The purpose of this application was to automate the raw material preparation plant that produced building materials such as ceiling boards and roofing sheets. Plant control was done via direct I/O rather than PLCs (Programmable Logic Controllers) that became more popular later. User interaction was achieved via a fully animated graphic mimic, and a touch sensitive screen that served for user input as well as text readout. I worked on a multidisciplinary engineering team comprising a heavy current electrical engineer, an electronic engineer, 2 mechanical engineers and a civil engineer. The system was written using the language PLM/86 and the operating system RMX/86. This was Intel's proprietary platform for OEM development and was more commonly used for military and medical use.

The development environment On the left is the graphic display monitor. The tall cabinet in the middle is the target computer and controllers that were deployed in the plant. On the right is the hardware simulator that assisted the development testing.

Photograph of the animated graphic display mimic The levels of the tanks would vary dynamically according to inputs from the plant, pipes filled and devices changed colour to represent their state.

Touchscreen user input Above view shows some plant measurements, the blocks are the 'buttons' defined for this screen that the user would touch to make an entry