自1971年以来，Valparaiso的工作组提示（TFT），印第安纳州为全球客户制造了高质量的水电解决方案。他们的重点是消防行业的喷嘴，但它们的产品包括软管，阀门，用于去冰的喷嘴和泡沫解决方案。
For many years TFT has had a robotic picker picking from hundreds of parts bins along a 100 foot multi-level picking line. The robot was controlled by a COBOL program via serial connection running on a Linux box. This picking line had become problematic with frequent breakdowns and slow response time to commands.
The team at TFT began to explore solutions to make the line more reliable and efficient. To accomplish this, they began by completely overhauling the robot. For control, they chose Allen-Bradley ControlLogix PLCs and A-B servo drives. The question for TFT then became, how to maintain their control program on the Linux box and use it to pass commands to the ControlLogix PLC. It was suggested that TFT investigate OPC technology.
许多小时后研究OPC和如何be useful to their application, Stewart McMillan, President of TFT, contacted Software Toolbox. Stewart found that Software Toolbox could provide a single source for the tools and service to create a solution using the TOP Server OPC Server and OPC DataHub® from Cogent Real-Time Systems, Stewart was able to find a solution that fit the needs and the budget of the project. Using the TOP Server Allen-Bradley driver suite (specifically, ControlLogix Ethernet driver) and the OPC DataHub the existing COBOL program was able to be retained for use with the new and improved control hardware. As Stewart McMillan says, “It is magical what this can do for our application.”
在此应用程序中，顶部服务器连接到ControlloGix PLC和OPC DataHub。通过其ODBC接口的OPC DataHub连接到ODBC数据源。COBOL程序将命令作为参数传递给该数据源，OPC DataHub读取到OPC数据点，然后通过顶部服务器写入PLC以进行控制。然后，对这些命令的响应将通过该链传递给ODBC数据源以被COBOL程序读取，以确定序列中的下一步。
TFT has seen significant improvement in efficiency of the line and to date, has nearly eliminated downtime on the line. According to Stewart McMillan, “It is really a pretty unique application. It is so much faster than what we had before! Now we are trying to find other problems to solve.” In regards to the application he goes on to say: “I think that it is an unusual way to use the technology but has been VERY effective for our business results.”
