

To help reduce engineering time, the MCC was assembled in the Rockwell Automation Shanghai manufacturing plant. Boral and SS Electrics took the opportunity to visit the plant and assess the MCC’s capabilities prior to shipping to Australia.

The smart motor control solution was programmed using Studio 5000® software and wiring was connected at SS Electric’s factory. This provided the opportunity for further testing and programming, therefore reducing the engineering time required for commissioning on site in Charlton.

By providing consolidated programming, device and system configuration, operation and maintenance within the Studio 5000 engineering environment, complexity and potential errors can be minimised. In addition, the requirement for onsite engineering work was reduced significantly as the MCC had a complete set of electrical drawings, allowing SS Electric to start the commissioning process from their facility in Ballarat, even before the MCC arrived in Australia. Upon arrival, commissioning was completed at SS Electric’s facility where it was pre-built in a portable room prior to being shipped to site. This also allowed the MCC to be customised to meet the site specifications of the quarry.

Improved Uptime and Compliance

Boral’s Charlton quarry is now benefitting from the new smart motor control solution which provides key diagnostic information that optimises performance with real time access to operation and performance trends. As the quarry moves towards a more Connected Enterprise, this increased visibility into the system and real time diagnostic data can be transformed into actionable and insightful information.

“A key focus of the Charlton project was to replace end of life electrical equipment for improved compliance and safety, while minimising any required downtime at the quarry,” explained Jake McClellan, Asset Manager, Boral Australia. “This was achieved with the new solution and the help of SS Electrics and Rockwell Automation. It was a very smooth project, and thanks to the increased visibility into the system, fault-finding time has been reduced from hours to minutes and what was previously a very manually controlled process is now completely automated.”

“In addition, the plant manager can now monitor production trends and energy consumption in real time, which assists with plant optimisation. With the new MCC, the quarry can confidently service customer demand well into the future. As a result of the success of this project, we have plans to implement similar systems in our other quarries,” said McClellan.

Allen-Bradley, ArcShield, CENTERLINE, ControlLogix, E300, Guardmaster, IntelliCENTER, Point I/O, PowerFlex, Rockwell Automation, Rockwell Software, SMC, Stratix and Studio 5000 are trademarks of Rockwell Automation, Inc.