This application replaced individually wired pneumatic valves with MTC-16-PN valve islands across four automotive loading/unloading stations. The approved case record reports eight valve islands, a three-day retrofit window, reduced cabinet wiring and HMI-accessible diagnostics; reuse requires verification against the new machine's pneumatic and safety design.
How a Tier 1 automotive supplier reduced cycle time by 35% with fieldbus valve islands
Pneumatic control in an automotive body-shop loading system
This application concerns a Tier 1 automotive supplier's body-shop loading and unloading system. Pneumatic valves were controlled through individual wiring, with the existing PLC and HMI forming the control and operator interface.
The retrofit focused on the valve-control arrangement at the loading and unloading stations. The case brings together three connected topics: reducing individual valve wiring, integrating fieldbus valve islands into an existing control system, and making diagnostic information available through the operator interface.
Manufacturing environment — illustration
Illustrative manufacturing environment; this is not a photograph of the customer installation.
From individual valve wires to a station-level arrangement
The original arrangement used more than 240 individual valve wires and relied on manual solenoid fault tracing. Troubleshooting therefore involved working through individual valve connections, rather than starting with valve diagnostic information available at the HMI.
The engineering issue was not simply the number of cables. Wiring organization and the way faults were investigated were part of the same maintenance task. A replacement arrangement needed to address the valve connections while fitting the customer's existing control environment.
Eight MTC-16-PN valve islands across four stations
The solution used eight MTC-16-PN valve islands distributed across four loading and unloading stations. PROFINET connected the valve-island arrangement with the existing PLC/HMI and pressure-monitoring functions.
This configuration grouped valve control at the stations instead of continuing the earlier individually wired arrangement. Integration with the existing PLC and HMI was central to the solution: the valve islands formed part of the machine's control system, rather than a separate operator workflow.
Material-handling environment — illustration
Illustrative material-handling environment; this is not the project's equipment layout or system topology.
Configuration, pressure monitoring and operator diagnostics
During implementation, GSD files were loaded into TIA Portal and valve parameters were configured remotely. The pressure sensors described in the case were mapped to the existing SCADA system via PROFINET for continuous process monitoring.
These activities covered both device configuration and the use of process information. The configuration connected the valve islands to the engineering environment, while the monitoring integration brought pressure information into the customer's existing supervision system. HMI-accessible diagnostics complemented the valve-control changes.
Implementation within a scheduled maintenance window
The retrofit was completed during a scheduled three-day maintenance window. Work covered installation of the eight valve islands at the four stations, configuration in the engineering environment, and integration of pressure monitoring with the existing SCADA system.
The three-day period describes this project's retrofit window. It should not be interpreted as a standard delivery or commissioning time for every machine: the scope of an existing installation and the work needed to integrate its controls must be assessed separately.
Results and considerations for similar equipment
The reported results for this retrofit are summarized below, covering cycle time, wiring reduction and unplanned downtime. These are application-level outcomes, not general performance guarantees for an MTC valve island.
For a similar loading or unloading system, the useful starting point is its valve arrangement, existing controller and operator interface, monitoring needs and available maintenance window. The suitability of the architecture must also be checked against that machine's pneumatic and safety design. The case illustrates an integration approach; it does not replace machine-specific engineering.
Results
“The MTC valve islands transformed our maintenance workflow. What used to take hours to diagnose now takes minutes from the HMI. The ROI was achieved in less than 6 months.”
