Case study · Allen-Bradley retrofit
Allen-Bradley line-down to line-back-up — a rebuild case study.
A packaging line, line-down, on a controls stack past end-of-life. The OEM out of business, spares on a six-week lead, and a rebuild scope that moves PLCs, drives, and HMIs onto a current vendor stack — less than the cost of full replacement.
Reverse-engineered, re-platformed under one crew, re-assembled on the customer's floor, and commissioned back into service with the operator-interface language and mechanical footprint unchanged. The line keeps running on the same asset — same rails, same stations, current vendor platforms underneath.
Rockwell Automation Solution Partner · measured against the new-line alternative.
Context
Why the line came down.
The OEM disappears, the PLC parts go to six-week lead, the support ticket queue goes nowhere, the operator-interface language drifts away from anything the maintenance crew can read. The line keeps running on borrowed time until it doesn't.
Before
- PLC platform past end-of-life — spares on a six-week lead
- HMI running on a Windows host that was last patched in 2017
- Servo drives mismatched across stations — drift on changeover
- No documentation reflecting the three PLC swaps of the last decade
- Mechanical wear compounding the controls fault rate
Engagement
What the rebuild covered.
Kraytek reverse-engineered the original controls stack and the mechanical scope side by side, re-platformed onto a current vendor stack, and shipped the rebuilt machine under one crew, one schedule, one PO. The boundary between controls and commissioning integration went down on day one — every step answerable to the same engineer.
Scope
- PLC / DCS migration
- Drive & servo upgrades
- HMI / SCADA redesign
- Field instrumentation
Delivered
- Mechanical teardown + reverse-engineering
- Controls re-platform onto a current vendor stack
- Re-assembly + commissioning under one crew
- Documentation + spare-parts plan for the next decade
- One procurement chain, one installation crew, one commissioning sign-off
Assess.Walkdown of the asset on the floor — mechanical condition, controls stack, I/O count, fault history, and the operator's day-to-day pain. Engineer. Schematics, PLC/HMI code, and panel layout for both halves of the rebuild, bench-tested before shipping. Deploy.Installation, wiring, commissioning, and operator training on the customer's schedule — the same crew stays through first-good production and hands over documentation at the warranty window.
Outcome
Line back online, less than full replacement.
The line came back into service on the same mechanical footprint, the same operator interface language, and current-platform spares sitting on the shelf. Measured against the equivalent new line, the rebuild lands at less than half the capex, with the validation artefacts the regulated verticals need to re-introduce the asset into production.
After
- Uptime
- +18%
- Spares
- 24h
- Capex
- ~40%
- Compliance
- current
on the same asset, no mechanical replacement
lead time replaced with vendor-current platforms
of the equivalent new line, all-inclusive
21 CFR Part 11 + OSHA re-validated post-retrofit
Documentation + spare-parts plan for the next decade handed over at close. The same asset re-validated against 21 CFR Part 11 + OSHA post-retrofit, with the paperwork your own team can hand to an auditor without us on the phone.
Start the conversation
Have an Allen-Bradley line on borrowed time?
Send the asset name, the controls stack, and the symptom. Engineering reads every submission — no sales triage, no script.
For quick logistics (a capex number, a sample SOW, a vendor shortlist), the form is the fastest path — every question fields an answer.
Mention "Allen-Bradley retrofit" in the asset line so we route the conversation to the engineer who closed the case above.