Control Panel Rewiring & HMI Status System

Legacy control panels on production lines are frequently direct-wired, with dense point-to-point cabling that is difficult to fault-find, expensive to modify, and prone to failure in demanding environments. On a hygiene-critical poultry-processing line, these problems were compounded by frequent washdown, while operators had little visibility of machine or safety-device status when the line stopped.

Thomas Hadden re-engineered the panel from the ground up. The ageing direct-wired hardware was stripped out and replaced with a structured IFM IO-Link architecture, consolidating field wiring into a clean, modular layout that is easier to maintain, faster to fault-find, and simpler to modify in future. Electrical design and documentation in the EPLAN suite supported that structured approach and made the finished system easier to maintain.

Because the installation sits on a washdown line, the work was housed in IP-rated stainless-steel enclosures with sealed cable glands and field connectors specified for the environment. This hygienic, corrosion-resistant construction allows the equipment to withstand routine high-pressure cleaning without ingress.

To close the operator visibility gap, Thomas Hadden integrated a Siemens SIMATIC HMI and a status annunciator panel that surface live plant status in real time. Machine running states, safety-relay health, pull-cords, guard doors, and individual machine stations can all be read at a glance, turning a slow diagnostic process into a direct one.

The result is a maintainable, washdown-ready control panel that improves fault diagnosis, supports faster recovery from stoppages, and reduces downtime on a safety-critical processing line.