Neenah Foundry had an older Rockwell system that was not compliant with current safety standards. The foundry wanted an upgrade, but the system was so outdated, the Trident team recommended a new risk assessment. Working collaboratively with Rockwell’s safety engineer, the team carefully identified each hazard, the potential for risk, and the ways to mitigate the hazard. Risks ran broad range from something simple like uneven pavement to cautions taken around a giant melt furnace.

The customer wanted to automate as many safety points as possible. Controllers were designed to operate a door switch, safety guards on machines, switch guards, even automating area scanners to determine if there was a human or vehicle in range. “For example, a door would be guarded with a safety switch, comprising of redundant IO being timed within milliseconds and we needed to design a system that would detect a short or normal operating conditions,” said Yogesh Maheshwari, Engineering Manager.

Trident teams leveraged their expertise from process control to design a system for machine control using Rockwell GuardLogix. “These skill sets are compatible, and we were able to design an operating system that will work for the foundry for years to come,” Maheshwari said.

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