Original Date: 05/01/1992
Revision Date: 01/18/2007

Texas Instrument/Semiconductor Group/Military Products (TI/SG/MP) facility management is complicated by the wide diversity of equipment, equipment spacing, and large volumes of environmental areas. In addition, government requirements for de-ionized water, and temperature control must be monitored and controlled. Associated with these requirements is data collection to document effective control.

The facilities department at TI/SG/MP had an opportunity to address these issues when the performance of its de-ionization system began to seriously degrade. A survey of existing monitoring systems revealed that none had all of the capabilities for integrating programmable logic controllers (PLC) together over a connecting network. TI/SG/MP was aware of a shop floor control system - TISTAR - used at the Dallas operations which met this criteria.

Use of TISTAR required the development of some sensors to monitor the various facilities' equipment and the development of some electrical interfaces to effect equipment control. The sensors and electrical interfaces were connected to the programmable logic controllers which were in turn connected to TISTAR. TI/SG/MP then connected the de-ionized water plant, chillers, cooling towers, compressed air units, energy management system, and lights into the network. To facilitate ease of use, screens were designed to show schematics of the process operations, and a track ball was introduced to move the cursor around the screen. SAS was selected as the statistical analysis package.

TI/SG/MP now has a completely automated monitoring and control system which gives information on performance and performance trends; alarms when a trend is approaching tolerance limits; assists in diagnostics for troubleshooting; and can be used for predictive and preventive maintenance. In documentation costs alone, TI/SG/MP has saved approximately one-half to three-quarters of a manyear since implementation in 1991.

The Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition software has been upgraded to Intellution’s FIX DMACS. Due to advances in networking capabilities and technology in general, a Windows based software has been used to simplify the ability to access key information. New capabilities include data recording directly to Windows applications, third party connectivity on both the pic side of the software and the Windows side, and remote monitoring.

The kilowatt-hour readings from the electrical substations have been added to the system as well as a third party alarm system that pages key personnel on critical alarms. The enhanced networking capabilities give the option of viewing facilities operations from virtually anywhere in the plant.

For more information see the Point of Contact for this survey.