Axion to introduce data logger

Axion Consulting, a U.K.-based firm involved in research and consulting for the recycling industry, has developed a data logger designed for continuous process plants that aims to help operators understand and eliminate the cause of downtime. Axion says the logger is expected to provide recyclers with significant financial savings.

According to Axion, the monitoring device has reduced downtime by 50 percent at Axion’s Shredder Waste Advanced Processing Plant (SWAPP), which produces high-quality recycled polymers from end-of-life vehicles (ELV). Although developed for the waste industry, the data logger is suitable for a wide variety of other continuous processing industries with similar characteristics.

The data logger is capable of working with existing programmable logic controllers (PLC) from different manufacturers. It can provide hard data on a plant’s downtime and its causes, enabling operators to analyze faults and focus on systems improvements. A key feature prevents an operator restarting the plant until a stop cause has been inputted.

For a multisite operation the data logger makes it possible to compare sites and performance of sites or shifts, with the added benefit of accessing data remotely when logged in. Installing the data logger on four PLCs at its Trafford Park, U.K., plant is already delivering benefits for Axion, which offers a number of versions configured to individual client requirements.

Roger Morton, Axion’s director, says, “Since using the data logger our downtime has dropped by around 50 percent, so it’s been a very worthwhile investment for us. It could also be of huge benefit to others; that’s why we have decided to share our expertise with external clients.”

Morton says that accurate monitoring of processes has already helped to create savings and identify where improvements can be implemented.

“We developed it for ourselves because we couldn’t find anyone else offering a package for the waste industry that gave all the features we wanted, including interfacing with multiple PLCs and forcing a structured input of stop causes so that these can be analyzed in a regulated way," Morton says.

The data logger developer, Axion Senior Engineer Sam Haig, says overall equipment effectiveness can be optimized through complex data analyses of variables such as uptime, throughput rate and quality over an extended period of time.

“Reports generated by our data logger enabled us to determine the optimum balance between several variables and this has cut our downtime by half,” he says. “This data can be processed quite quickly and interpreted in a way that it leads you to the best solution.”

Morton adds, “While the data logger is very relevant for the waste management industry, we think it offers great scope for many other similar industries incorporating separate processing units, such as aggregate mineral processors and food processors.”