Our Work

Custom software solution to aid in management of Electric Arc Furnace (EAF) scrap delivery. Project included integration of Persistent Technologies (PT) sourced touch panels, deployment of SQL Server, SQL Server database design, and integration with Factory Floor AD domain. Solution integrated with enterprise HMI system providing high-level of agility and flexibility to operator UI. Synthetic voice annunciation was included to provide operators a certain level of vital hands-free operation. Extensive logging and reporting of production data and key events was also provided.

• Multitude of enhancements rapidly delivered throughout life of system with absolutely minimum startup effort and production disruption
• In-lab scrap crane weight scale simulators created to help facilitate rapid continuous improvements and enhancements
• Entire solution, including all hardware, software, and services – provided by PT

Conversion of annealing furnace model written in Fortran 77 hosted on an HP 9000 server running HP-UX. Model converted to C# application running as a detached process in a large Windows based HMI system. HMI provided conduit for model inputs and calculated furnace process setpoints. Legacy furnace alloy data moved from flat file to database table for greater resiliency and ease of maintenance. To ensure conversion accuracy, a mechanism was included to log all new model calculation inputs and setpoints to a dedicated SQL Server database during a short commissioning period – to facilitate comparison of new model results with legacy model results. A feature was also included to allow replay of each calculation run to perform manual visual confirmation of conversion accuracy. Finally, custom utility created to automate significant portion of conversion to accelerate project completion and aid in conversion accuracy.

• Extremely short project cycle
• 3 previous conversion attempts by other suppliers/contractors – all ended in failure
• PT sourced new model solution accurately converged first time it ran
• Numerous operational and reporting enhancements added after initial deployment

Large custom application that provided production schedulers new functionality to significantly streamline efforts of building multi-day PDI production coil lists. Numerous PDI limit and inter-coil checks were incorporated to ensure key production constraints, that could disrupt production, were not overlooked. Constraint check logic was provided by a common set of .NET components used throughout the entire software system and were database driven to provide maintenance agility. Solution also included functionality to allow receipt of new PDI values from a business system – which were then inturn used to produce a new class of coils.

Upgrade of Access Forms based legacy custom project management system, with several man-years of development and refinements, to a web application software architecture. The new architecture allowed all key functionality of the original system to be retained – while facilitating significant enhancements to be added. Project included numerous SQL Server database enhancements to provide proper referential integrity, performance, and maintainability.

• Increased user community reach
• More user-friendly interface
• Maximized software and database maintainability

Provided initial platform development for revolutionary enterprise-class intellectual property management software system for a venture startup. The web-application based solution provided global scalability & reliability, and was well-suited for a large collaborative user community. A prototype was successfully deployed at a Fortune 100 company – which was then later approved for global deployment. The success of this prototype helped secure a sizable seed round from venture investors and ultimately facilitated the launch of the company. A more mature version of the system has since been deployed to provide the innovation and intellectual property foundation for numerous leading technology companies.

Custom Enterprise LOB system to streamline entire business process for biotech and pharmaceutical recruiting firm. This solution provided the customer the ability to process and manage a larger number of job requisitions in a significantly shorter amount of time. Workflow management enhancements - along with automated resume acquisition and analysis - provided the customer significant advantage over competition operating in the same space. The initial architecture, which was originally hosted on-prem, has since been migrated to the cloud to provide greater reach, security, and agility.

Z Mill Level 2 (L2) enhancements and support services for large steel manufacturer. The system, which was originally provided by another supplier, consisted of an extensive collection of highly integrated custom C++/MFC/VB applications, an HMI system, and Oracle database engine. Key on-site bare-metal servers, along with associated workloads and custom applications, were virtualized and deployed in PT lab and integrated with lab PLCs. The in-lab system allowed flexible extensive proof-of-concept and testing work to be performed to help accelerate establishing insight of full system operation. In-turn, this helped streamline efforts associated with all provided enhancement and support services, as well as allowing such work to be performed without risk of production disruption. In addition, provided system design to aggregate extensive text-based logs provided by the custom applications and ingest the data into a SQL Server database. The design also included a web application with a flexible intuitive UI to present the aggregated data and thus ultimately aid in significantly streamlining Level 2 maintenance efforts.

For large steel processing line, made significant improvements and enhancements to legacy custom quality document management system (QDMS) – starting with migrating key functionality from ASP to ASP.NET. Made numerous database design/layout improvements along with adding extensive database diagrams to aid with management. Hardened document control and system security. Added document review validation - complete with database tracking. Included fairly extensive list of management reports. Finally, provided Silverlight based administration system for adding/editing users, managing documents and document classes, validation management, and administering training certification.

Solution to provide datalogging and reporting of key EPA environmental data from Electric Arc and Ladle Metallurgy Furnaces for primary steel producer. Work included proper database design - along with well-crafted database maintenance plans for disaster recovery. Solution also included redundancy for both logging and reporting. Custom intuitive highly flexible application also furnished to generate excel based reports for the EPA.

2 rounds of enhancements to collection of Dreamweaver reports for Coke Plant EPA reporting - using data provided by SQL Server and Data Historian. Deployed solutions for both rounds, operated flawlessly and generated accurate well formatted reports the first time they ran.

Solution for large steel manufacturing facility to provide SQL Server Enterprise based production Data Historian by leveraging transactional replication, table partitioning, and page compression. Design offered long term (approx. 10 years) archival for approximately 400 tables spread across 2 production databases (1 relational / 1 time series). Extensive maintenance plans and thorough disaster recovery procedures were provided to ensure minimal data loss and rapid recovery in the unlikely event of any disaster situation.  An elaborate custom utility was also included to significantly streamline any necessary management, maintenance, and monitoring of this complex system. In addition, the customer was furnished a 73-page document, complete with screen shots, diagrams, and document navigation – which offered thorough system design and operational information.

• Very high performance
• Maintenance ease offered by extensive SQL Server management tools furnished via a custom utility
• Architecture allowed customer to leverage familiar collection of SQL Server client access and reporting tools

Intranet web application solution for Electric Arc (EAF) and Ladle Metallurgy (LMF) Furnaces providing extensive reporting of key process variables and events. Solution also provided reports for HMI generated alarms and events – as well as acting as a server for browser based live HMI screens. Project also included redundant SQL server database design – along with designing proper database maintenance plans.

• Highly responsive and interactive UI based on AJAX and Web services
• Redundant SQL Server database design providing higher availability
• Highly configurable – providing customer flexibility to easily make certain modifications

Custom HMI integrated (TCP/IP) driver to support 3 new centerline thickness X-ray gauges installed on a 2 stand stainless steel cold mill. Driver facilitated means of sending key database sourced coil PDI, including chemistry data, required for gauge setup - followed by sending required shutter control commands. Driver also collected extensive real-time gauge status and alarm information – which was funneled back into a number of HMI points displayed on a collection of HMI screens. For maintenance purposes, the solution also included fairly extensive database logging and reporting of key operational events. To facilitate a rapid flawless deployment and startup, a custom gauge simulator was created for use in-lab during driver development.

Solution, for large primary steel producer, to provide integration between large collection of custom MES Fortran applications, running on Dec Alpha/Open VMS, and several level 1 systems. The driver was key component to producing several million tons of steel over a 10-year period.

Custom driver to integrate configuration and measurement data from a Keyence LJ-V7000 series Laser Scanner with an enterprise HMI system. Solution provided key coil measurement data for stainless steel processing line which was displayed on HMI operator screen. Driver architecture provided easy approach to increase number of measurement system outputs without requiring any programming changes. In addition, classes/objects in the HMI were leveraged to significantly minimize the amount of additional configuration required in the HMI to support new measurements. Solution included measurement system simulator to assist customer streamline efforts when adding additional measurements for the Keyence system.

Custom software driver used to inject key level 1 sourced process information, such as Coil ID and footage, into recorded video feeds from multiple cameras used on stainless steel processing line. Solution provided customer flexibility to easily configure descriptive messages that contained the information – which was viewable in both live and recorded (playback) video feeds. A custom video camera server simulator was also created to accelerate development and help guarantee flawless startup.

Custom .NET library of components encapsulating key production setup functionality used across a number of custom software solutions for steel processing line. The solution allowed this vital functionality to be synchronized and remain consistent across all the client software systems. Such an approach helped to increase productivity and lower software TCO.

Enterprise HMI Integration, via COM/Automation, with Excel based Slag Models for Electric Arc (EAF) and Ladle Metallurgy (LMF) Furnaces. Solution offered process engineers Slag Model ease of maintenance via direct Excel Workbook editing. Integration with the HMI provided a conduit for model inputs from level 2 sourced chemistries, PLC supplied process variables, and operator setpoints. The HMI integration also provided an efficient path to feed model outputs back into the EAF and LMF control processes.

• Innovative approach that led to rapid successful deployment
• Ease of model maintenance
• Leveraging HMI provided extreme UI agility

Intranet web application integrated with several back-end systems on 1300-foot steel processing line. System provided project operational status and browser-based access to live production screens for 10 HMI projects distributed across the network. Solution was integrated with, and provided access to, live and historical camera servers, reporting systems, and quality document management system.

Utility used for large mature HMI system upgrade to significantly streamline conversion efforts and help guarantee conversion accuracy, provide greater conversion agility, and minimize startup efforts – while limiting production disruption. Utility performed automated analysis on:
 

• Overall project configuration
• Over 1400 HMI screens - 50% of which contained extensive scripting
• Point database in excess of 35,000 points
• SQL server database logging of approximately 140 tables
• Large collection of script-based applications
• Several C++/MFC/VB custom applications.

The results of the analysis were then stored in an extensive properly normalized database – complete with Full-Text indexing. Numerous queries were constructed and used to provide key insights to establish overall final configuration – as well as establishing the most efficient migration path. The solution also included automated configuration approaches required to ensure efficient accurate conversion – given the legacy source HMI project’s sheer size.

In support of an infrastructure upgrade for large manufacturing line, furnished custom utility providing efficient bi-directional database migration between legacy database engine and current version of SQL Server for 2 production databases. Off-the-shelf solution with same migration efficiency and flexibility DID NOT exist. Utility played a vital role in upfront proof-of-concept (POC) work used to validate final overall system architecture. Accurate timely migration of the production data between the 2 database engines during the POC period of the upgrade was important to help guarantee no production disruption was experienced. The utility was also a valuable component during final deployment and commissioning to help guarantee a rapid smooth startup.

2 custom utilities providing secure automated operator thin client logon for an RDS system used on a large HMI system. The highly configurable solution equipped administrators with ease in centrally managing which RDS servers thin clients would logon to, what applications would run after logon, what HMI screens were presented to operators, and what printers were assigned to the associated RDS sessions. The solution offered operators ease of use in the required highly limited environment – while providing administrators key troubleshooting information and flexibility.

Upgrade of legacy version of Bartender barcode tag generator system for large stainless steel production line. Project involved creating and adding a new VM to the Factory Floor domain with a current OS required to support the new version of the Bartender software. Work included deployment, proper configuration, and licensing of barcode software - along with integration with barcode printers. Work also entailed modifications to custom client applications that initiated the creation of the barcodes

For large steel processing line, using custom developed automation tools and techniques, converted legacy AC and DC drive support HLP files to CHM. The solution was required to allow the vital drive support information to be available on newer Windows operating systems and provide access to the files from an updated HMI system.