Seeds are often stored for long periods of time and to prevent them from germinating or getting purified during that time, they are coated to protect them
against moisture. As soil can contain bacteria and viruses which can be detrimental to the germination process, the coating also contains substances to
protect the seeds against those bacteria and viruses.
The coating process is delicate and temperature and humidity are critical parameters. For quality control reasons these parameters should be recorded and
stored, along with the seed batch numbers, in a database. If after a few years, a farmer has sowed the seeds and they do not germinate, the supplier of
the seeds is able to prove that nothing went wrong during the coating process.
The coating plant has six coating machines. To record the temperature and humidity, one SAN MultiPorter is used to connect two machines to the company's LAN.
Each MultiPorter is also connected to a barcode scanner which is used to start and stop the logging process. Work orders to coat seeds come from the ERP
system and have unique batch numbers.
After charging the machine with seeds, the logging process is activated by scanning the batch number. When the machine needs to be re-charged or cleaned,
special barcodes are scanned to stop, suspend or resume the logging.
The MultiPorters are used for temporary storage of the measurements and an SQL-Server database is used for permanent storage. Transfer of the logged
measurements from the MultiPorter to the SQL-Server database is performed by the universal data collection system, TableGrabber. Once the data has
been stored in an open database, it becomes relatively easy to consult, visualise and analyse it.
The universal visualisation system, GraphiGator, which can be connected to any database, is used to produce actual and historical charts from the data
stored in the SQL-Server database. Just the batch number is needed to view the results of any batch.
If during the coating process the temperature or humidity moves outside a valid range, the MultiPorter sends an IP message to the alarm management and
dispatching system, Messenger.
The Messenger continues to send an alarm until the appropriate corrective action is taken.
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