Design of the Control System of a Flexible Line for Manufacturing Metallic Parts by Using Programmable Logic Controllers

The paper presents the design process of a control system for a line which manufactures metallic parts for the automotive industry. The manufacturing line is designed so that it can produce several product models. The control system, based on a programmable logic controller (PLC), is designed to allow on-the-fly reconfiguration of the line based on the recipe selected by the operator. Equally, the hardware configuration and the PLC program allow the further development of the manufacturing line by adding new stations (and obviously new recipes). By incorporating into the control system modular programming techniques, a large amount of safety measures, tools necessary to ensure product traceability and a modern human-machine interface (HMI), the design ensures high efficiency of the manufacturing line, a high level of safety of the operators and of the plant, compliance with current quality requirements and the possibility to expand the line for extending the product range without considerable effort.