Automation

BESTECH’s team of highly-skilled Automation Specialists is ready to work with you to meet your system integration needs. Our ability to work with a wide variety of technologies, platforms and systems enables us to develop effective and efficient industrial automation solutions. Our knowledgeable team has the expertise to design an automation system with the functionality that you want, while ensuring a high standard of quality. We make it our goal to use our skills to develop and provide complete systems that will accurately represent your industrial processes.  

The BESTECH automation team will deliver automated solutions of any level of complexity for your industrial facility. From simple “manual-only” operations to full plant automation, our team will meet your system needs. Our experienced specialists are equipped to provide many complex functions, including automatic systems and multiple cascading loop control over multiple PLCs.

During commissioning, our group works closely with your team of engineers, process control staff and operators to keep everyone informed, involved and trained. This ensures that new systems come online safely and effectively. If challenges arise, our years of experience and knowledge enable us to develop a multitude of solutions. Through the close synergy with BESTECH’s engineering team and the strong relationships with our clients, our automation team has the flexibility to quickly adapt and adjust to necessary changes.

Smelter Calciner Plant

The purpose of this plant is to remove volatiles from a wide range of feeds (spent catalysts, batteries, plating sludges) so that they can be added to the smelter furnace without affecting the metallurgy of the matte. Feed materials are introduced into a rotary kiln Calciner to burn off any volatiles, then separated via a material handling system and then pneumatically conveyed to a furnace bin system. The kiln off-gas volatiles are burned off, cooled, and filtered before the off-gas is sent to the stack. Emissions are monitored by the use of a Continuous Emissions Monitor (CEM) system in order to meet the strict guidelines imposed by the Ministry of the Environment. This plant is operated by a Foxboro workstation and any system can be controlled manually or automatically.

BESTECH’s Automation team was an integral part of creating the functional description to the client’s specifications, programming the PLC and DCS, commissioning the entire plant as well as providing training and training manuals for the client’s Instrumentation/Electrical personnel and plant operators. This project also included integrating this PLC with another system PLC for smooth / seamless process control between the Calciner Plant and the existing smelter furnace system, as well as getting the Foxboro DCS new mesh system to communicate seamlessly with the legacy Nodebus system. The Automation team worked with the client to ensure that the information gathered went to their PI system for monitoring and data recording.

Platform: Siemens PLC, Siemens Step 7, Foxboro I/A, Foxboro I/A Series Configuration Component (IACC)

D-mine 96L Loading Pocket

This loading pocket is loaded from a 400 ft. tall ore bin that is fed from the 92L ore bin rock breaker. The ore feeder and conveyor equipment can be bypassed completely and muck can be dumped directly from a scoop at 96L into the loading pocket. This system is operated from the hoisting control room on surface. The shaft bottom for D-Mine is currently 9,800 ft. below the surface.
 

BESTECH’s Automation team effectively and efficiently programmed and commissioned the 96L loading pocket according to the functional description that was created to the client’s specifications. The PLC for this project controls the ore handling for the entire mine, therefore it was critical to program as efficiently as possible to minimize the amount of memory needed for this additional loading pocket.

Platform: Modicon Quantum PLC, Schneider Electric Concept, InTouch Wonderware, OSIsoft PI