Acquiring, Monitoring, and Recording Data Based on the Industrie 4.0 Standard Geared Toward the Maca Drying Process

Abstract

Maca is a natural product that is characterized as a hormonal regulator and food supplement. Produced only in regions with an altitude higher than 3,800 m, which creates great opportunity for its export. For the maca to be exportable it is necessary to apply drying procedures under the condition that it conserves its nutritional properties, whose drying time varies between 12 h and 6 days, according to the current standards. That is, the collection of real-time process data to monitor and control operations is by local network, but not connected in the cloud (IoT) according to Industrie 4.0 standard. Herein, we propose a system is configured by an S7-1200 PLC within a local network and a server, with remote access with user restriction, which allows sensitive process variables, such as absorption temperature and airflow, to be controlled remotely and in real time, such that they would avoid the alteration of the properties of the maca in the drying process. In addition, data from the process can be visualized simultaneously by telemetry and curves of drying the maca from the Web to be able to apply some type of intervention if necessary. Real-time graphs were obtained in the web server and after analyzing them, it was concluded that the data sent to the server are capable of being processed in order to generate a set of results and analyze the information obtained that will help future regimes of drying.