Fane Valley, UK - Animal Feed Mill

Fane Valley opened their new £18 million state-of-the-art compounding feed mill in 2010. The mill at Omagh, Northern Ireland is the most modern in Europe. The mill is controlled by DSL's AutoPilot4Feed control system with some advanced and innovative features.

The feed mill has a compounding capacity of 300,000 tonnes of multi-species animal feed through two mixing lines and four press lines. AutoPilot4Feed automates the entire mill from raw material delivery to finished product collection and is fully integrated with the Microsoft Dynamics AX commercial system.

The control system centres on a 64 bit Windows 2008 rack server PC with a SQL Server database (replicated to a standby server to provide built-in redundancy). Through the fast ethernet network this connects to a number of Wago PLCs, AS-i units and Inverters to monitor and control the plant. A variety of thin clients and desktop PCs connect to the server to provide client workstations at various locations on the plant.

 

Control system key features:-

 

• Driver operated intake and outloading
• Blending and press control fully automated and optimised for maximum mill utilisation
• Windows based with fast ethernet for all communications to plant
• Full seamless integration with   Microsoft Dynamics AX commercial system
• Plan4Feed module provides tool for production scheduling
• AssetMaster module provides equipment maintenance facility
• Hand Held PDA for wireless control

"DSL were selected based on the fact they used the latest technology and were regarded as the best available"  
William McAusland - Production Director, Fane Valley Feeds