Automation Engineering
Shambaugh provides cutting-edge process automation technology for food process, industrial, pharmaceutical and other manufacturing plants—including work on refrigeration systems, material handling systems, and utility systems.
Combining engineering services, instrument services, shop-fabricated control panels, and complete design-build system installation services, Shambaugh offers some of the most comprehensive plant facility automation capabilities in the marketplace today.
Additionally, our talented automation engineering services team strives to provide expeditious project scoping, accurate cost estimates, complete equipment specifications, detailed scheduling, and skilled project management.
Key Industries
- Food and beverage processing
- Pharmaceutical
- Automotive
- Steel
- Industrial
- Water and waste water
Core Capabilities
- Programmable logic controllers (PLCs)
- Human machine interfaces (HMIs)
- Ethernet networks
- Server data management
- Integrated plant floor and front office data collection
- Overall equipment effectiveness (OEE)
- Manufacturing execution system (MES) implementation
- Batching systems
- Recipe management
- UL 508A Panel Fabrication
Solutions for Scalability
In effort to eliminate system integration dead ends from the onset, we develop innovative automation engineering plans that help meet current requirements while scaling to match customer growth.
Our automation engineering team self-performs each aspect of the job, including design-build functions, panel assembly, installation, and training—all without the use of subcontractors. Managing your project from start to finish helps streamline schedules, control costs, avoid duplicated efforts, and optimize internal coordination—providing our customers with single-source project solutions.
We have extensive experience programming PLC and HMI software packages. Our team takes your facility’s current controls systems and licensing into account when working to develop a solution that is right for you.
Manufacturer Certifications and Trainings
- Inductive Automation Ignition Gold Certified Integrator
- Sepasoft MES Certified Integrator
- Thinmanager Certified Integrator
- Wonderware Registered System Integrator
- Rockwell
- Siemens
Process Controls and Facility Automation Capabilities
- Process control plan and automation design and implementation
- Hardware integration and software development
- Instrumentation specification and calibration
- Control panel design and fabrication
- Process network design
- Installation, calibration, and startup
- PLC, HMI, OEE, Batching, MES, MRP and ERP implementation
Perry’s Ice Cream, AKRON, NY
Value Delivered
Shambaugh’s automation engineering team designed, procured, and installed all the control hardware and programming needed to update the programmable logic controller (PLC) at the Perry’s Ice Cream manufacturing facility in Akron, NY.
Before this project, the facility was operated by a variety of independent, obsolete control systems. Shambaugh installed the new system parallel to the existing system and then transferred the old controls over to the new PLC. The parallel installation significantly reduced downtime, allowing the plant to maintain full production schedules.
Client Objectives
Perry’s Ice Cream needed significant updates to their central ammonia system controls. Over time, they had layered new systems on top of their original system in order to accommodate increased production, resulting in a centralized compressor room without a centralized PLC.
Solutions
During the retrofit project, the Shambaugh team delivered a full suite of process controls solutions, including:
- Design, procurement, and installation of all control hardware and programming for a new, centralized PLC
- Compressor and condenser control coordinated with all plant safety systems
- Antiquated control panels retrofitted with state-of-the-art systems equipped for both local and remote control
- Out-of-date control panels repurposed into junction boxes
Client Background
Perry’s Ice Cream is a fourth-generation company that has produced and distributed ice cream in upstate New York for over 100 years.
Valley Milk, LLC, TURLOCK, CA
Value Delivered
Shambaugh’s automation engineering group provided systems controls, engineering, and instrumentation services for Valley Milk’s 136,000-square-foot dairy processing plant.
The Shambaugh team was involved with the project from the initial design phase onward. They collaborated closely with other trades and the planning team to help ensure instrumentation and controls panels were incorporated into 3D-models, which helped installation finish ahead of schedule.
To stay ahead of schedule, the controls network needed to be commissioned before the plant had permanent Internet access. Using wireless hotspots scattered throughout the building, Shambaugh successfully commissioned the process servers and network switches, all while the network engineer worked remotely from Fort Wayne, IN.
Client Objectives
Valley Milk wanted to construct a new United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) dairy dryer processing plant. As a newly formed organization, Valley Milk needed to partner with a company experienced in the dairy industry that could provide full pre-construction and pre-engineering consultation.
Solutions
Shambaugh was the design-builder for Valley Milk’s new dairy drying plant and was contracted for the entire new facility. In addition to process controls and automation, Shambaugh provided total project construction management, process, mechanical, fire protection, electrical, fabrication, temperature controls and voice/data/video/security.
During the project, the Automation Engineering team provided the following:
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Process design, equipment and control systems for milk receiving, milk separation, milk standardization, evaporation and drying
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Supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) system with strategically placed human machine interfaces (HMIs)
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Wi-Fi study and wireless network installation allowing handheld access to SCADA – a late design addition, completed on-time and on-budget
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Process and automation engineers collaborated with the equipment operators to help ensure smooth transition to full production
Client Background
Valley Milk is made up of five multi-generational Central Valley dairy families, nutritionists, and veterinarians. The Turlock facility, which is their first project, is supplied by 16 dairy farms and employs approximately 55 people.