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Case Studies

Acid Room Control System Modernization

The Client

The client is a confidential aerospace and defense contractor operating in the aerospace and defense manufacturing industry. To support critical production and operational processes, the client relied on legacy Siemens S7-200 PLCs and WinCC HMI systems. As these legacy automation platforms approached end-of-life, the client engaged Salem Automation to modernize the control system by migrating to Siemens S7-1500 PLCs and WinCC Comfort, delivering a turnkey solution that included system design, programming, build, testing, and commissioning over a 12-week engagement.

The Challenge

A critical acid room process area was running on two Siemens S7-200 PLCs and two 10-inch MP277 HMIs — hardware that Siemens had declared obsolete and no longer supported, with replacement parts increasingly impossible to source.

  • Obsolete, end-of-life hardware with no manufacturer support and replacement parts nearly impossible to source
  • A single component failure could have meant extended downtime in a critical process area with no clear path to repair

The Solution

Salem consolidated the two legacy S7-200 controllers into a single modern Siemens S7-1500 PLC driving two ET-200 remote I/O racks, and upgraded both panels to 12-inch TP1200 Comfort HMIs. The complete system was built and Factory Acceptance Tested at Salem’s facility, with customer witness and sign-off, before a tight three-day onsite installation. At sign-off the client received full ownership: unlocked PLC code, HMI project files, updated electrical drawings, and a complete equipment BOM.

The Results

  1. Assessment & Platform Strategy — Identified that the TP1200 12-inch Comfort HMI would let the existing project file convert without rebuilding screens from scratch, and scoped a single-PLC consolidation to simplify the architecture and cut engineering hours.
  2. In-House Build & Logic Rewrite — Rewrote roughly 1,600 rungs of PLC logic in TIA Portal (no direct conversion path exists from the S7-200), rebuilt and tuned new PID loops, and ported the WinCC screens to WinCC Comfort with customer-requested functionality added.
  3. Factory Acceptance Testing — Built and tested the complete system at Salem’s facility, with customer witness and formal sign-off before anything touched the plant floor.
  4. Onsite Installation & Commissioning — Modified the existing panels to accept the larger HMIs, cleaned up and reorganized the control enclosure, and completed installation and commissioning within a tight three-day onsite window.

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