Casar Srl is a company that has been processing tomatoes, cultivated exclusively in the Sardinian countryside, since 1962. Its production plant in Serramanna occupies about 120,000 square meters. In the Casar factory, Sardinian tomatoes are processed and packaged fresh within 12 hours of harvesting, and therefore the plants must operate 24 hours a day to be able to process the large quantities.
In the past, it was necessary to oversee the factory continuously during peak harvesting periods. Being able to monitor the factory remotely without having to be physically present around the clock would have been a big advantage for the company, improving safety and maintenance. Casar commissioned Gattermayer Srl, collaborating with QService, to modernize the facility. Knowing the potential of ABB's intelligent distribution offering, Casar recommended installation of two new System pro E Power switchboards to replace obsolete ones, equipped with ABB’s new range of Tmax XT molded-case circuit-breakers.
All the electrical assets were connected to Ekip UP modules to communicate energy parameters. Ekip UP is the plug-and-play digital unit that allows transformation of low-voltage systems into digital microgrids by connecting the existing electrical system to the ABB Ability™ Electrical Distribution Control System (EDCS) cloud-based energy management platform*.
Ekip UP monitors the system, verifying that the protection devices are operating correctly and guaranteeing rapid fault diagnostics. In addition, the module permits engineers to make choices for optimizing the plants for productivity and energy costs.
For Casar, six Ekip UP digital units act as masters, collecting data from the 40 circuit-breakers in the board. Ekip UP units work also as gateways to the cloud, sending information on the status of the devices to the ABB Ability™ EDCS cloud platform to enable completely remote monitoring of the Casar plant.
“We specialize in the design, construction and installation of medium- and low-voltage electrical boards,” said Giacinto Gattermayer, owner of Gattermayer Srl. “We use ABB solutions to meet growing demand for remotely monitoring systems, even from a smartphone. With the new generation Tmax XT circuit-breakers and the EDCS cloud platform, we are able to create intelligent boards that allow our customers to remotely control their systems.”
Employing ABB’s EDCS platform allows Casar always to be “virtually” present in the plant and to be able to monitor the status of various devices without having to be physically onsite during the continuous cycle period.
On the ABB Ability™ EDCS platform, information is available through countless widgets available for monitoring—through laptop, tablet or smartphone—data on energy consumption, faults or malfunctions, comparisons of energy data from different periods, control of the connectivity status. Engineers also monitor the consumption of water, gas and heat using meters connected to the system.
“Casar is a rapidly growing company and requires technologically advanced systems to ensure maximum productivity along with high quality standards,” noted Casar Srl Managing Director Michel Elias. “We have decided to invest in modernizing our electrical systems to be able to monitor the plant without having to establish a continuous presence of maintenance personnel during the ongoing production cycle. The solution proposed by the Gattermayer Group and Qservice immediately seemed interesting to us; and, once available, it fulfilled all our requests. ABB's cloud platform is intuitive and simple and allows us, even if we are not specialists, to control the main parameters of our plant and to be able to activate corrective actions immediately.”
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*The two current and well-known energy and asset management solutions ABB Ability™ Electrical Distribution Control System (EDCS) and ABB Ability™ Asset Health for Electrical systems - MyRemoteCare have been constantly further developed and are migrating into a single user interface. ABB Electrification celebrates this offering evolution with the new ABB Ability™ Energy and Asset Manager.
