Engineering & ICT Solutions

Vertical and horizontal integration of the Control, MES (Manufacturing Execution System) and ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) layers and exchange of process and logistic information are key factors for agile and efficient manufacturing. With PCA (Process Control and Automation), Hint provides solutions, "fit for purpose", ranging from small control or monitoring applications to the automation of an entire production process.

Hint not only designs and implements custom made process automation systems, but can also add missing functionality to standard software and existing systems. By connecting systems in all departments of your company, it is possible to connect process (production) data to office data. This results in a complete overview of business / management information.

Process Automation Solutions

Hint offers a number of "off-the-shelf" process automation solutions which can be customised (if necessary) to customer needs.

• Intelligent Monitoring Applications
  The primary measurements from industrial processes include hidden information that can be extracted to gain a deeper insight into the plant's operation. In most cases this extra information remains unused. Some examples:
  
  
  • Process models based on physical relationships can be the basis for "soft sensors" allowing to monitor what really affects the life expectancy of your assets.
  • Contrary to normal process alarms, alert messages generated by intelligent algorithms, such as Statistical Process Control (SPC) give a much better indication whether a situation is truly significant.
  Also the transactional information from your business processes include hidden, unused information. KPI monitoring can extract this information and make it available at the business intelligence level.
  
  Many of the solutions provided by Hint fall in this Intelligent Monitoring category.
  
  
• Product Management and Transportation Logistics
  Whenever products cross the boundaries of a plant, accurate measurement of quantities en qualities are essential, as errors translate directly into money. Consequently there are legal requirements to validate that the information is correct and trustworthy. Applications include storage, loading, shipping and receiving of products, identification of containers, vehicles and carriers, checking of commercial documents and authorisation of personnel to access the premises and to perform material movement activities. The liability for the materials rests both with the selling and the receiving party, requiring tracking and tracing of the products throughout the supply chain to support potential remedial action.

Automation Projects
As system integrator Hint delivers PLC, SCADA and DCS based installations to automate your production processes. Besides the standard modules and software available from the main system companies, we include Hint technology, such as flow computers, intelligent monitoring software, and softPLC based stations.

Software Engineering
Before commencing with software implementation, Hint provides conceptual design engineering and architectural design as a solid fundament for custom built process automation.