Page 7 - Industrial Technology EXTRA 26th April 2021

correct downstream. In such a highly synchronised expertise and support provided as well as the
system, effective inter-process control becomes opportunities offered for continuous education and
crucial. When the project to make improvements training.”
started the incumbent control system on Bakkavor David Hamilton, Site Engineering Manager for
Pizza’s dough rolling section was over 20 years old. Bakkavor Pizza, confirms: “Control Freaks and
Simply as a result of its age and relative Mitsubishi Electric have supported us with top-
obsolescence any issues had become harder to fix quality products and services on this latest project.”
over time and production was not running at
optimum efficiency. Reverse engineering
To address these issues, the food manufacturer When looking at migrating the existing control
got in touch with its preferred system integrator system to a new, modern setup, Mitsubishi Electric
Control Freaks that, in turn, contacted its first-line and Control Freaks noted the presence of some
automation supplier Mitsubishi Electric. Clint programming code operating on a separate
Johnson, Director at Control Freaks, provides processor, or microcomputer, within the original
context to that decision: “We have been relying on PLC set-up. The 16-bit processor was not able to
Mitsubishi Electric and its products since Control handle complex mathematical functions, therefore
Freaks was founded. In effect, I have to thank its between 30-50% of the entire dough rolling process
supportive teams for enabling me to build and grow was handled by this separate microcomputer.
my business. We particularly appreciate the quality To further complicate the upgrade project, there
and cost-effectiveness of the products, the level of was no way to extract this code to include it in the

April 2021 • INDUSTRIAL TECHNOLOGY EXTRA • p7