Perseverance, Technology, Pay Off for Chick Counting Solution by David Fancher OEM business development specialist Schneider Electric USA, Inc. Make the most of your energy SM
Summary Introduction... p 3 Proving there s a better way... p 5 PLCs get smarter to accommodate a growing concern... p 6 One of the fastest in the world... p 7 A united front... p 7
Perseverance, technology, pay off for chick counting solution Introduction One chick, two chick, three chick, four chick. Old chick, new chick, 1,024 chicks! Here come more, and more chicks. The business of counting chicks sounds like it comes directly from a Dr. Seuss book but the multibillion dollar industry is not child s play. The average price for day-old chicks is $20 per 100. So what s the big deal if you miscount by one chick a mere one percent loss? Consider the math for a poultry company that typically produces 400,000 chicks a day, four days a week, 52 weeks a year at just one hatchery. Now imagine they have 38 hatcheries. That one percent loss has just turned into more than $6 million. And that s just the tip of the iceberg. Every time a bird is miscounted, it sets off a cycle of loss for each stakeholder, including the poultry producer, the farmer, the feed provider and on down the chain. White Paper for Schneider Electric warrior systems case study 3
Consider the math for a poultry company that typically produces 400,000 chicks a day one percent loss has just turned into more than $6 million.
Perseverance, technology, pay off for chick counting solution Proving there s a better way Warrior Systems (Gainesville, Ga.) takes chick counting very seriously. The company manufactures, sells and services automated hatcheries for chickens and turkeys in the United States and Canada. The original counting system on their machines used a proprietary counting card an industry norm back in the 80s and 90s. However, the older counting cards were becoming obsolete and had a history of problems. Plus, they re expensive to replace, especially because the original manufacturer went out of business. Richard Storer, Warrior Systems owner, saw an opportunity to replace the counting cards with more advanced technology a programmable logic controller (PLC). We had to get rid of the proprietary cards, Storer said. They were dreadfully expensive. We decided to retrofit our existing two-lane chick counting machines with a PLC. After the initial meeting, Storer took the group to a local hatchery so they could understand the requirements of the machine. Schneider Electric brought in a group of machine automation, programming and integration experts from its OEM Technology and Solutions Center (TaSC) based in Raleigh, N.C. to begin what turned out to be a laborious process. With absolutely no documentation from the prior automation vendor, and some code in a foreign language, Schneider Electric engineers set out to convert the chick counting machines to its Modicon M340 PLC platform. The majority of their time was spent at the hatchery, deciphering code while watching the machines count chicks. The whole team from Schneider Electric was so enthusiastic, Storer said. These folks got right in it at three or four in the morning, with their coffee, counting chicks to get the program right. It s not easy to count something like that, but everyone was so willing to be there. Warrior began the retrofit conversion process with another automation provider, but Storer wasn t happy with the results. We needed the two-lane machines to count 60,000 chicks per hour, which is what they were performing with the counting cards, Storer said. But the first PLC we tried maxed out at 40,000 chicks per hour and then plunged off and wasn t accurate. We couldn t have that. Ultimately it took more than a year to rewrite the code so the machines performed in the way Storer wanted. It was all worth it in the end, though. Not only did Schneider Electric get the chick counter to work with the M340 PLC, but they got it to work faster. After the retrofit, the machine was consistently counting 70,000 chicks per hour, and even faster than that in short bursts, all while remaining within the industry standard for accuracy of ± three chicks per thousand. Shortly thereafter, Storer was paid a visit by Schneider Electric, one of the world s leading suppliers of power, control and automation solutions. The folks from Schneider Electric said, There s a better way. Give us an opportunity and we ll prove it, Storer said. In virtually no time at all, they did. Within a week to ten days we had a meeting with the right people where we discussed what we wanted the machines to do and why. White Paper for Schneider Electric warrior systems case study 5
Perseverance, technology, pay off for chick counting solution PLCs get smarter to accommodate a growing concern Equally impressive, was the accuracy and capability of the machine thanks to its new brain the M340 PLC. According to Storer, most chick counters will see an object as it passes a sensor, and that object becomes a count of one. Most chick counters don t know if what s passing through is the top of a soda can, a mushroom, or a piece of shell and there are lots of shells. A handful of shells can significantly impact the box count, Storer said. To complicate matters, the size of newly-hatched chicks varies throughout the day. Therefore, the chicks counted at 9 a.m. are a different size from chicks counted at noon. On older machines, operators must stop the counting process and make adjustments to account for the growth as the day goes on. In addition, the older systems can t distinguish between one larger bird and two small birds. Using the M340 PLC and eight individual sensors, Warrior was able to overcome the growth dilemma by perpetually mapping the birds masses and entering the information into a mathematical formula to account for variations in size. Operators never have to stop the machine to make adjustments because the M340 software runs in the background and perpetually updates the value. According to Storer, all of this is possible due to the M340 PLC s speed. The M340 is a blindingly fast processor, Storer said. The program needs to run in the background and be as unobtrusive as possible. A slower PLC can t handle this. 6 White Paper for Schneider Electric warrior systems case study
Perseverance, technology, pay off for chick counting solution One of the fastest in the world A united front In addition to retrofitting the two-lane chick counters, Storer also wanted to incorporate the M340 PLC technology into a three-lane chick counter prototype he built. His goal with the three-lane machine was to achieve a minimum of 80,000 chicks per hour consistently. Not only did the machine meet this goal, it can count up to 90,000 chicks per hour in peaks, while still remaining accurate. There s only one other company in the world that can count this fast, Storer said. The M340 has allowed us to build one of the fastest machines in the world. For Warrior customers, this means they can replace three older two-lane machines with two three-lane machines. The counting speed, counting accuracy and pure performance of the three-lane machine with the M340 achieved our objectives, said Storer. It is a sight to behold. It s wickedly fast. Both the retrofitted two-lane chick counters, and the new three-lane counters use commercial off-theshelf equipment from Schneider Electric, including a Magelis XBTGT human machine interface (HMI) that replaces old push buttons. The HMI gives users access to real-time on-board diagnostics, including how many amps each motor is pulling, the performance of each sensor, and fault data all things that can assist with maintenance and troubleshooting, and eliminate downtime. The HMI also maintains a data history for 50 flocks, with the ability to record and ultimately transmit the information to another database for report generation. Schneider Electric s team approach was somewhat of a surprise to Storer, albeit a pleasant one. You don t get a team effort very much these days, especially not support for a small company like ours from a massive company like Schneider Electric, Storer said. According to Storer, it seemed like the greater the challenge, the more motivated the Schneider Electric team was to get it right. And he couldn t be more pleased his machines utilize the latest technology, count faster than anyone else s, and maintain their accuracy. The whole approach was old-school service from a modern company, said Storer. Everyone got together and teamed up to achieve the result. While it took perseverance, Schneider Electric did prove there was a better way with the right products and resources to offer a complete solution for Warrior Systems and their hatchery customers. Taking Control Not only was Warrior able to eliminate the counting cards and utilize a PLC for both machine types, they also gained a fully documented control program. Our customers have every component and every part number, Storer said. This solution is completely userserviceable. All the information is there. White Paper for Schneider Electric warrior systems case study 7
David Fancher is an OEM business development specialist for the Schneider Electric North American Operating Division. He attended the University of South Carolina with post-graduate studies at Johns Hopkins University. He has bachelor s degrees in electrical and computer engineering. He has been with Schneider Electric for 20 years and is based in Atlanta. For more information about Warrior Systems, visit www.warriorsystemsinc.com. For information about Schneider Electric s industrial solutions, visit www.schneider-electric. us/solutions/industrial-solutions. Schneider Electric USA, Inc. 1415 S. Roselle Road Palatine, IL 60067 Tel: 847-397-2600 Fax: 847-925-7500 www.schneider-electric.us This document has been printed on recycled paper 2010 Schneider Electric Industries SAS, All Rights Reserved. Document Number 8000HO1073 September 2010 tk