Modernisation of an Automatic Gear Oil Handling Station

Abstract

The modernisation of automated systems is becoming increasingly common in manufacturing as companies seek to improve traceability and reduce manual errors. The work was commissioned by PCS Engineering Oy and carried out during a traineeship at the company’s Rovaniemi office. The objective was to replace an existing EATON-based oil filling controller with a Siemens S7-1214C PLC and TP900 HMI panel. The new system was required to automatically identify the product being filled using a barcode scanner and dispense the correct oil volume based on the scanned code, eliminating manual volume selection by the operator. The system was designed and implemented as a practical engineering project. A new electrical cabinet was designed, and the electrical schematics were drawn from scratch. The PLC program was developed in TIA Portal V21 using FBD and SCL programming languages. The HMI was configured to provide the operator with real-time process status, alarm management, product history, and a password-protected manual mode. A SICK CDF communication module was paired with Honeywell scanner, connected by PROFINET, and an OPC UA server weas configured to allow the customer’s IT system to update oil filling recipes when needed. The result was a fully operational automated oil filling system that was commissioned at the client’s facility. Factory and site acceptance tests confirmed that the system functioned as intended. The filling process became traceable and consistent, with duplicate scan detection preventing double filling errors. The project provided broad practical experience across the full lifecycle of an automation project, covering electrical design, PLC and HMI programming, industrial networking and system commissioning.