Legacy Siemens S5 migrated to S7-300 inside a five-day shutdown — 2,000+ I/O with zero schedule overrun
A major Malaysian cement producer was running its mill packing process train on a legacy Siemens S5 PLC — a platform long out of support, with spare parts increasingly difficult to source and decades of undocumented wiring modifications behind the panel doors. Every fault meant hours of manual cable tracing, and every unplanned stop cost production.
RODATECH engineered a staged migration to Siemens SIMATIC S7-300. A single 1200-size combined marshalling and system panel (front and rear access) was fabricated and pre-tested at our Nilai workshop, delivered to site by crane, and cut over during a planned five-day shutdown. More than 2,000 I/O points were reterminated onto fully labelled terminal rails — every input and output documented against the I/O schedule. A new SIMATIC HMI gives operators live alarm and status visibility across the packing process train.
The five-day window was met by planning extended working hours and additional manpower coverage for the full shutdown — surprises were absorbed without extending the outage.
Scope of Works
- Site survey and legacy S5 system documentation
- Combined marshalling + system panel (1200 size, front & rear) — fabricated and pre-tested at Nilai workshop
- 2,000+ I/O retermination on labelled looms, mapped to I/O schedule
- Siemens S7-300 CPU, I/O and programme migration
- SIMATIC HMI for the mill packing process train
- Cut-over and commissioning within a 5-day planned shutdown
- As-built documentation: I/O schedules, cable schedules, labelled panel photos
Project Outcome
Shutdown target met — plant back in production on schedule. Fault-finding that previously took hours of cable tracing now starts from accurate, labelled I/O schedules. The plant has since reported fewer unknown shutdowns, and RODATECH has been awarded follow-on upgrade phases at the same facility.
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