Refrigeration Control

THE PROBLEM

Agromar Industrial is proud of the quality of its products. For this Peruvian exotic fruit exporter, that is a differentiating issue with regard its competitors that results in better selling prices 
A fundamental quality issue consists on keeping the perishable food products within strict temperature ranges. A too high temperature tarnishes the merchandise, notoriously shortens the life on the shelves and increases the risk of failing to comply with the food norms. On the other hand, a too low temperature could alter forever the product’s organoleptic features.
Furthermore, the global markets demand historic records showing that the product has been stored at the adequate temperatures.

THE CHALLENGE

Therefore, Agromar Industrial required closely keeping watching, at a reasonable cost, and without altering the normal production operation, the temperature of its products, since they are arranged and placed into their cold-storage rooms.

THE SOLUTION

Agromar Industrial could find the ideal solution once they got in touch with CONTROLTEK. CONTROLTEK proposed installing a network of “1-wire” technology sensors, after carefully analyzing the requirements and considering the proximity of the data capture locations. The “1-wire” networks allow a cheap cabling, include sensors of industrial quality, at a reasonable cost and avoid the wireless communications. Thus, two temperature sensors were installed on each cold-storage room, for controlling the values at two points on each of the chambers.
The sensors are able to record within a range from to -20°C to 40°C with a precision of 0,5°C. Each sensor’s signal is moved to a concentrator located close to each cold-storage room and the concentrator turn the signals of multiple “1-wire” sensors into an Ethernet signal.

In addition, a power supply sensor was installed for detecting a power cut within the plant, for an immediate reaction.

The information from the concentrators corresponding to the various cold chambers is received on a CONTROLTEK’s FLAMENCO GREEN BOX (FGB) unit that is connected to the plant’s internal Ethernet network. The FGB units stores the data on a non volatile memory (thus ensuring that the temperature values will never been lost) and transmit them to the Acquisition Center.
At the Acquisition Center resides the MeterManager software - the system’s intelligent heart – which receives, controls the consistency, arranges and stores the temperature readings. The MeterManager publish the data on the Web on a safely way, thus allowing authorized persons accessing them on real time from any browser. The user’s interfaces are intuitive and easy to parameterize.  It is also possible to download the historic information on compatible files (PDF format, Excel, TXT and others) in order to be used with other applications.

The FGB units as well as the MeterManager can send out alarms when certain events occur (i.e. temperatures out of range, unscheduled doors opening, power cut, etc.). Alarms can be sent on different formats: electronic mail, SMS messages or voice to a fix or mobile phone or fax.

The installation of the sensors on the cold-storage rooms was performed without interrupting the normal operation and the whole system was operational on less than 30 days.