Control Engineering

For three days in the Dayton Airport Hotel, April 15-17, 10 Make2Pack ISA88 Part 5 committee members have gathered. We’re continuing to develop Working Draft 5 and deliver related explanations for Phase Interface, Data Control Component, the role of Custom Logic, and refine and deliver the Control Component Command interface.

ISA88 Part 5 demonstrations such as this one aim to ensure the models work before they’re made part of the standard.

...Read MoreComments (1)

As both of these groups, ISA88 Part 1 and Part 5, continue to develop and move forward I’d like to share a newer vision of Make2Pack as represented in the attached diagram.

Needed: An interface between recipe control and detailed equipment control.

The Make2Pack Part 5 effort is focused on the Process/Machine Task Strategy. To understand how that works with the rest of 88 there needs to be an interface between the recipe control (a term not current...Read More

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Yesterday's posting (A line in the sand: Equipment Phase) explained that the Make2Pack ISA88 Part 5 effort continues working with three types of control. Here are more details.


Equipment phase control
Equipment Phase Control is a type of ...Read More

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The ISA SP88 Part 1 group has made the decision to confine their models and descriptions around control what currently exists for the Equipment Phase. It will be the job of the Make2Pack Part 5 group to develop the concepts of the Process/Machine Task Strategy that exists as Equipment Control.

This will include finding an acceptable name and/or definition for the agreed to concept of a procedural entity that is equipment control and not commandable by a recipe, which is what the Make2Pack group has been calling Equipment Sequenced Control. We will continue with the concepts of only three types of Control.

For...Read More

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After several years of searching it seems there really may be an additional component to the ISA88 list of control. The Make2Pack effort has been struggling with this often misunderstood concept since its start. Sometimes there seemed to be something between the ISA88 Equipment Phase Procedural Control that is capable of being directed by a Recipe and Basic Control. Like Bigfoot and Nessie this elusive concept between Equipment Phase Procedural Control and Basic Control had many sightings but real proof has been difficult to sustain for the community at large.

After a recent ...Read More

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OK. You are here. You are interested, I hope. Here are opportunities to become involved and interact with the Make2Pack Working Group.

There are several upcoming events that can provide an opportunity to influence and learn about the evolving Make2Pack ISA SP88 Part 5 effort, in addition to regularly schedule conference calls. (Let me know if you’d like to participate in those, monthly.)

1. The WBF Conference in Philadelphia, March 24-26.

2. The Make2Pack face to face meeting at the Dayton Inter...Read More

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As the Make2Pack ISA88 Part 5 continues its efforts to bring understanding to the terms and models used in the industry we continue to stumble over the term “Device.” Following is the definition for a device found in the ANSI/ISA–51.1–1979 (R1993) Formerly ANSI/ISA–S51.1–1979 (R1993) standard:

device: An apparatus for performing a prescribed function.

In the ISA88 Part...Read More

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One of the goals of the Make2Pack ISA88 Part 5 effort is to provide a way for Control Components used in any environment to have a common “language” to the outside world and at the same time allowing control components to use their own “language” internally.

At some point I believe that the babble of internal proprietary communications between control components will be replaced by a universal method of communication. Until then a way to translate to the world outside the language of the proprietary environment is necessary and one of the items to be delivered by the Make2Pack effort.

To help in this effort Thomas Burke of the OPC Foundation has agreed to work with the M...Read More

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As suggested by yesterday's comments, "Machine modes, procedures, execute state," any automation opportunity can have thousands of solutions. One solution applied to packaging machines is the PackML State Model.

The PackML State Model applies to a packaging machine and not a batch unit, as such it uses ISA88 concepts and may not, nor is required to, use all of the ISA88 Batch guidelines as a Batch Unit might. The PackML concept applies to the entire physical machine and its associated control.

PackML's recommendation is that the procedure(s) required to satisfy the intent of the model be separated from the control co...Read More

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Recent discussions in the committee have included an explanation that there does not have to be a recipe/equipment procedure running when a machine is in the execute state. That is because the Control Component (automated or manual) that manages the Unit/Machine Recipe/Procedure can be used to bring the equipment control to the executing state and the remains active and monitoring the transition rules for the active Recipe/Procedure and stands ready to process any Procedure associated with the needed Operation that the transition rules indicate should become active.

The Control Component that manages the Unit/Machine was activated when the recipe/equipment procedure was selected and stated. Once started it sequences and activates the ordered and referenced operations (Starting, etc. Etc.) per the transition rules.

When the execute state of a machine is achieved th...Read More

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We have been struggling to find terms that can help in describing the modular Hierarchy of Make2Pack. Using Simple and Complex don’t work well as they can be considered by some as insulting and misleading. Last week we started down a path of finding a way to include physical things separate from the control applied to these physical things, and the hornet’s nest was disturbed!

In a discussion with Dr. Ken Ryan [Dr. Kenneth J. Ryan is director, Manufacturing Automation Education Center for Automation and Motion Control at Alexandria Technical College] on how this was accomplished in Mechatroni...Read More

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Continuing some thoughts from yesterday ("We need to protect stupid people from doing dumb things"), automation engineers are right that their tools often are sharp and come without handles. This does not mean that handles and protective sheaths can’t be created and made available, though. 

Unfortunately, in today’s environment creating these handles and sheaths requires additional effort and cost. Even where some equipment suppliers do provide a form of protection and allow modular automation that can provide access to the pieces and parts, each solution is always very different from all others, and end users find themselves confused and frustrated.

The most successfu...Read More

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