For automated material handling solutions, good control system design
is just as important as the your material handling hardware. In
fact, average hardware with good controls design and implementation will
out perform great hardware with an average controls design. The
heart of any material handling system is its controls.
Material
Handling Control Systems
Modern control systems are broken down into different categories,
which you use will depend upon what you are trying to do. Let's
start at the bottom and work our way up.
May or may not be industrial
computers, usually run some version of an MS Windows operating
system. Can be used for direct machine control, but usually
involved when there is a need for either data collection or operator
feedback.
This has to
do with the retrieval and storage of process data. This can be
data from individual machines or from a group of machines.
Typically storing this data for long term analysis and/or short term
adjustments.
Read more about each of these types of controllers in their
associated links.