ColdBox makes temperature controlled transport boxes. They came to us looking to reduce control costs and improve system performance.

Their needs:

Temperature Control, both heat and cool: Temperature must be maintained within very narrow window for critical applications including pharmaceutical transport.

Touchscreen: Allow users to adjust settings and verify performance.

Cellular Transceiver: Allows supervisory control of fleet over the internet, including monitoring of conditions and adjustment of settings.

When ColdBox approached us, they were using an AllenBradley  MicroLogix solution. Between their PLC and related control equipment, their controls cost them approximately $3,400 per box. We reduced their costs to $400 per box, a 88% savings.

Equipment used: Embedded Ace 7096 with a custom motherboard. With it’s built in thermocouples, we could easily monitor temperature in different sections of the ColdBoxes. The 2 RS232 ports allowed us to communicate with both a TouchScreen (using MODBUS RTU) and a  Cellular Transceiver (using custom messages).

Big Improvements

• 88% savings (From $3,400 per system down to $400)
  

• Reduced Installation Costs (the smaller footprint and simplified wiring allows their technicians to build systems much faster)

• 23% Battery Efficiency improvement. Velocio was able to achieve dramatic battery efficiency improvements. This gave them the option of reducing the batteries used in each system, or extending the range of each box.

What ColdBox says about Velocio.net

Changing to the Velocio PLCs reduced our material and labor costs substantially, but more importantly it eliminated numerous points of failure compared to our previous operating system. The introduction of the Velocio PLC is responsible for dramatically improved reliability and efficiency of our product. – Foster McDonald (CEO)

Programming is more flexible, quicker and easier to implement. Operation is more intuitive. Because of the more advanced flow chart programming, we were able to improve battery performance by 23%. Every aspect is better than our previous solution. Velocio has been totally responsive to any and all issues that have been encountered, providing solutions that are timely and customer focused. – Tony Cook (R&D Manager)

Changing from the MicroLogix to Velocio made product assembly much more efficient and Reduced the space required by 90% – Richard Maze (Manufacturing Manager)

Velocio was able to implement functions that we simply weren’t  able to do with the Allen Bradley unit. That has greatly enhanced  remote operation of our fleet. – Jackie Thompson (Fleet Operations Manager)